Relative Permeability Characteristics During Carbon Capture and Sequestration Process in Low-Permeable Reservoirs

The injection of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in low-permeable reservoirs can not only mitigate the greenhouse effect on the environment, but also enhance oil and gas recovery (EOR). For numerical simulation work of this process, relative permeability can help predict the capacity for the flow of CO₂ throughout the life of the reservoir, and reflect the changes induced by the injected CO₂. In this paper, the experimental methods and empirical correlations to determine relative permeability are reviewed and discussed. Specifically, for a low-permeable reservoir in China, a core displacement experiment is performed for both natural and artificial low-permeable cores to study the relative permeability characteristics. The results show that for immiscible CO₂ flooding, when considering the threshold pressure and gas slippage, the relative permeability decreases to some extent, and the relative permeability of oil/water does not reduce as much as that of CO₂. In miscible flooding, the curves have different shapes for cores with a different permeability. By comparing the relative permeability curves under immiscible and miscible CO₂ flooding, it is found that the two-phase span of miscible flooding is wider, and the relative permeability at the gas endpoint becomes larger.