Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir engineering and IOR community in the UK.
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Imperial College Consortium on Pore-Scale Modelling

Contact: Prof. Martin Blunt (m.blunt@ic.ac.uk)

The Imperial College Consortium on Pore-Scale Modelling will develop network models as practical reservoir description and simulation tools to study a variety of two- and three-phase displacement processes. There will be two main projects. The first will use pore-scale models based on a realistic description of the pore space and a detailed analysis of displacement mechanisms to predict multiphase flow properties based on available data from thin section analysis, capillary pressure and wettability indices. These models will then be used to assess the variability in relative permeability and capillary pressure. The pore-scale model will predict the spatial distribution of relative permeabilities in a reservoir model, in a manner similar to geostatistical methods for assigning porosity and absolute permeability. In the second project, a multi-scale simulation methodology will be developed that will couple network models at the pore scale directly with conventional grid-based simulation at larger scales. This simulation will be coupled with streamline methods at the field scale to provide a dynamic simulation methodology. The method will overcome the inaccuracies and uncertainties inherent in conventional upscaling techniques.

Funding from a consortium of companies is requested at a level of ₤15,000 per year. Currently supported by the DTI, EPSRC, Statoil, Gaz de France, PDVSA-Intevep, BHP, Enterprise, JNOC and Schlumberger. The project currently supports two post-doctoral researchers and five PhD students.

Left figure - a pore-network representation of a sandstone (Click for a larger image). Right figure - by representing the detailed geometry of a real system and simulating detailed pore-scale physics, predictions of multiphase properties, such as relative permeability for this Berea sample, can be made.

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