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Journal of Porous Media, 15 (12): 11111123 (2012)

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF WETTABILITY

EFFECT AND DRAINAGE RATE ON TERTIARY OIL
RECOVERY FROM FRACTURED MEDIA
P. Maroufi,1 H. Rahmanifard,1 H. K. Al-Hadrami,2 M. Escrochi,1
S. Ayatollahi,1, & A. Jahanmiri3
1

EOR Research Center, School of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz
713451719, Iran
2

Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat Oman

School of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz 713451719, Iran

Address all correspondence to S. Ayatollahi E-mail: shahab@shirazu.ac.ir

Original Manuscript Submitted: 5/3/2011; Final Draft Received: 3/15/2012

Vertical displacement of oil by gas is one of the most efficient methods for oil recovery from naturally fractured reservoirs.
Unlike the homogeneous media, the ultimate oil recovery by gravity drainage in fractured media is more dependent on the
production rate. Hence finding the optimum production rate for more oil recovery with respect to the properties of media
seems to be essential. In this work, unconsolidated packed models of cylindrical geometry surrounded by fractures were
utilized to perform a series of flow visualization experiments during which the contribution of different parameters such
as the extent of matrix wettability and the withdrawal rate were studied. In addition, mutual effects of wettability and
production rate on tertiary oil recovery efficiency through controlled and free fall gravity drainage processes were also
investigated. Experimental results obtained from tertiary gravity drainage experiments demonstrated that just before gas
breakthrough, lower withdrawal rates facilitate the tertiary oil recovery under the film flow mechanism, which leads to
a higher ultimate recovery factor. However, after gas breakthrough, monitoring oil recovery by gravity drainage showed
that higher production rates recovered more oil. Furthermore, under tertiary recovery processes in low-production cases,
oil-wet systems achieved higher recovery factors, while at high withdrawal rates, more oil was recovered for 50% oil-wet
media.

KEY WORDS: gravity drainage, production rate, wettability, capillary rise

1. INTRODUCTION
Naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs) contribute a large
extent of oil and gas production to the ever-increasing
market demand of fossil energy (Aguilera, 1995). According to Papay (2003), more than 50% of the world
petroleum production comes from fractured reservoirs.
It has been proved that water injection into NFRs can
considerably increase oil production (Babadagli, 2003).
However, even in this case, due to the reservoir heterogeneity, well placement, and capillary forces, a signif-

1091028X/12/$35.00

c 2012 by Begell House, Inc.

icant amount of oil is still trapped in matrixes. Hence,

to recover the remaining oil, gas injection was proposed
as one of the most efficient methods by several authors
(Carlson, 1988; Fassihi and Gillham, 1993; Kantzas et al.,
1988a). The idea of recovering the residual oil after waterflooding process by gas injection appeared first in Carlsons paper (Carlson, 1988). In the same year, Kantzas
et al. (1988b) reported the results of gravity drainage
experiments and showed the important role of gravity
drainage in the gas injection process, which was called the
gas-assisted gravity drainage process (GAGD) (Chatzis

1111

1112

Maroufi et al.

NOMENCLATURE
Hob
Soi
Sor

height of oil bank

initial oil saturation
residual oil saturation

et al., 1995). Based on the types of production mechanism, the GAGD process could be divided into two types:
forced/controlled gravity drainage (FGD/CGD) and free
fall gravity drainage (FFGD).
There are several parameters, including matrix block
wettability, spreading coefficients [S = wg (wo +
go )] of the involved fluids, injection or production rate,
reservoir dip angles, three-phase relative permeabilities,
and capillary pressures, which are of practical importance
to the performance of GAGD (Dullien et al., 1989; 1991;
Oren and Pinczewski, 1992; Vizika, 1993; Zendehboudi
and Chatzis, 2008; Chatzis and Ayatollahi, 1995).
Rock wettability is a major factor controlling the location, flow, and distribution of fluids in a reservoir. Depending on specific interactions of rock, oil, and brine,
system wettability can range from strongly water wet to
strongly oil wet. So far, several works have been published that evaluated the effect of wettability on gravity
drainage performance. Kovscek et al. (1993) studied the
displacement of thin wetting films and the effective forces
in a collection of different capillary tubes to describe
mechanisms of oil production in the mixed-wettability
state in reservoir rock. In his work, greater prospecting oil
production potential of heterogeneous wetting media was
confirmed. Zhou and Blunt (1998) claimed that residual
oil saturation after secondary gas injection was increased
as the portion of oil wet sands increases in fractional wet
sand mixture. Rezaveisi et al. (2010) used a combination of clean water-wet glass beads and silane-treated oilwet ones to assess the effect of wettability alteration toward more oil wetness on the recovery efficiency during
FFGD process in a synthetic fractured medium. Parsaei
and Chatzis (2011) showed that having favorable wettability conditions in homogeneous porous media resulted
in slightly lower reduced residual oil saturation after the
GAIGI process compared to heterogeneous media with
the same condition of withdrawal rate.
Another important parameter in the implementation of
forced/controlled gravity drainage is to find the optimum
production/injection rate with regard to economical and
technical concerns. Terwilliger et al. (1951) showed that

Swc
Sorf
TGB

connate water saturation

residual oil saturation in fracture
gas breakthrough time

ultimate recovery was independent of the production rate,

and the maximum theoretical gravity drainage rate was
not significant. In contrast, the same or even better ultimate oil recovery at higher production rates in controlled
gravity drainage (CGD) was reported by Chatzis and Ayatollahi (1993). In their experiment, homogeneous, waterwet unconsolidated media and positive oil-spreading coefficients were utilized. In addition, Zendehboudi et al.
(2009) did a sensitive analysis of CGD in a fractured
porous media in which the effects of fracture aperture,
matrix height and permeability, well spacing, and fluid
properties on the magnitude of critical pumping rate and
maximum possible withdrawal rate were investigated. In
another work, Zendehboudi and Chatzis (2011) showed
that the characteristic rate depends only on the dimensions of the fracture and properties of the test fluid and
not on the properties of the matrix.
So far, many efforts have been made to critically address the recovery of residual oil in fractured media by
gravity drainage processes (Da Sle and Guo, 1990; Dean
and Lo, 1988; Paul and Zoback, 2007; Quintard and
Whitaker, 1996; Salimi and Bruining, 2008). However,
there are still challenging areas related to the application
of GAGD process in fractured media, which lead to contradictory results such as wettability, production rate, and
matrix properties. Consequently, an experimental design
in which only one parameter is changed while all other
parameters remain constant seems to be necessary. Therefore the methodological plan of this study is to perform a
sensitivity analysis to determine the effects of wettability
and production rate on tertiary oil recovery through CGD
mechanism. Apart from that, for comparing the performance of CGD and FFGD mechanisms based on different
wettabilities, some experiments are also conducted.

2. DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS (DOE)

Design of experiments (DOE) is widely used in engineering and the natural and social sciences (Montgomery,
2008). The steps involved are explained in this section.

Journal of Porous Media

Tertiary Oil Recovery from Fractured Media

1113

2.1 Research Objectives

3.1 Experimental Setup

The objectives of this study were chosen as follows:

Figure 1 shows schematics of the experimental setup used

in this study. In this novel model, the inner core holder
placed within the outer core holder in which a bed of wellscreened glass beads was carefully packed with a slim
size distribution by a vibrating table. The annular space
between two holders is simulating vertical fracture. To
join matrix and fracture, using laser technology, the inner core holder was perforated. The number of holes was
187 per each 10 cm of the core holder height, and their

Investigation of various withdrawal rates in CGD

process in fractured media;
Comparison of CGD and FFGD performance on the
tertiary oil recovery process;
Obtaining the tertiary recovery performance of the
models with various wettabilities under CGD and
FFGD mechanisms;
Simultaneous consideration of the effects of wettability and production rates on tertiary recovery efficiency
2.2 Process Variables
The effect of wettability on CGD and FFGD processes
has not been investigated in fractured reservoirs; therefore, drawing on our understanding of CGD and FFGD
processes, the following two parameters influencing the
process were specified as variables: wettability and production rate.
2.3 Experimental Design
According to the number of factors evaluated in this paper
(two parameters) and the nature of the process, it appears
that the most appropriate experimental design method is
as follows.
Based on system wettability, all tests were classified
into five groups (water wet, 30% oil-wet, 50% oil-wet,
70% oil-wet, and oil-wet). Thereafter, for each group, the
experiments were conducted for five different production
rates (0.1 cc/min, 1 cc/min, 10 cc/min, 29 cc/min, and
free fall). Hence 25 tests were performed. Of course, to
examine repeatability, and verify accuracy, some experiments were repeated several times (about 30 trials), and
at the end of each experiment, average results were used.
Therefore, on the whole, in the current study, to investigate the effects of independent variables (wettability and
withdrawal rate), 55 trials were needed.
3. EXPERIMENTAL WORK

In this section, details of the experimental setup, test flu- FIG. 1: Schematic of the experimental setup apparatus
ids, and experimental procedures are presented.
for controlled gravity drainage

Volume 15, Number 12, 2012

1114

Maroufi et al.

diameters were 0.1 mm, which was significantly smaller

than glass beads diameters (0.50.8 mm). The properties
of the fractured model are given in Table 1. It is essential to mention that the matrix porosity was determined
by using a porosity meter apparatus, and it was concluded
that all systems had approximately the same porosity. Additionally, steady state permeability measurement technique was used to measure the permeability of different
employed models.

2. They were rinsed with distilled water and dried for 2

hours at 100 .
3. They were then immersed in a diluted solution of
trichloromethyl silane (2% vol.) and dehydrated
toluene for 15 min, when a thin film of the silane
coats the grains.
4. The beads were rinsed with methanol and then dried
at 100 . This heating favors the cross-linking reaction and formation of monolayer silane coating.

3.2 Test Fluids

Wettability alteration through this procedure is confirmed

by contact angle measurements on beads presented in
Gravity drainage tests were performed using dyed n- Fig. 2. As it is obvious, the contact angle of distilled water
heptane with Sudan-red, air, and distillated water to sim- drop in an n-heptane container surrounding the beads was
ulate oil phase, gas phase, and water phase, respectively. considerably changed from water wet toward oil wet.
The physical properties of test fluids are shown in Table 1.
3.4 Drainage Experimental Procedure
3.3 Wettability Alteration Procedure
Since clean glass beads are known to be naturally water wet, to check the wettability effects; systems with
different wettabilities were prepared using glass beads
with altered wettability through the silanization process,
which is described as follows (Grattoni and Dawe, 2002;
Kovscek et al., 1993; Zhou and Blunt, 1998; Rezaveisi et
al., 2010):
1. To remove any contamination during the process and
transportation, glass beads were first cleaned using
HCL solution (%20 vol.).

A set of 25 CGD and FFGD tests were carried out for

five different wettability states and five various production
rates. To verify the accuracy of tests, some of them were
repeated several times, and average results were used by
the end. The procedure involved the following steps:
1. The glass beads were packed in the inner core holder
(matrix), using a vibrating table, which was then
transferred into the outer core holder.
2. Prior to saturating the model with any liquid, air
packets in the matrix part of the model were flushed
out using several pore volumes of CO2 .

TABLE 1: Physical properties of the experimental setup and test fluids

Length of inner holder
Total length of outer holder
Inner diameter of outer holder
Outer diameter of inner holder
Inner diameter of inner holder
Fracture aperture
Absolute permeability of matrix
Porosity
Size distribution of glass beads

Experimental setup

Test fluids

water
n-heptane
air

Density (g/cm3 )
1
0.684
1.25e-3

Surface tension (mN/m)

72 .8
20.14

59 cm
60 cm
4 cm
3.9 cm
3 cm
0.5 mm
710 Darcy
38%
0.80.5 mm
Viscosity (Pa.s)
8.9e-4
3.86e-4
1.8e-5

Journal of Porous Media

Tertiary Oil Recovery from Fractured Media

1115

FIG. 2: Apparent contact angle on (a) fresh glass beads and (b) treated glass beads
3. To saturate the system with water, at least four pore
final step, top and bottom valves of the model were
volumes of distilled water were injected from the
opened suddenly to atmosphere.
bottom at very low rates to ensure complete saturation of the matrix block. In this step, CO2 molecules
within the pores were dissolved in water, and conse- 4. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
quently, the model was fully saturated with water.
Table 2 is a summary of main results of 25 trials from
which many of conclusions have been directly derived. It
4. The dyed oil was injected from the top of column usis wise mentioning that porosity, permeability, and water
ing a syringe pump, while water was displaced from
injection rate in water flooding (step 5) are the same for
the bottom of column. The injection process continall tests.
ued until water saturation reached to the irreducible
state. The transparency of the model and dyed oil
allowed us to monitor the oil-water interface during 4.1 Production Characteristics at Gas
oil flooding. Initial oil in place and the connate water
Breakthrough and Thereafter
saturation at this step were measured by volumetric
4.1.1 At Gas Breakthrough
balance.
After water flooding (step 5), due to negligible capillary
pressure and high permeability of fracture when drainage
was performed at a high pumping rate, the fracture liquid was drained much faster than at a slow pumping rate.
So the RF value just before the gas breakthrough would
be lower than in the slow drainage case, where the liquid had enough time to communicate fully between the
matrix and the fracture (Chatzis and Ayatollahi, 1995).
Figure 3 shows tertiary oil recovery at different oil production rates at gas breakthrough for various wettability
6. Finally, by opening the top valve of the column to ratios. As it is expected, increasing the production rate reatmospheric air and draining liquid from 6. the bot- duced oil recovery at gas breakthrough for all different
tom valve at a constant rate with a syringe pump, tests.
CGD process was started. Oil bank formation in the
column and oil recovery up to gas breakthrough at 4.1.2 After Gas Breakthrough
different production rates were our main goals during CGD process. Beside CGD experiments, FFGD The pump was turned off; the bottom valve was comtests were also performed to compare the outcomes. pletely opened, and oil production continued until no
In performing FFGD experiments, all steps prior to more oil was produced. As was mentioned already, the
step 6 were the same as CGD tests. However, in the higher withdrawal rate caused a larger amount of oil to
5. To establish waterflood residual conditions, water
was injected at the constant rate of 11.66 cc/min
from the bottom of the model. The volume of oil
produced from the top was measured volumetrically.
The water injection was continued until no more oil
was produced. The amount of residual oil was calculated by subtracting the volume of oil produced by
water flooding process from the volume of initial oil
in place (determined in step 4).

Volume 15, Number 12, 2012

1116

Maroufi et al.

Ultimate RF (%)

Tertiary RF (%)

RF after GB (%)

Sor @ gb (%)

10.57
11.47
11.58
12.98
13.45
21.35
20.59
21.6
23.73
20.46
23.65
22.22
22.59
21.30
21.42
23.04
23.81
23.64
23.18
21.15
25.3
24.3
23.25
23.96
22.17

TGB

89.43
88.53
88.42
87.02
86.55
78.64
79.41
78.4
76.27
79.54
76.35
77.77
77.41
78.69
78.58
76.96
76.19
76.36
76.81
78.85
74.7
75.7
76.75
76.04
77.83

Hob (cm) in fracture

76.64
73.96
73.6
76.6
74.03
87.14
89.64
86.87
85.93
85.86
86.25
89.56
88.58
86.89
85.18
83.83
84
84.62
83.54
85.37
88.03
88.95
90.95
91.42
90.65

RF at GB (%)

Sor (%)

23.36
26.04
26.4
23.4
25.97
12.86
10.36
13.13
14.07
14.14
13.75
10.44
11.42
13.11
14.82
16.17
16
15.38
16.46
14.63
11.97
11.05
9.05
8.58
9.35

Results of gravity drainage process

Production rate (cc/min)

RF (%)

Water
flooding

Soi (%)

WW
WW
WW
WW
WW
30% OW
30% OW
30% OW
30% OW
30% OW
50% OW
50% OW
50% OW
50% OW
50% OW
70% OW
70% OW
70% OW
70% OW
70% OW
OW
OW
OW
OW
OW

Initial
conditions

Swc (%)
1
2
3
4
5
21
22
23
24
25
16
17
18
19
20
11
12
13
14
15
6
7
8
9
10

Wettability

Exp. no.

TABLE 2: Results of controlled and free fall gravity drainage experiments for 25 tests

0.1 4.42
6
2088 6.14 0.24 4.66 94.09
1 3.33
7
157 9.53 2.23 5.56 94.09
10 2.2
4 18.27 9.39 3.15 5.35 93.77
29 2.03 3.5 7.31 10.94 3.18 5.21 92.23
FF 1.96
0
0.25 10.81 5.57 7.53 94.08
0.1 11.65 8
1770 9.69
0
11.65 90.29
1 10.3
7
159 10.24 4.74 15.04 94.45
10 5.16
3
19.3 16.43 10.09 15.25 93.65
29 2.54
3
5.3 21.86 12.99 15.53 91.8
FF 2.27
0
0.3 18.18 13.07 15.34 94.88
0.1 17.1 10.5 1644 6.55
0
17.1 93.45
1 14.4 10
162 7.77 2.65 17.05 94.82
10 6.45 3.5 20.15 16.12 10.13 16.58 94.09
29 2.67
3
5.14 18.63 13.6 16.27 94.97
FF 2.34
0
0.33 19.43 14.07 16.41 94.99
0.1 16.01 10 1539 7.06
0
16.01 92.97
1 10.1
7
156 13.72 3.17 13.27 89.46
10 6.36
4 19.23 17.27 7.5 13.86 90.22
29 2.89
3
5.25 20.28 11.45 14.34 91.15
FF 2.28
0
0.83 18.85 12.86 15.14 93.99
0.1 17.35 8.5 1223 7.94
0
17.35 92.05
1 8.48
8
125 16.79 7.9 16.38 92.08
10 4.51 3.5 17.05 18.73 9.71 14.22 90.97
29 2.08
3
5.5 21.87 11.72 13.8 89.84
FF 1.54
0
0.26 20.61 12.15 13.69 91.52

remain in the matrix, which led to the dominancy of gravity forces compared to the capillarity. Therefore, after gas
breakthrough, models with higher production rates (up to
gas breakthrough) produced more oil (see Table 2).
4.2 The Effect of Various Production Rates
During early stages of production at a constant withdrawal rate, there was no matrix gas invasion. However,
because of low resistance of fracture to flow, it was invaded immediately. On the other hand, pumping liquid

from fracture imposed a pressure difference (P ) between the top and bottom of the model (Zendehboudi et
al., 2009). After a while, the liquid head (gas liquid interface) inside the fracture dropped, and at a particular
time, it became feasible for gas to begin to invade the
matrix, while it was continuing to flow in the fracture.
At this instant, the gas invasion driving force (i.e., pressure difference) through both matrix and fracture would
be equal, and liquid drainage from the matrix began and
joined the flux from fracture. Thus, to have a better investigation of the influence of withdrawal rate on oil recovery

Journal of Porous Media

Tertiary Oil Recovery from Fractured Media

1117

FIG. 3: The profiles of oil recovery for the media of dif- FIG. 4: Comparison of tertiary oil recovery of various
ferent wettabilities versus production rate at gas break- production rates versus time in water-wet media
through
some extent, for other production rates, a combination of
at gas breakthrough and thereafter, for each wettability ra- previously mentioned mechanisms led to approximately
tio (ww, ow, 70% ow, 50% ow, and 30% ow), five differ- the same recovery efficiencies.
ent production rates (0.1, 1, 10, and 29 cc/min and FFGD)
were considered.
4.2.2 100% Oil Wet
4.2.1 100% Water Wet
Figure 4 displays ultimate tertiary oil recovery versus
time (exp. 15) for water-wet systems. In fact, in a test
with the production rate of 0.1 cc/min, because of positive spreading coefficient and the fact that this test took
longer than the others, the injected gas had enough time
to reconnect oil blobs and made a larger oil bank, which
resulted in the highest recovery up to gas breakthrough for
this system (see Fig. 4). However, after gas breakthrough,
as remaining oil was very close to the capillary end, small
amounts of oil could be producible. Hence the lowest oil
recovery after gas breakthrough and under the tertiary recovery process was achieved for this test. On the other
hand, in FFGD test (exp. 5), due to the highest withdrawal
rate (critical rate1 ), early gas breakthrough was unavoidable, which caused a large remaining amount of oil in the
model. Nevertheless, after gas breakthrough because of
gravity forces, more oil was recovered, which resulted
in the highest tertiary oil recovery among other tests. To
1

The maximum vertical oil production rate allowable in a given

reservoir to achieve a stable flood front is called the critical rate.

Volume 15, Number 12, 2012

For oil-wet systems, oil occupies smaller pores and sticks

to the surface of larger ones, while water lies at the center of larger pores. Therefore, during the water flooding process (step 5), water mostly displaced oil in larger
pores, while bypassing the smaller ones. Consequently,
a large quantity of oil remained in the system (see Table 2). Up to gas breakthrough, for lower withdrawal
rates, since viscous and gravity forces were more dominant than capillary forces, gas as the nonwetting phase
occupied larger pores and pushed water into the smaller
pores, which led to the production of more amounts of
oil and higher recovery factors. However, increasing the
withdrawal rate (the same as water-wet systems) caused
an early gas breakthrough, as it is shown in Fig. 5, leaving a large amount of oil in the system and lesser recovery efficiencies (see Table 2). After gas breakthrough, for
higher production rates due to the dominancy of gravity
forces as compared to capillarity, more oil was recovered.
Generally, since in the case with the rate of 0.1 cc/min,
there was a more piston-like displacement (without bypassing pore volumes due to the higher withdrawal rates),
it had got the highest recovery efficiency during the tertiary recovery process.

1118

Maroufi et al.

than oil-wet parts (Erle and Waqi, 2008), and oil recovery efficiencies decreased as the production rate changed
from free fall to lower rates (see Fig. 6).
4.2.4 50% Oil Wet
In 50% oil-wet systems (exp. 1620), in the same way as
before, the highest oil recovery prior to gas breakthrough
belonged to the test with the rate of 0.1 cc/min, while after
gas breakthrough, the FFGD test exhibited the highest oil
recovery, as indicated in Fig. 7. Furthermore, the ultimate
tertiary recovery was approximately the same for all rates,
which showed that for 50% oil-wet media due to similar
water-wet and oil-wet portions, similar production from
large and small pores before or after gas breakthrough was
obtained.
FIG. 5: Influence of production rates on the overall oil 4.2.5 30% Oil Wet
recovery for an oil-wet system versus time
Increasing the water-wet ratio caused the system to behave like a water-wet system. As discussed in Section 4.2.1, the lowest overall recovery was found for the
4.2.3 70% Oil Wet
test with a production rate of 0.1 cc/min. Moreover, inRecovery efficiency versus time (exp. 1115) for the 70% creasing the production rate led to more oil recovery after
oil-wet model is depicted in Fig. 6. Up to gas break- gas breakthrough and higher tertiary recovery efficiency
through, the same trends as compared to the oil-wet (see Fig. 8). It is wise to mention that in smaller pores of
model were observed. After gas breakthrough, because those oil-wet portions, due to lower capillary forces, more
less oil remained in the system and for those water-wet oil was also produced, which resulted in higher tertiary reportions of the system, the capillary threshold was higher covery efficiency as compared to water-wet systems (see
Table 2).

FIG. 6: The variations of recovery efficiency versus time FIG. 7: Recovery factor variations versus time for differfor different withdrawal rates in 70% oil-wet model
ent production rates in 50% oil-wet porous media

Journal of Porous Media

Tertiary Oil Recovery from Fractured Media

1119

is essential to mention that in the 70% oil-wet system,

since the oil phase was not the continuous phase anymore, the recovery factor for this system was less than for
the oil-wet medium. While for the 30% oil-wet system
due to higher residual oil saturation after water flooding,
higher recovery efficiency as compared to water-wet media was achieved (see Fig. 9). Another point is the time
that oil started to be produced, which was the longest for
water-wet systems. The reason for this long delay was the
higher capillary height and, consequently, stronger capillary forces for this system, which acted against gravity
forces.
4.3.2 Production with the Rate of 1 cc/min

FIG. 8: The variations of recovery efficiency versus time

for different withdrawal rates in the system of 30% oil
wetness
4.3 The Effect of Various Wettability Ratios
4.3.1 Production with the Rate of 0.1 cc/min

Figure 10 shows the effect of different wettability ratios

on tertiary recovery efficiency for a withdrawal rate of
1 cc/min. As is evident, increasing the production rate
by tenfold caused shorter gas breakthrough time for systems with various wettabilities. Again, due to lesser residual oil saturation after water flooding and higher capillary forces, the water-wet system has got the lowest oil
recovery factor. However, according to oil residual saturation at gas breakthrough of the oil-wet medium (see
Table 2), it is obvious that increasing the withdrawal rate
caused air to choose ways with lower resistance (lesser
capillary forces) through the matrix. In other words, air
bypassed some small pores in the matrix part (gas channeling), which decreased the recovery factor. In the 50%

In the water-wet system, since residual oil saturation after water flooding was extremely low as compared to
other systems (e.g., oil wet) and oil was not the continuous phase and existed in blob form in the center of
larger pores, during the test with a low production rate,
lesser bulk films of oil formed. Thus gravity forces became less efficient than capillarity, and consequently; the
lowest amount of oil was recovered. However, the story
for oil-wet media is completely opposite. In this system,
after water flooding due to significant reduction of oil saturation, water became the continuous phase and gas, the
nonwetting phase, expelled water out of larger pores and
pushed some of it into the smaller ones, which caused
more oil production (Erle and Waqi, 2008; Anderson,
1986). Thereby, for the oil-wet system, the highest oil recovery under tertiary recovery process was achieved. In
the system with 50% oil wetness, in water-wet parts, air
mostly swept oil in larger pores, while in oil-wet parts
due to lower capillary forces, smaller pores in addition to
larger ones were also depleted. Hence the formation of a
larger oil bank led to more oil production and approximately the same recovery factor with the oil-wet system.
Finally, for systems with 70% or 30% oil wetness, depending on being more oil wet or water wet, the system FIG. 9: Influence of different wettability ratios on oil rebehavior was similar to oil-wet or water-wet media. It covery versus time for production rate of 0.1 cc/min

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Maroufi et al.

FIG. 10: Oil recovery factor variations versus time for FIG. 11: Comparison of tertiary oil recovery of varidifferent wettability ratios with the withdrawal rate of ous wettability ratios versus time for production rate of
1 cc/min
10 cc/min
oil-wet system, as similar portions of oil-wet and waterwet glass beads were thoroughly mixed; a medium with
heterogeneous wettabilities was prepared in which the
distribution of water-wet beads among oil-wet parts prevented gas channeling or caused an approximate pistonlike displacement of the gas front. Hence, for the 50% oilwet system, the highest tertiary recovery efficiency was
achieved. For the 70% oil-wet system, because the oil
phase was not the continuous phase anymore, and also in
oil-wet parts, smaller pores, because of their higher capillary forces, were bypassed due to the higher withdrawal
rate (gas channeling), and a lower recovery factor as compared to oil-wet media was expected. Finally, in the 30%
oil-wet system, higher capillary forces among water-wet
parts hindered gas channeling, while, due to higher residual oil saturation after water flooding and the production
of oil from smaller pores in addition to larger ones in oilwet parts, more amounts of oil in comparison with 70%
oil-wet and water-wet media were produced.
4.3.3 Production with the Rate of 10 cc/min
As depicted in Fig. 11, again for water-wet medium due
to lesser residual oil saturation after water flooding and
higher capillary forces, the lowest tertiary recovery factor was achieved. In oil-wet medium, another increase in
the production rate by ten folds intensified gas channeling phenomenon and therefore decreased tertiary recov-

ery factor significantly. However, in 50% oil-wet system,

because of the piston-like movement of gas front and oil
production from large and small pores in oil-wet parts,
the highest recovery factor was obtained. For 70% oilwet medium, since oil was not the continuous phase and
increasing the production rate worsened gas channeling
phenomenon, again lower recovery factor as compared to
oil-wet system was achieved. It is wise mentioning that
even in this system, water-wet portions in limited extent
hindered gas channeling phenomenon. Finally, in 30%
oil-wet medium, due to the same reasons (high residual
oil saturation after water flooding, prevention of gas channeling, and production from large and small pores in oilwet parts) higher amount of oil as compared to water-wet,
oil-wet, and 70% oil-wet systems was recovered.
4.3.4 Production with the Rate of 29 cc/min
Increasing the production rate to 29 cc/min caused shorter
gas breakthrough time and almost same recovery factors
at gas breakthrough for all experiments (see Table 2).
Similarly to before, the lowest tertiary recovery factor is
for water-wet systems. For oil-wet systems, increasing
the withdrawal rate caused that air bypassed more pore
volumes in which it did not enter even after gas breakthrough, and therefore, lower recovery factors after gas
breakthrough and on the whole for tertiary recovery process were achieved. The 50% oil-wet medium, due to the

Journal of Porous Media

Tertiary Oil Recovery from Fractured Media

1121

same reasons (gas front piston-like displacement and production from small and large pores), had got the highest oil recovery factor (see Fig. 12). In the 70% oil-wet
medium, those water-wet portions somehow prevented
gas from channeling, which caused the higher tertiary recovery factor as compared to the oil-wet system. And the
30% oil-wet medium had better performance rather than
the water-wet, oil-wet, and 70% oil-wet systems.
4.3.5 Production with Free Fall Gravity Drainage
As in the previous section, prior to gas breakthrough,
almost the same recovery factors were achieved, which
showed the important role of after-gas breakthrough production on tertiary recovery efficiency for the FFGD
process. Water-wet media had the lowest tertiary recovery factor, while, in oil-wet systems prior to gas breakthrough, the same as the case with a withdrawal rate of 29
cc/min, air did not expel oil from some small pores, and
after gas breakthrough, because of gas channeling occurrence, a lower amount of oil was recovered (see Fig. 13).
Based on the similar reasons, the 50% oil-wet system had
the highest tertiary recovery factor. In the 70% oil-wet
medium, due to the partial prevention of gas channeling
phenomenon by those water-wet portions of the system, a
higher tertiary recovery factor as compared to the oil-wet
system was achieved. And finally as depicted in Fig. 13,
the 30% oil-wet medium had better performance compared to water-wet, oil-wet, and 70% oil-wet media. It

FIG. 13: Recovery efficiency changes in systems with

different wettabilities versus time for free fall drainage
(FFGD)
is wise to mention that in the 30% oil-wet system, due
to the high flow rate in the FFGD process, the gas channeling phenomenon also occurred (see TGB column in
Table 2), which caused approximately the same recovery
factor with the 70% oil-wet system.
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this study, experimental results were obtained in a long
visual laboratory model for a single matrix block surrounded by a vertical fracture. Experiments have been
conducted using a wide range of physical and operational
conditions, where the wettability of the porous medium as
well as the production rate were changed to acquire optimum oil recovery criteria through CGD and FFGD mechanisms. According to the experimental studies and phenomenological analyses, the following conclusions are
deduced:
Monitoring oil recovery rate by gravity drainage after gas breakthrough shows that tertiary oil recovery
is strongly dependent on residual oil saturation, wettability of the matrix, and production rate.
At high production rates up to gas breakthrough
time, the recovery is approximately independent of
wettability.

FIG. 12: Tertiary oil recovery for systems with different

wettabilities versus time at production rate of 29 cc/min

Volume 15, Number 12, 2012

Prior to gas breakthrough, increasing the production

rate leads to low tertiary oil recovery. However, after

1122

Maroufi et al.

gas breakthrough, cases with higher withdrawal rates Chatzis, I. and Ayatollahi, S., Investigation of the GAIGI process in stratified porous media for the recovery of waterhave recovered more amounts of oil.
flood residual oil, paper 139 presented at the sixth Petroleum

For water-wet media, an incremental trend of the

Conference of the South Saskatchewan Section, Regina,
Saskatchewan, 1995.
production rate caused higher tertiary recovery,
while in oil-wet systems, this results in reduction of Chatzis, I., Kantzas, A., and Dullien, F. A. L., On the investigathe recovery factor under tertiary recovery mechation of gravity-assisted inert gas injection using micromodels,
long Berea sandstone cores, and computer-assisted tomogranisms.
phy, paper SPE 18284 presented at SPE Annual Technical

Water-wet models exhibit the lowest tertiary recovConference and Exhibition, Houston, TX, 1988.
ery efficiency compared to the other tests.
Da Sle, W. J. and Guo, D. S., Assessment of a vertical hydro-

carbon miscible flood in the Westpem Nisku D Reef, SPE

Production rate variations do not have any considerReservoir Eng., vol. 20, pp. 147154, 1990.
able influence on the tertiary recovery factor in 50%
Dean, R. H. and Lo, L. L., Simulations of naturally fractured
oil-wet systems.
reservoirs, SPE Reservoir Eng., vol. 5, pp. 638648, 1988.

At lower rates, an oil-wet system produces higher Dullien, F. A. L., Chatzis, I., and Kantzas, A., Laboratory studies
of macroscopic and microscopic mechanisms of immiscible
overall recovery, while for higher withdrawal rates
gas drive-gravity drainage recovery, paper presented at the
(more than 1 cc/min), a 50% oil-wet medium has
III Simposio International Sobre Recuperacion Majorada de
better performance.
Crudo, Mara Caibo, Venezuela, 1989.

Finally, we should point out that dimensionality and ho- Dullien, F. A. L., Chatzis, I., and Macdonald, I. F., Enhanced oil
recovery process, US patent 4953619, September 1990.
mogeneity of the system, porous media that consist of
glass beads instead of reservoir rock, experimental con- Dullien, F. A. L., Chatzis, I., and Collins, A., The effects of
wettability on the recovery of waterflood residual oil saturaditions (atmospheric pressure and temperature), and utition with low pressure inert gas injection assisted by gravity
lized fluids (C7 and air as oil and gas phases) limit the
drainage, in Proceedings of the 6th European IOR Sympogeneralizability of the results presented here. In addition,
sium
in Stavanger, Norway, May 2131, 1991, vol. 1, book
since this study is a single matrix block (a matrix block
II,
pp.
695604, 1991.
surrounded by a fracture), block to block effects (capilErle,
C.
D.
and Waqi, A., Wettability, Gulf, Houston, Texas,
lary continuity and reinfiltration) that belong to a stack of
2008.
matrix blocks are not considered.
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