Imaging of oil layers, curvature and contact angle in a mixed-wet and a water-wet carbonate rock

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of wettability of carbonate rocks on the morphologies of remaining oil after sequential oil and brine injection in a capillary-dominated flow regime at elevated pressure. The wettability of Ketton limestone was altered in situ using an oil phase doped with fatty acid which produced mixed-wet conditions (the contact angle where oil contacted the solid surface, measured directly from the images, θ=180°, while brine-filled regions remained water-wet), whereas the untreated rock (without doped oil) was weakly water-wet (θ=47 ± 9°). Using X-ray micro-tomography, we show that the brine displaces oil in larger pores during brine injection in the mixed-wet system, leaving oil layers in the pore corners or sandwiched between two brine interfaces. These oil layers, with an average thickness of 47 ± 17 μm, may provide a conductive flow path for slow oil drainage. In contrast, the oil fragments into isolated oil clusters/ganglia during brine injection under water-wet conditions. Although the remaining oil saturation in a water-wet system is about a factor of two larger than that obtained in the mixed-wet rock, the measured brine-oil interfacial area of the disconnected ganglia is a factor of three smaller than that of oil layers.