SPE 93585

Investigation of Thermal Gas-Oil Gravity Drainage (GOGD) in Fractured Carbonate

Reservoirs
S. Ayatollahi*, F. Boukadi, SPE, M. Wadhahi, SPE, R. Maamari, SPE, and A. Bemani, SPE, Sultan Qaboos U.

Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 14th SPE Middle East Oil & Gas Show and
Conference held in Bahrain International Exhibition Centre, Bahrain, 1215 March 2005.
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Abstract
In Oman, it is known that the oil content in matrix porosity in
fractured carbonate oil reservoirs exceeds more than 90% of
the oil originally in place. Minimal recovery factors during the
primary stages of production are due to the nature of these
carbonate reservoirs; geometry and extent of the fracture
network, matrix permeability, wettability tendency, as well as
the nature of the fluid system. The occurrence of a strong
water drive, in some of the fields, becomes even more
detrimental to primary recovery.
The Omani oilfield of Qarn Alam, with a naturallyfractured Shuaiba carbonate reservoir, is at the center of this
investigation. Its reservoir contains 213 million cubic meters
of heavy crude (16 oAPI and 220 cp) with an expected ultimate
oil recovery of 2% of STOIIP, under primary depletion.
Intensive theoretical and experimental studies are carried out
in an attempt to quantify potential gains from the Gas-oil
Gravity Drainage (GOGD) mechanism that is taking place in
the reservoir. Investigations will be undertaken to validate the
theory that the combined effects of matrix accessibility to the
trapped oil by hot gas, oil viscosity reduction, and the possible
oil bank formation are contributing to a higher oil recovery
factor during GOGD.
Introduction
Qarn Alam field, a highly fractured carbonate, contains heavy
oil (16 oAPI and 200 cP at reservoir conditions) with the main
oil bearing reservoir being the Shuaiba/Kharaib formation
containing a STOIIP of about 186 million m3. The reservoir is
a dome-shaped with a relatively compact structure. The field
areal extent is 6x3 km2 and has a maximum oil column of 165
m. The reservoir is very shallow, with the crest of the Shuaiba
at about 215 mss. The matrix porosity is high (~30%) and the
*

On sabbatical leave from Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

matrix permeability ranges widely, with most of the Shuaiba

and Al-Kharaib STOIIP being contained in the 5-15 and the 110 mDarcy rocks, respectively.
The examined field has undergone a successful pilot
steam injection and a decision has been taken to develop it
utilizing steam injection. Due to the high capital cost of the
project, a better understanding and clear identification of the
mechanisms and the physics of gas oil gravity drainage also
assisted by heating is required.
Besides, in fractured carbonate reservoirs, most of the
oil is bypassed following waterflooding. And that results from
the oil/water contact moving upward before a complete sweep
of the reservoir. In addition, wettability also plays a primordial
role in retaining oil thanks to capillarity effects in formations
with affinity to oil. This is illustrated in Figure 1, which
portrays oil retained by oil-wet capillaries having different
radii.
The nature of the oil remained in this reservoir as the
residual oil after waterflooding, motivated us to investigate the
recovery efficiency in waterflooded experimental models
using GOGD process (tertiary gas flooding).
Matrix

Oil

Fracture
Figure 1- Mechanism of oil trapping in matrix blocks due to
capillarity effects.
GOGD Process
Gas injection is being increasingly applied as a secondary or
tertiary oil recovery process, in dipping reservoirs. In such
reservoirs, a gravity-stable injection scheme is possible, leading
to high sweep efficiencies. Laboratory experiments (Kantzas,
1988; Chatzis et al., 1988; Kantzas et al., 1988; Dullien et al.,
1988; Naylor and Frorup, 1989; Dullien et al., 1990; Dullien et

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SPE 93585

al., 1991; Oren et al., 1992) and field performance analysis

(King and Stiles, 1970; Carlson, 1988) have proved that high oil
recovery of residual oil is attainable if gravity drainage is the
dominant production mechanism.
Besides, Carlson (1988) performed laboratory tests to
recover waterflood residual oil by means of free fall gravity
drainage. The first experiment was done on a 3-ft long composite
core made up of 17 Dexter sand core plugs. It was noted that the
lack of capillary continuity between the plugs caused capillary
end effects and resulted in an oil recovery of up to 36%. A high
speed centrifuge was then used to waterflood and then gasflood
the short cores to examine the performance of gravity drainage
process for the recovery of waterflood residual oil. The core
plugs' mean waterflood residual oil saturation was measured to
be 18.4%. The gas-liquid drainage later reduced the mean
residual oil saturation to gas to 8.3%. In addition, a secondary
gas-oil drainage performed on four other plugs reduced the oil
saturation at connate water condition to 7.4%. And that supports
the conclusion made by Dumor et al. (1974) regarding the
positive effects of connate water on oil recovery during gravity
drainage.
Carlson (1988) also concluded that high oil recovery
following a gas drive process is due to the effects of gravity
forces manifested by the large density differences between the
oil and the gas. But, the drawn conclusion does not address other
effects involved in the process. Neverthesless, a significant
contribution of recent laboratory studies on tertiary immiscible
gas injection schemes has been accounted for in the development
of a better understanding of the pore level physics of immiscible
displacements involving three immiscible fluids oil, water and
gas (Chatzis et al. 1988; Kantzas et al. 1988; Naylor and Frorup,
1989; Foulser et al., 1990; Oren and Pinczeweski, 1991; Oren
and Pinczeweski, 1992; Oren et al., 1992). And it was found
that high oil recovery efficiency during the GOGD process from
water-wet media when oil has a positive spreading coefficient
stems from the fact that a continuous oil film establishes as the
oil spreads on the water surface in the presence of gas.
Unfortunately, contradictory results concerning the
effect of wetting on oil recovery are reported in the literature,
depending on the porous media, the different liquids used or
the employed chemical treatments. The main issue is the effect
of wettability on oil recovery. A few studies demonstrate that,
in drainage experiments, saturation of the retained liquid
decreased with increasing contact angle (Kewen and
Firoozabadi, 2000; Morrow and MacCaffrey, 1978), whereas
other studies demonstrate the importance of a hydraulic
continuity for maximum recovery (Kantzas et al., 1988; Oren
et al., 1994; Kalaydjian et al., 1993, 1995; Skurdal et al.,
1995; Blunt et al., 1995; Vizika and Lombard, 1996; Zhou and
Blunt, 1997; Fenwick and Blunt, 1998), i.e., recovery is
maximum for water-wet media. Besides, wettability of the
carbonate reservoirs is different from most of the laboratory
models and the cores used in previous studies.
Wettability
"Wettability" refers to the relative attraction of one fluid to a
solid in the presence of other immiscible fluids. It is the main
factor responsible for the microscopic fluid distribution in porous
media and it determines to a great extent the amount of residual
oil saturation and the ability of a particular phase to flow. The

affinity of a rock to the fluids present in the reservoirs is

described as "water-wet", "intermediate-wet" or "oil-wet".
Treiber et al. (1971) measured the wettability of 50
reservoirs. It was found that 64% of carbonate reservoirs were
intermediate-, 28% were oil-, and 8% were water-wet. The
same results reported by Chilingar and Yen (1992) who
performed contact angle measurements on 161 carbonate
samples. The authors concluded that 15% of these rocks were
strongly oil-wet (contact angle 160180o), 65% were oil-wet
(contact angle 100160o), 12% had intermediate wettability
(contact angle 80100o) and 8% were water-wet (contact angle
080 o).
Oil Recovery Mechanism
The high oil recovery in the presence of water and gas strongly
recommended the idea of film flow inside the pores. Figure 1
illustrates the distribution of oil, water, and gas at the porousmedium pore level. As seen in Figure 2, the gas phase does not
contact the water in a water-wet medium when oil is also present
and oil continuity exists in all the gas invaded pore space, which
makes it possible for by-passed oil to drain under the action of
gravity. When the spreading coefficient is positive (Equation 1)
in a water-wet medium, the oil is the non-wetting phase relative
to water and the wetting phase relative to gas, then the oil film
ensures continuity of the oil phase in the gas invaded parts of the
porous medium. This phenomenon is responsible for the
drainage of residual oil blobs (Chatzis and Ayatollahi, 1995).

S = gw - ( go + ow )

(1)

where, gw, ow, go are the gas/water, oil/water and gas/oil

surface tensions, respectively, measured on pure fluids before
they are brought into contact with each other.

Figure 2- Mechanism of recovery as film flow in gas invaded

zone for a positive spreading coefficient (Chatzis and
Ayatollahi, 1995)
Experimental Study
Gas-oil gravity drainage (GOGD) for naturally fractured
carbonate reservoirs such as Qarn Alam reservoir is a highly
challenging investigation. The wettability of the reservoir is one
of the main factors affecting the GOGD process. For that matter,

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SPE 93585

three different sand-packed columns with different wettability

were used in this experimental study to measure the oil recovery
as well as the residual oil saturation resulting from gas flooding.
Silanization was employed to alter the wettability of the sands as
described here.
Wettability Alteration Procedure
For this investigation, the selected sand was Barco silica sand.
Initially, the sand has been washed with (concentrated sulphuric)
acid, so it does not contain any clay on its surfaces. Then, the
sand was sieved and the particle sizes that ranged between 420
m to 600 m were chosen to be treated by silane. In order to
obtain the maximum number of reactive sites on the surface, the
samples are recommended to be pre-treated by boiling for about
two hours in a 50/50 sulfonotric acid mixture, then to be washed
with pure water until neutrality. For the elimination of any traces
of water on the surfaces of the sand, the resulting samples were
dried under vacuum at 180 C for at least 15 hours.
Octadecyltricholorosilane (OTS) was used for the Silanization
process. The chemical formula of OTS is shown below:
Cl
|
CH3 - (CH2)17 - Si - Cl
|
Cl
Before Silanization, the sample was washed with
toluene and then refluxed for about 12 hours in a solution of 15%
silane, by volume, in toluene.
The treated sands with silane were washed with toluene
in order to remove all extra amounts of silane. Then, the samples
were washed with a mixture of 90/10 tetrahydrofurane/water,
followed by a wash with distilled water and finally dried at 100
C, under vacuum.
GOGD Experimental Procedure
The gravity drainage experiments were performed on
unconsolidated sand-packed column made of water-wet, oilwet and mixed-wet (50% water-wet sands were added to 50%
oil-wet) sands, respectively. The tube columns were made of
120 cm in length and 3.36 to 2.7 cm in diameter. The
experimental procedure involved the following:
1- The model was saturated first with water to determine the
pore volume and porosity of the model.
2- With the medium fully saturated with water, the absolute
permeability was measured using the steady-state method.
3- To establish the connate water condition, oil was injected
from the top of the column. After the oil flooding, the connate
water saturation (Scw) and the oil saturation in the medium
were determined volumetrically.
4- To establish the waterflood residual oil (Sorw) conditions,
water was injected from the bottom of the column. The
volume of oil produced from the top of the column was
measured volumetrically and the amount of residual oil was
determined. In order to provide the conditions of maximum
residual oil saturation, the water-oil interface velocity and the
corresponding capillary number (vww/ow) were kept constant
and at values less than 10-5, respectively (Morrow et al., 1988).

5- Free-fall gravity drainage tests are performed by opening

the valves at the top and bottom of the column at waterflooded
residual oil conditions to the atmosphere. Multi-phase fluid
flow in this process consists of two stages:
5-1- Bulk water flow as the continuous phase in the region
ahead of the gas front.
5-2-Water and oil flow downward in the form of thin films,
mainly due to gravity forces in the gas-invaded zone.
The results of three different experiments are shown in
Table 1, below.
Table 1: Experimental results for GOGD in sand-packed
models with different wettability.
Wettability
Length (cm)
Diameter (cm)
Pore Vol. (cm3)
(%)

Water
120
3.36
394.3
37

Mixed
120
2.7
318.5
46

Oil
120
2.7
280.6
39

k (Darcy)
Scw (%PV)
Sorw (%PV)
Oil recovery
(%OOIP)
Sorg (%PV)

127
20
16
84

145
19
17
64

89
16.7
16
45.7

2.6

6.1

8.6

Experimental Results and Discussion

Three free-fall gravity drainage experiments were conducted to
recover waterflood residual oil from water-wet, mixed-wet and
oil-wet sand-packed column. Table 1 shows the results obtained
from the experiments conducted using GOGD process in the
chemically treated sand-packed column. The porosity and
permeability values of the sand-packed columns used in each of
the columns prepared were found to vary somewhat. The
magnitude of porosity and permeability variation experienced in
this study is commonly experienced in the same type of
experiment (Kantzas, 1988). The difference in wettability, small
variations in pore structure from one packed column to another
and different flooding velocities resulted in various connate
water saturations. Very close values for residual oil saturation
due to waterflooding were found in three different experiments.
Careful and controlled flooding scenario and the homogeneity
of the pore-size distribution in the matrices are believed to be
the reason for similar residual oil saturation.
The oil recovery efficiency, for each free-fall gravity
drainage process, and the residual oil due to gas flooding (Sorg)
are displayed in Table 1. Besides, the ultimate oil recovery
efficiency was measured for the duration of two months, when
no more oil was produced.
It was proven that the highest tertiary oil recovery was
accomplished in water-wet media (Kalaydjian et al., 1993,
1995; Skurdal et al., 1995; Vizika and Lombard, 1996;
Fenwick and Blunt, 1998). Besides, as wettability changes
towards more oil wetness, the ultimate oil recovery efficiency by
GOGD process is found to decrease. And if the drainage velocity
is controlled, then an oil bank is formed resulting in an increase
in oil recovery (Ayatollahi and Chatzis, 1994).

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SPE 93585

For water-wet conditions, it was also proven that film flow of oil
under gravity drainage in the gas invaded zone is responsible for
high recovery efficiency. For oil-wet conditions, however, the
fluid-fluid interfaces dictate that the oil phase is in direct contact
with the solid surface. Both, the gas and water phases are nonwetting to the oil-wet solid surface. As a result, the oil cannot
spread over water in the presence of gas no matter what value the
spreading coefficient takes. Therefore, only the oil and gas
phases can maintain continuity throughout the gas-invaded zone,
whereas the residual water ganglia of different geometries
trapped in the oil zone cannot spread over oil when it is dented
by gas. Besides, there exists always a thick film of oil between a
water-oil interface and an oil-gas interface when a gas-oil
interface advances to displace a ganglion of water. Because the
oil phase under oil-wet conditions occupies the relatively small
pores, as well as, the nooks and crannies of pores in the gasinvaded zone, as it is shown in Figure 3, these conditions result
in establishing higher values of residual oil saturation, Sorg, by
the GOGD process in oil-wet media compared to water wet and
positive-spreading conditions. The authors believe that the same
explanation applies to the mixed-wet conditions.

Hot Gas
(Steam)

Matrix
Fractures

Oil Film

Figure 4- Oil film drainage in fractured rocks

The experimental results clearly indicate that if
wettability changes from oil- to water-wet; the performance of
GOGD process itself for the recovery of waterflood residual
oil will be doubled (compare the recovery efficiency of
Experiment number one to Experiment number three). This is
why the wettability alteration is gaining more ground and will
indeed be used in a future investigation of the same oil
reservoir under study.
Conclusions
The recovery of trapped oil in matrices of naturally fractured
media that are mostly non water-wet is demonstrated by
employing the GOGD process for waterflood residual oil in
mixed- and oil-wet media. It is also worth noting that the tertiary
oil recovery process for the oil- and mixed-wet media, using the
GOGD process is promising. The residual oil saturations to gas,
Sorg, in the oil- and mixed-wet sand packs are low enough to
make the process attractive for non water-wet reservoirs.
However, the Sorg for the the examined media is not as low as the
one in water-wet cases at the end of the GOGD process due to
the fact that oil is the wetting phase.
Besides, to enhance oil recovery efficiency by GOGD,
it is thought to alter the wettability of the naturally fractured
carbonate reservoirs, such as Qarn-Aalam oil field in Oman,
from oil- to water-wet using thermal and chemical methods
(Hadhrami and Blunt).

Figure 3- Oil film drainage and oil trap in oil-wet rocks

Although the tertiary oil recovery in the oil-wet
medium is less than those in mixed- and water-wet media
under the GOGD process, the magnitude of oil recovery
(45.7% of waterflood residual oil) is very well promising
compared to the 2% oil recovery from the Qarn Alam oil
reservoir producing under a water drive mechanism.
This observation is only valid for the tertiary oil
recovery from matrices with different wettability. The
proposed analogy here is to consider the trapped oil in the
matrices after waterflooding (Figure 2) as the oil blobs
remaining in the non-fractured media due to wettability and
pore geometry effects (Figure 1). Adding these two schemes
together will result in the proposed mechanism shown in
Figure 4 for oil recovery from naturally fractured reservoirs
under GOGD process.

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SPE 93585

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