Investigating erosion effects on reservoir rock properties via micro-continuum framework

Area of Science:

• Geosciences
• Petroleum Engineering
• Computational Fluid Dynamics

Background:

• Reservoir rock erosion, driven by water flooding, degrades subsurface energy systems.
• Erosion modifies pore geometry, impacting porosity, permeability, and flow paths.
• A scale gap exists between microscale erosion and macroscale reservoir modeling.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the multiscale relationship between pore-scale erosion and effective reservoir properties.
• To quantify the impact of erosion directionality, media heterogeneity, and boundary conditions on pore structure evolution.
• To bridge the scale gap using the Micro-Continuum Method (MCM).

Main Methods:

• Multiscale investigation using the Micro-Continuum Method (MCM).
• Systematic numerical experiments to analyze erosion dynamics.
• Quantification of factors influencing pore geometry and effective properties.

Main Results:

• Erosion-driven pore restructuring significantly alters hydraulic properties.
• Preferential grain removal creates localized high-permeability channels.
• The MCM framework successfully links microscale erosion to macroscale multiphase flow.

Conclusions:

• Erosion significantly impacts reservoir performance and fluid recovery.
• The MCM provides a robust tool for predicting formation damage in erosion-prone reservoirs.
• Optimized subsurface operations can be achieved through advanced predictive modeling.