Prediction of Three-Phase Capillary Pressure using a Network Model Anchored to Two-Phase Data

Abstract

Three-phase capillary pressure is difficult to measure experimentally and therefore has to be estimated by other methods. In this work a network model was applied to generate a consistent set of two-phase and three-phase capillary pressure curves. Experimental data for two-phase, gas-oil and oil-water, capillary pressure from a North Sea reservoir was used in this study. The network model was anchored to the measured two-phase data, and three-phase capillary pressure was constructed. The gas-oil and mercury capillary pressure anchors the pore structure parameters, while water-oil capillary pressure anchors the wettability parameters in the network model. The three-phase capillary pressure is predicted by using the pore structure and wettability found for the two-phase cases as input. The network model quantifies the difference between two-phase and three-phase capillary pressure. In the cases studied the difference between two-phase and three-phase capillary pressure is significant.