Critical Condensate Saturation in Porous Media

The understanding of gas and condensate flow in porous media is critical to the optimum exploitation of gas-condensate reservoirs. Critical condensate saturation and relative permeabilities are the key parameters for the evaluation of possible recovery strategies. This work is aimed at developing a mechanistic network model for the critical condensate saturation in which phase trapping and connectivity in the pore corners are critically examined. Porous media are modeled by networks of pore bodies interconnected by pore throats. Bodies and throats are characterized by their connectivity, shapes, and radii distributions. Pore-level laws are identified from micromodel experiments with near-critical fluids. A nonzero critical condensate saturation can be obtained in the absence of contact angle hysteresis due to the converging-diverging nature of the throats. The critical saturation at which the condensate flows is found to be a function of pore geometry, water saturation, and interfacial tension (or the Bond number). The modified sphere-pack model underpredicts the critical condensate saturation of typical sandstones. The cubic model adequately predicts the critical saturation and its experimentally observed trends. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.