Advances in Computed Tomography for Geomaterials: GeoX 2010

Numerical Modeling of Complex Porous Media For Borehole Applications

NMR-response and Transport in Carbonate and Sandstone Rocks

Seungoh Ryu¹ — Weishu Zhao¹ — Gabriela Leu¹ — Philip M. Singer² — Hyung Joon Cho³ — Youngseuk Keehm⁴

¹ Schlumberger Doll ResearchCambridge, MA, 02139, USA

 

² Schlumberger Dhahran Carbonate ResearchAl-Khobar 31952, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

 

³ Schlumberger Product CenterSugarland, TX, 77478, USA

 

⁴ Dept. of Geoenvironmental SciencesKongju National University, Kongju, South Korea

ABSTRACT. The diffusion/relaxation behavior of polarized spins of pore filling fluid, as often probed by NMR relaxometry, is widely used to extract information on the pore-geometry. Such information is further interpreted as an indicator of the key transport property of the formation in the oil industry. As the importance of reservoirs with complex pore geometry grows, so does the need for deeper understanding of how these properties are inter-related. Numerical modeling of relevant physical processes using a known pore geometry promises to be an effective tool in such endeavor. Using a suite of numerical techniques based on random-walk (RW) and Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) algorithms, we compare sandstone and carbonate pore geometries in their impact on NMR and flow properties. For NMR relaxometry, both laboratory measurement and simulation were done on the same source to address some of the long-standing issues in its borehole applications. Through a series of “numerical experiments” ...