SPE-191974-MS

Capillary Pressure Effects on Estimating the EOR Potential during Low

Salinity and Smart Water Flooding

Pål Østebø Andersen, Department of Energy Resources, University of Stavanger and The National IOR Centre of
Norway

Copyright 2018, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane, Australia, 23–25 October 2018.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Many experimental works have investigated smart water and low salinity water flooding and observed
significant incremental oil recovery following changes in the injected brine composition. The commonway
approach to model such EOR mechanisms is by shifting the input relative permeability curves, particularly
including a reduction of the residual oil saturation. Cores that originally display oil-wetness may retain
much oil at the outlet of the flooded core due to capillary pressure being zero at a high oil saturation. This
end effect is difficult to overcome in high permeable cores at typical lab rates. Injecting a brine that changes
the wetting state to less oil-wet conditions (represented by zero capillary pressure at a lower oil saturation)
will lead to a release of oil previously trapped at the outlet. Although this is chemically induced incremental
oil, it represents a reduction of remaining oil saturation, not necessarily of residual oil saturation.
This paper illustrates the mentioned issues of interpreting the difference in remaining and residual oil
saturation during chemical EOR and hence the evaluation of potential smart water effects. We present a
mathematical model representing core flooding accounting for wettability changes due to changes in the
injected composition. For purpose of illustration, this is performed in terms of adsorption of a wettability
alteration component coupled to shifting of relative permeability and capillary pressure curves. The model
is parameterized in accordance with experimental data by matching brine-dependent saturation functions to
experiments where wettability alteration takes place dynamically due to changing one chemical component.
It is seen that several effects can give an apparent smart water effect without having any real reduction
of the residual oil saturation, including 1) changes in the mobility ratio, where the oil already flowing is
pushed more efficiently, and 2) the magnitude of capillary end effects can be reduced due to increased water-
wetness or due to reduction in water relative permeability giving a greater viscous drag on the oil.
Key words: Capillary end effects, Smart water injection, Wettability alteration, Water flooding

Introduction
Core flooding experiments are frequently conducted in order to assess multiphase flow properties, fluid
displacement and oil recovery performance and to optimize the design of injection fluids in terms of physical
2 SPE-191974-MS

and chemical properties. In particular, displacement tests are most frequently used to measure relative
permeability functions and residual saturations (Richardson et al. 1952; Johnson et al. 1959; McPhee et
al. 2015). In addition to the relative permeabilities, we must consider that any two fluids separated by an
interface have a capillary pressure Pc, which in porous media can be of significant importance. Considering
Young-Laplace's law (Finn 1999):

(1)

the magnitude of the capillary forces increase as the radii of curvature r1,r2 decrease, but vanishes in open
space where the two phases can form a flat interface (ri→∞) (Leverett 1941). Such contrasts in capillary
pressure are highly important in naturally fractured reservoirs. As the open fractures have very low capillary
pressure compared to the matrix blocks, spontaneous imbibition allows oil to be produced (Morrow and
Mason 2001; Hirasaki et al. 2004; Andersen et al. 2014, 2018a,b,d; Qiao et al. 2018). During core flooding,
the presence of capillary forces plays a different role. At the outlet the fluids enter a zero capillary pressure
zone. Due to pressure continuity this also affects the fluid distribution in the flooded core. If advective forces
dominate and capillary forces can be neglected; Buckley-Leverett theory (Buckley and Leverett 1942), the
JBN method (Johnson et al. 1959), etc. can be applied to obtain the desired results. However, in many cases
capillary forces are significant. At steady state, defined by constant pressure drop and average saturation vs
time, fluid distributions can be non-uniform as explained by the transition towards zero capillary pressure
at the outlet. Especially, the more wetting phase will tend to accumulate at the outlet during single phase
injection (Richardson et al. 1952). This phenomena is referred to as capillary end effects (CEE). The
classical methods which ignore the capillary forces can then lead to misrepresentative calculations of relative
permeability functions and residual saturation.
Many works have been dedicated towards reliable interpretation of core flooding results where the
capillary forces can be accounted for and even used to derive the capillary pressure function. Theoretical
and experimental results (Rapoport and Leas 1953; Huang and Honarpour 1998; Andersen et al. 2017a)
have shown that for large values of the capillary number:

(2)

which expresses the ratio of capillary to advective forces, end effects will be significant. Andersen et al.
(2017a) derived a more detailed expression including parameters of the saturation functions and critical
values of the capillary number at which end effects were important. Particularly, one should expect capillary
end effects to be important for short system length L, high permeability K, low total phase interstitial
velocity vT and if the injected phase is non-wetting. Ways of improving the interpretation tends to rely on
either designing the experiment in favorable capillary number conditions, performing in-situ measurements
for direct detection of phase accumulations or doing systematic variations in the experiment detecting
the sensitivity to the capillary diffusion term. Mainly, increasing the total flux will suppress the capillary
pressure contribution and is the easiest way to determine whether the system is affected. Works such
as Virnovsky et al. (1995), Gupta and Maloney (2016) and Andersen et al. (2017a) consider how such
systematic variations of the total flux can be used to derive relative permeability and capillary pressure
functions based on steady state measurements.
Smart Water or Low Salinity brines are often used terms for brines that demonstrate improved oil recovery
behavior compared to other reference brines just by modifying the ionic composition. In spontaneous
imbibition this effect is well documented (Hirasaki et al. 2004; Strand et al. 2006; Zhang et al. 2007; Fathi
et al. 2010) and the improved oil recovery is explained in terms of the brine's ability to chemically induce a
SPE-191974-MS 3

wettability alteration towards more water-wet states. On macroscopic scale this is explained as a shift of the
capillary pressure curve towards higher values, in particular such that the capillary pressure vanishes at a
higher saturation, and a consistent shift of the relative permeabilities (Yu et al. 2008; Andersen et al. 2014,
2015). It is more unclear whether wettability alteration by ionic modifications also can induce improved
recovery during core flooding. The effects of changing brine are rarely of significant magnitude and the
conditions for when the effects can take place are not properly understood.
In this work we present a mathematical model demonstrating the setup for core flooding displacement
of oil by smart water injection. The injected brine is allowed to contain a chemical component termed
Wettability Alteration (WA) agent, that can adsorb and change the wettability of the core. It is assumed that
the brine makes the system more water-wet, mainly as described by manipulating the capillary pressure
curve regarding where zero capillary pressure is obtained, but also regarding where the oil loses mobility
as given by the residual oil saturation. The emphasis will be on assessing the link between brines that
demonstrate Smart Water behavior during spontaneous imbibition and their behavior during flooding.
The paper is structured as follows: The mathematical model for core flooding and wettability alteration
is outlined and scaled. The model is parameterized by matching experimental data from Strand et al. (2008)
where capillary pressure forces, advective forces and wettability alteration processes all were significant.
A sensitivity study is then presented in the results and discussion section before the conclusions.

Mathematical Model
Transport equations
The system of interest is a core flooding setup where water with a wettability alteration (WA) agent is
injected into a core to displace oil, see Figure 1.

Figure 1—System geometry. Water, containing wettability alteration (WA) agent, is injected
into a core and displacing oil towards the outlet which has zero capillary pressure.

The water (w), oil (o) and rock phases are considered incompressible and immiscible. The fluids are
described by their saturations si (i=o,w). The system is considered homogeneous in terms of porosity ϕ and
permeability K and has length L. The axis is aligned with the main flow direction with x=0 at the inlet of
the core. The WA agent is soluble in the aqueous phase only, with concentration c, and can adsorb onto the
rock surface as denoted by the term a. The WA agent can also disperse through the water phase controlled
by the dispersion coefficient D.

(3)
4 SPE-191974-MS

The phase fluxes (Darcy velocities) ui are described by Darcy's law (in absence of gravity) (Chen et al.
2006):

(4)

Further, the phase pressures pi and saturations are constrained by capillary pressure Pc and volume
conservation:
(5)
We introduce the standard notation of total flux uT, total mobility λT and water fractional flow function fw:

(6)

From adding the mass conservation laws (3) it follows that:

(7)
in other words the total flux uT is uniform, but can vary with time as determined by the injection rate. After
eliminating variables, the system can be expressed with equations for the water phase and for the WA agent
as below. The water is transported due to advection and capillary diffusion terms (Chen et al. 2006). The
WA agent is transported in the water by the same terms, but can also adsorb and spread due to dispersion.

(8)

By comparison of (8) with the conservation laws (3) we see that the phase and WA agent fluxes are
given by:

(9)

Dispersion Coefficient
The dispersion coefficient D consists of an advective component and an effective molecular diffusion
component De (Appelo and Postma 2004):

(10)

where α is the dispersivity, Dmol the molecular diffusion coefficient in brine and τ the tortuosity of the porous
medium (the ratio of the actual and the straight line travel paths). During flooding the contributions from
molecular diffusion and capillary pressure are assumed negligible in (10) giving:

(11)

Although the capillary pressure term is important for the saturation distributions it is assumed to have
negligible impact on the WA agent transport which is mainly controlled by advection and adsorption
mechanisms. During spontaneous imbibition, however, uT is zero and it will be assumed the molecular
diffusion is dominating:
SPE-191974-MS 5

(12)

Adsorption Isotherm
Adsorption of the WA agent is described using a Langmuir isotherm:

(13)

where amax denotes the total capacity for adsorption and kL is a parameter describing the isotherm shape.

Saturation Function Correlations

The relative permeabilities are modelled using modified Corey expressions (Brooks & Corey 1966):

(14)

where Si are normalized saturations, sir the residual saturations, ni Corey exponents, and relative
permeability end point values. The capillary pressure is scaled according to Leverett's J-function (Dullien
2012):

(15)

The J-function is modelled using the Andersen et al. correlation (Andersen et al. 2014, 2017b):

(16)

with constraints on a1,a2,a3 such that:

(17)
for predefined values Jmax,Jmin and Jmin<Jmid<Jmax, see also Appendix A.

Wettability Alteration Coupling

It is assumed that the extent of wettability alteration follows the amount of adsorption of WA agent.
We define two reference wetting states; an original preferentially oil-wet (pow) state and a preferentially
water-wet (pww) state. These states are defined by assigning unique parameters to the saturation function
correlations, see (14), (16) and (17).
To model wettability alteration between these states the saturation functions are shifted according to a
function 0 ≤ H ≤ 1 that interpolates the saturation function input parameters Φj from the pow state towards
the pww state depending on the magnitude of H as follows:
(18)
When H=0 the original pow state is obtained as all the saturation function input parameters correspond
to the pow state, while if H=1 the input parameters correspond to the pww state. H is selected as:

(19)
6 SPE-191974-MS

Initial and Boundary Conditions

At t=0 the system is at initial water saturation swi and zero initial WA agent concentration ci.
(20)
The inlet side is defined at x=0 where water is injected with flux uT(t) and a specified WA agent
concentration cinj(t):

(21)

The outlet side is defined at x=L having a zero capillary pressure:

(22)
Additionally, it is assumed that water or oil cannot flow into the core from the outlet side. Therefore, as
long as the water pressure in the core is lower than the outlet pressure (∂xpw>0) the water flux is set to zero.
Similarly, an upper constraint is set for uw to uT such that oil cannot flow spontaneously into the core:
(23)

Average Saturation and Pressure Drop

The average saturation is calculated in standard way as:

(24)

The water pressure is continuous from inlet to outlet and represents the pressure drop being measured
across the core. To evaluate the pressure drop we first note that the water pressure gradient is obtained by
a combination of (4),(5) and (6):

(25)

The pressure drop follows from integration:

(26)

Steady State
Steady state is defined by produced fluxes being equal to the injected fluxes, hence a condition when oil
is no longer produced during water flooding. Mathematically, this state is described by having uw (x)=uT.
Using this condition we obtain from (9):

(27)

Hence, during water injection the steady state saturation distribution sw,∞(x)=sw (x,t=∞) is determined
by the injected flux, permeability, water mobility and capillary pressure (derivative) along the core. This
distribution directly indicates how much oil is trapped due to CEE. Prior to steady state, also the oil mobility
will be important.

Scaled Model
The spatial and temporal variables x,t are scaled by introducing the following differentials:
SPE-191974-MS 7

(28)

These relations correspond to having dt' pore volumes injected in the time interval dt at a time with total
flux uT(t). Further, the mobilities are scaled by the water viscosity:

(29)

Note that the scaled and unscaled fractional flow functions are identical. The dispersion coefficient is
scaled as follows:

(30)

The following scaled system of equations is then obtained:

(31)

Further, the initial and boundary conditions are given by:

(32)

Also, looking at (27) it is noted that the steady state phase distribution is determined by:

(33)

If the capillary number ε, water relative permeability or J-function derivative are of large magnitude
∂x'sw≈0 meaning the saturations are dominated by the value where J=0. In the opposite case ∂x'sw≈-∞
(negative due to the sign of ). Then the saturation quickly increases away from the outlet to the value
where fw=1, namely 1-sor.

Solution Procedure
The system of equations is solved using an operator splitting procedure together with numerical
discretization. We refer to Appendix B for details. The grid is discretized into 50 cells.

Results and Discussion

Experimental Data and Input Parameters
For calibrating the model, data from Strand et al. (2008) were matched, see Figure 2. Two aged Stevns Klint
chalk cores termed C#4 and C#5 with 10 % initial saturation of formation water (FW) were tested at 110
8 SPE-191974-MS

°C first by spontaneous imbibition of FW (FW does not contain sulfate). Both cores yielded low recovery
of ~ 10 %. Next, C#4 was flooded with FW at a low rate ~0.07 PV/d. After recovery stabilized, the core
was flooded with seawater (SW) containing 0.024 mol/L sulfate inducing even higher recovery. Core C#5,
following SI with FW, was set to spontaneously imbibe in seawater (SW) which increased the recovery.
After SI with SW, forced imbibition with SW was used to displace even more oil from the core. The pressure
drop was reported to reduce from 6 to 3 psi (0.4 to 0.2 bar) during the tests.
Core, fluid and WA agent properties are listed in Table 1. Based on brine salinity and temperature,
water viscosity μw at 110 °C was calculated from El-Dessouky & Ettouney (2002). The crude oil viscosity
measured at 20 °C was reduced by the same factor as n-decane viscosity when temperature increases
from 20 to 110 °C (Lee et al. 1965). The IFT was estimated from typical water-crude oil values (Buckley
& Fan 2007) and reduced with temperature using the variation of water-n-decane IFT with temperature
seen in Zeppieri et al. (2001). The dispersivity was based on Gelhar et al. (1992). WA agent properties
are based on sulfate concentrations and adsorption interactions in chalk compared with tracers (Zhang et
al. 2007; Megawati et al. 2013), see Figure 3. At high temperatures (130 °C) it has been observed that
exposure to seawater-like brines can lead to reactive and mineralogical alterations of chalk (Zhang et al
2007; Madland et al. 2011; Andersen et al. 2018c; Minde et al. 2018). It will however be assumed that
those processes do not significantly take place or affect the reservoir properties (permeability, porosity)
or cause wettability alteration, i.e. the surface mechanisms effectively described via sulfate adsorption are
assumed to be dominant. Further, viscous coupling which can induce different fluid mobilities depending
on co- or counter-current flow mode (Standnes & Andersen 2017; Qiao et al. 2018) is assumed to play a
negligible role.

Figure 2—Comparison of experimental data (dashed lines with markers) from Strand et al. (2008) and simulations (full lines)
after history matching. Core C#4 was first spontaneously imbibed (SI) with formation water (FW), followed by forced imbibition
(FI) with FW and then FI with seawater (SW). Core C#5 first underwent SI with FW, then SI with SW and finally FI with SW.
SPE-191974-MS 9

Table 1—Reference case input parameters based on experimental conditions

and matching data in Strand et al. (2008). The rate corresponds to 0.07 PV/d.

Figure 3—Adsorption isotherm a(c) and resulting wetting state interpolation function .

When modelling the all-sides-open SI tests the 1D model (8) was used with a closed inner boundary
representing the centre of the core and an open outer boundary exposed to fixed water saturation and WA
component concentration. uT=0 in such a setup and only capillary diffusion drives water-oil transport, which
is coupled to chemical wettability alteration. The characteristic length Lc by Shouxiang et al. (1997) was
used as system length to capture the geometry:

(34)

where Vb is the bulk volume, Ai is an open face and li is the distance from that face to the no-flow boundary.
The last equality is valid for a cylindrical core with diameter d and length L.
As seen in Figure 2 the different combinations of oil production are well captured by the model in terms of
time scale, magnitude of recovery and shape of the production profiles. In addition, the simulated pressure
drop (not shown) during the flooding (forced imbibition) was decreasing from 0.4 to 0.05 bar for C#4 and
from 0.16 to 0.02 bar for C#5. The range and trend is comparable to the reported values, although lower
simulated pressure drops were obtained than seen experimentally at late times.
Two sets of saturation functions were obtained from matching the experimental data, termed pow and
pww1, see Figure 4. The set pow reflects the initial state which is preferentially oil-wet and pww1 reflects a
more water-wet state, obtained at high concentrations. The matched J-functions obtained nonzero separation
between the saturation where Pc=0 and the residual oil saturation, indicative of mixed-wet state and the
more water-wet J-function had positive values over a greater part of the saturation interval (Anderson 1987a;
Skjæveland et al. 2000, Andersen et al. 2017b). The matched relative permeability functions followed the
trends suggested by Anderson (1987b) and McPhee et al. (2015) where a phase becoming more wetting
10 SPE-191974-MS

gets a reduced mobility. Note that the history matching in this work was manual and possibly there are
more optimal interpretations of the experimental data. The J-function of the pww1 set was comparable
in magnitude and residual saturation with the J-function obtained in Andersen et al. (2018a) matched to
spontaneous imbibition experiments on strongly water-wet Liege chalk, see Figure 4 (middle). It must
be noted that in addition to being different core material, those tests had zero initial saturation and were
performed at ambient conditions making direct comparison more challenging. The two sets pow and pww1
have different values of sor, i.e. a reduction of the residual saturation is induced in the model when seawater-
like concentrations of WA agent are injected: from 0.45 towards 0.35 at very high concentrations. For
comparison we also make a third set, pww2 with identical parameters as pww1 except that sor is the same
as for pow, namely 0.45. Hence, by definition of reducing sor the first set has smart water potential and the
other has not. Both values of sor are typical for strongly water-wet chalk (Viksund et al. 1998). The three sets
of functions can be seen in Figure 4 and their correlation input parameters are listed in Table 2. Further, the
interpolation between sets pow and pww1 and between pow and pww2 as function of brine concentration
is displayed in Figure 5.

Figure 4—Three sets of saturation functions: pow, pww1 and pww2. The first two were obtained by matching data from
Strand et al. (2008). pww2 is a modification of pww1 where the sor is set the same as for pow. J-functions (left) and relative
permeabilities (right). The pww1 J-function is comparable to strongly water-wet data from Andersen et al. (2018a), see middle.
SPE-191974-MS 11

Figure 5—Dependency of saturation functions due to WA concentration c and the interpolation function H. J-
function (left) and relative permeability (right) interpolation between saturation function sets pow and pww1
(top) and between pow and pww2 (bottom) for different concentrations (in mol/L), based on (18) and (19).

Table 2—Input parameters for the saturation function correlations (14) and (16) (relative
permeability and J-function), all dimensionless. Set pow and pww1 were based on matching
experimental data and pww2 is identical to pww1 except using the same value of sor as set pow.

The role of injection rate at fixed wetting state

In Figure 6 we consider injection of a brine without WA agent, i.e. no wettability alteration is assumed,
but rather the saturation functions associated with the pow state are applied during the entire process. This
would correspond to continuous injection of FW. The initial rate is PV/d (close to the reference value, see
Table 1), and the rate is then sequentially increased by a factor of 4 after 100 PVs have been injected. Five
rates are considered and 500 PVs are injected. This case is represented by the black graph in Figure 6 (left).
Initially, the average water saturation sw,avr increases rapidly with injected PVs, but since oil has low mobility
at high water saturations, sw,avr rises slowly after water breakthrough. Capillary forces resist oil production
by accumulation of oil at the outlet, see Figure 6 (middle), where the saturations converge to ~0.20 at the
outlet, the saturation corresponding to the zero capillary pressure boundary condition (22) at pow state, see
Figure 4. Increasing the rate reduces the amount of capillary trapped oil at the outlet and boosts the oil
production measured against PVs. Comparing with the case where the initial rate was held constant (green
curve, left in Figure 6) significantly higher amounts of oil are produced with the same injected volumes
12 SPE-191974-MS

just by using a higher rate. Accelerated oil production is initiated at 100, 200 and 300 PVs when the rate is
increased to 1/4, 1 and 4 PV/d, respectively, but the effect is less visible at 400 PV when the rate is increased
to 16 PV/d. By comparing with the case where the low initial rate of 1/16 PV/d was kept constant (green
curve) it is seen that ~2 saturation units are added by eliminating the end effects.
We also compare the behavior of the system to that if the capillary term is ignored (e.g. by setting ε=0 in
(31) and (32)). Both the 5 rate case and constant low rate case were considered. Interestingly, when capillary
forces are zero the two cases are identical, i.e. insensitive to the injection rate, see blue and red graphs in
Figure 6. That follows due to the scaled model (31) and (32) becoming dominated by terms where the rate
does not affect the behavior as also pointed out by Rapoport and Leas (1953). Further, the recovery process
occurs quicker for these cases since the oil is no longer resisted by capillary forces and no oil gets trapped
at the oulet, see Figure 6 (right). Regardless of the presence of the capillary pressure term, the recovery
process occurs slowly and estimating sor or a steady state average saturation is challenging. In absence of end
effects the pow parameters suggest that an average saturation of 0.55 would be obtained after infinite time.
Several works (Virnovsky et al. 1995; Gupta and Maloney 2016; Andersen et al. 2017a) have suggested
how to estimate the residual oil saturation based on measurements of the steady state established between
capillary and advective forces. Practically, it may be difficult to obtain such measurements as this example
demonstrated.

Figure 6—The role of injection rate for the pow case. Left: average saturation vs injected PVs. ‘5 rates’ indicates that an
initial rate of 1/16 PV/d was used, then the rate was increased by 4 every 100 PV injected. Note that both zero Pc cases
(blue and red curve) coincide. Middle and right: corresponding saturation distribution 50 (dashed lines) and 100 (full
lines) PVs after the indicated rate was initiated when capillary pressure effects were accounted for and not, respectively.

Due to practical time constraints it may not be possible to inject 100s of pore volumes. We therefore also
consider what happens if only 10 PVs are injected at each of the same rates as before, thus a total of 50
PVs are injected. The results are shown in Figure 7. The rate effects are visible and the released oil in the
range of 1-2 saturation units, similar to before.
SPE-191974-MS 13

Figure 7—The role of injection rate for the pow case. Left: average saturation vs injected PVs. ‘5 rates’ indicates that an
initial rate of 1/16 PV/d was used, then the rate was increased by 4 every 10 PV injected. Note that both zero Pc cases
(blue and red curve) coincide. Middle and right: corresponding saturation distribution 5 (dashed lines) and 10 (full lines)
PVs after the indicated rate was initiated when capillary pressure effects were accounted for and not, respectively.

Smart Water Injection with Fixed Rate and Fixed sor (Alteration from pow to pww2)
In the following example we consider injection of brines with WA agent in stepwise increasing
concentrations: 0, 0.012, 0.024 (seawater), 0.048 and 0.096 mol/L. The rate is held fixed at PV/d and 15
PVs (i.e. 240 d) of each concentration were injected before the concentration was increased. The wettability
is shifted between sets pow and pww2, i.e. the sor does not change from 0.45, giving a maximum water
saturation of 0.55. When injecting the WA agent, a higher concentration also quickly results in improved
oil recovery, see Figure 8 (left). Since the sor is constant this oil does not result from increased microscopic
efficiency. We see in Figure 5 that the saturation where capillary pressure is zero increases with WA agent
concentration. Thus, more of the capillary trapped oil at the outlet is released when the systems becomes
more water-wet, clearly seen in Figure 8 (middle). Although the strength of the end effects is similar, they
act on a smaller saturation interval and have less impact. Hence, a smart water that increases oil recovery
during spontaneous imbibition (due to increasing the water-wetness) can also induce an apparent smart
water effect during flooding that is really a capillary end effect.
The wettability alteration also induces boosts in oil recovery by increasing concentration when the
capillary pressure term is set to zero. This results from the shift towards higher oil mobility and lower water
mobility and more effectively displaces the mobile oil. Although the sor was not affected, such wettability
alteration changes can have strong benefits by lowering the economical remaining oil saturation. As the
system becomes more water-wet the results become more comparable when including or ignoring the
capillary forces, seen both in terms of average saturation vs time and saturation distributions along the core
in Figure 8 left, middle and right.
14 SPE-191974-MS

Figure 8—Injection at 1/16 PV/d where WA agent concentration initially is zero and then increased
to the indicated level (in mol/L) at every 15 injected PV. The wetting state is interpolated between
pow and pww2 such that sor is constant. Saturation distributions are shown 7.5 (dashed lines)
and 15 (full lines) PVs after the indicated WA agent concentration injection was initiated.

Smart Water Flooding with Fixed Rate and Reduced sor

Also in this example we consider injection of brines with WA agent in stepwise increasing concentrations:
0, 0.012, 0.024, 0.048 and 0.096 mol/L. The rate is held fixed at 0.25 PV/d and 12.5 PVs (i.e. 50 d) of each
concentration was injected before the concentration was increased. In this case, however, it is assumed the
wettability is shifted between sets pow and pww1, i.e. the sor is reduced by the WA agent from 0.45 towards
0.35 (for very high concentrations). As seen, in Figure 9 significant amounts of oil are produced compared
to the pow case when increasing the concentration. After 75 PV an additional ~15 saturation units of oil
are produced in comparison with the pow case. The difference between the cases including and ignoring
capillary forces is small since the incremental recovery is dominated by improving the mobility ratio and
lowering the sor. Hence, under the given conditions capillary end effects do not play a considerable role.

Figure 9—Injection at 1/16 PV/d where WA agent concentration initially is zero and then increased
to the indicated level (in mol/L) at every 15 injected PV. The wetting state is interpolated between
pow and pww1 such that sor is gradually reduced. Saturation distributions are shown 7.5 (dashed
lines) and 15 (full lines) PVs after the indicated WA agent concentration injection was initiated.
SPE-191974-MS 15

Smart Water Injection with Rate Adjustment and Reduced sor (pow to pww1)
In this example the brine concentration is increased in steps as before, however for a given concentration
the first 15 PV are injected at 1/16 PV/d and then followed by 5 PV at rate 1/4 PV/d to displace capillary
trapped oil at the outlet. For this case the production profiles become very similar, see Figure 10 (left). The
bump rate at the end significantly increases the saturation at the outlet as seen by comparing the saturation
profiles before (dashed lines) and after (solid lines) the bump rate.

Figure 10—Injection at 1/16 PV/d where WA agent concentration initially is zero and then increased to the indicated
level (in mol/L) for 20 PV. The last 5 PVs for each concentration are injected at 4 times higher rate (1/4 PV/d). The
wetting state is interpolated between pow and pww1 such that sor is gradually reduced. Saturation distributions are
shown 15 (dashed lines) and 20 (full lines) PVs after the indicated WA agent concentration injection was initiated.

High Permeable Lithologies

Several authors (Rapoport and Leas 1953; Andersen et al. 2017a) have indicated that capillary end effects
are more important in high permeable systems than low permeable ones such as chalk, with typical range
2-5 mD (Andersen et al. 2018c). Brine-dependent EOR has also been demonstrated in sandstones mainly
through low salinity water injection (Lager et al. 2008) which tend to have have lower porosity and much
higher permeability than chalk. Most reservoirs are believed to be mixed-wet as introduced by Salathiel
(1973), rather than strongly water-wet and their core samples could hence experience capillary end effects
during water flooding. The majority of carbonates are believed to be on the oil-wet or intermediate-wet
side (Treiber and Owens 1972; Chilingar and Yen 1983) and are 1-2 orders of magnitude more permeable
than chalk (Lucia 1995).
We now consider the outcome of conducting smart water flooding on a core with 25 % porosity and
permeability 1000 mD, typical of sandstone. All other parameters constant, this represents an increase of ε
by a factor of 30. In Figure 11 this is shown using a fixed pow wetting state while the rate is varied from 1/16
to 16 PV/d where 15 PVs are injected at each rate. A strong rate-dependent production is observed where,
at the lowest rate, as much as 15 to 20 saturation units differ between the solutions when capillary forces
are included or ignored, see Figure 11 left. Note also that at low saturations (and low rates) the recovery
stabilizes after few PVs since oil has high mobility and water the opposite. At higher saturations the trends
reverses. As the rate is increased the difference between the solutions is reduced, although even at 16 PV/
d there are ~2 saturation units difference at the end.
16 SPE-191974-MS

Figure 11—Variation of injection rate in a core with porosity ϕ=0.25 and permeability K=1000 mD at
fixed pow wetting state. The high permeability increases the importance of capillary end effects.

In Figure 12 WA agent is injected at increasing concentration (from 0 to 0.096 mol/L as before) every 15
PV at a fixed injection rate of 1/4 PV/d. The wetting state of the core interpolates between pow and pww2
(constant sor=0.45). It is seen that capillary forces trap significant amounts of oil at the outlet, which are
released when increasing the brine concentration. Although oil recovery increases greatly with concentration
there is no real reduction of the sor. By comparison with the case where capillary forces are ignored there
is an increased oil production due to the improved mobility ratio.

Figure 12—Injection of brine with WA agent in a core with porosity ϕ=0.25 and permeability
K=1000 mD. The concentrations were increased from 0 to 0.096 mol/L and the rate held
constant at 1/4 PV/d. The wetting state is interpolated between pow and pww2 (fixed sor=0.45).

In Figure 13 we show the same case as above, except for interpolating between wetting states pow and
pww1. First considering the behavior without capillary forces it is seen that the WA agent injection increases
the average saturation by ~0.06, 0.03, 0.03 and 0.02. In comparison, when accounting for the capillary
forces, the increase in water saturation is ~0.08, 0.04, 0.03 and 0.03. This difference results from the great
amounts of oil being released by capillary end effects. As seen in Figure 13 right, the water saturation at
the outlet increases when higher concentrations are injected. Also the inlet concentrations increase due to
the reduction of the sor and due to the reduction of end effects that extend over the entire core, especially
visible at low injected concentrations. In this case the amounts of oil released by end effects are comparable
SPE-191974-MS 17

or larger than the amounts released by reduced sor. In particular, continuation of the initial concentration
would stabilize at sw,avr≈0.45 meaning that 0.1 saturation units are trapped initially. The same number of
saturation units are released by reducing the sor from 0.45 to 0.35.

Figure 13—Injection of brine with WA agent in a core with porosity ϕ=0.25 and permeability K=1000
mD. The concentrations were increased from 0 to 0.096 mol/L and the rate held constant at 1/4 PV/
d. The wetting state is interpolated between pow and pww1 (sor reduced from 0.45 towards 0.35).

The Role of Relative Permeability

The previous examples have considered dynamic changes in both capillary pressure and relative
permeability when WA agent has been injected. To more systematically understand the role relative
permeability plays we here keep the relative permeability function parameters constant (except for possibly
changing the sor) and consider interpolation of the J-function between pow and pww1 or pww2 states. The
permeability, porosity and rate are kept at 1000 mD, 0.25 and 1/4 PV/d, respectively. We let the oil relative
permeability function be fixed using the same as for the pww state and consider three cases of the
water relative permeability function kept fixed at either low, medium or high magnitude as represented by
the Corey input parameters . The relevant parameters are listed in Table 3.

Table 3—Input parameters for relative permeability sensitivity analysis. The ‘Low krw’ water
parameter values and the oil parameter values correspond to the pww values in Table 2.

Looking at Figure 14 left we consider the case where the sor is held constant, and only the J-function
varies with concentration. If no capillary forces are considered the three cases of different water relative
permeability result in high and rapid oil recovery due the favorable mobility ratio selected in these examples.
When considering capillary forces it is seen that more oil is trapped when the water relative permeability is
high (as given by low Corey exponent and high end point). This is due to the lower viscous pressure drop
exerted onto the core at the given rate when the mobility is high. As a result the viscous forces become
smaller compared to the capillary forces. This is also reflected in the dimensionless number ε. By making
the core more water-wet by injecting WA agent a considerable amount of oil is produced, especially in the
18 SPE-191974-MS

system with high water relative permeability. Due to the favorable mobility ratio and that the saturations
do not approach very low oil mobilities the production stabilizes quickly. In the case where the residual
saturation is reduced, Figure 14 right, we see that as the water relative permeability goes down, the change
in production with brine gets dominated by the reduction of sor, although significant amounts of oil still are
trapped by capillary end effects.

Figure 14—Injection of brine with WA agent in a core with porosity ϕ=0.25 and permeability K=1000 mD.
The concentrations were increased from 0 to 0.096 mol/L and the rate held constant at 1/4 PV/d. Only
the J-functions and residual oil saturations are interpolated. The relative permeability functions are kept
the same during the cases, but the different cases use different water relative permeability funcitons.

Conclusions
1. Smart water brines that improve water-wetness can falsely indicate a smart water potential for
injection without really having lower residual oil saturation. This is especially the case at low injection
rate, high permeability and high water relative permeability systems.
2. Despite of this, a wettability alteration can also give more favorable mobility ratio for oil displacement
giving a lower economical remaining oil saturation.
3. During wettability alteration injection processes, any additionally produced oil can result from
reduced capillary end effects, altered mobility ratio or a lowered residual oil saturation.
4. Capillary end effects can be revealed even if the system has not reached state. Systems unaffected by
end effects showed no sensitivity in scaled variables (time in PVs), while improved oil production per
injected PV was seen when the rate was increased.

Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the Research Council of Norway and the industry partners, ConocoPhillips
Skandinavia AS, Aker BP ASA, Eni Norge AS, Total E&P Norge AS, Equinor ASA, Neptune Energy Norge
AS, Lundin Norway AS, Halliburton AS, Schlumberger Norge AS, Wintershall Norge AS, and DEA Norge
AS, of The National IOR Centre of Norway for support.
SPE-191974-MS 19

Nomenclature

Roman
a = Adsorbed concentration, mol/L
a1,a2 a3,k1,k2 = J-function parameters, -
amax = Maximum adsorption capacity, mol/L
c = Brine concentration, mol/L
d = Core diameter, m
D = Dispersivity coefficient, m2/s
fw = Water fractional flow function, -
H = Weighting function, -
J = Scaled capillary pressure, -
Jmax,Jmid,Jmin = Alternate J-function parameters, -
K = Absolute permeability, m2
kL = Langmuir shape parameter, -
kri = Relative permeability, -
= Maximum relative permeability, -
L = System length, m
ni = Corey exponent, -
pi = Phase pressure, Pa
Pc = Capillary pressure, Pa
si = Phase saturation, -
sir = Residual phase saturation, -
Sw = Normalized water saturation, -
ui = Darcy phase velocity, m/s
vi = Interstitial phase velocity, m/s

Greek
α = Dispersivity, m
δ = Dispersion number (dispersive to viscous forces), -
ε = Capillary number (capillary to viscous forces), -
θ = Contact angle, rad
λi = Phase mobility, 1 / (Pa s)
μi = Phase viscosity, Pa s
σ = Interfacial tension, N / m
τ = Tortuosity, -
ϕ = Porosity, -
Φ = Saturation function input parameters, -

Indices
c = Capillary
i = Phase
inj = Injected
o = Oil
T = Total
w = Water
20 SPE-191974-MS

Abbreviations:
CEE = Capillary end effects
FI = Forced imbibition
FW = Formation water
IFT = Interfacial tension
PV = Pore volume
pow = Preferentially oil-wet
pww = Preferentially water-wet
SI = Spontaneous imbibition
SW = Seawater
WA = Wettability alteration

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SPE-191974-MS 23

Appendix A
Correlation
The given parameter constraints (17) give the following relations between the input parameters of the J-
function:

(35)
24 SPE-191974-MS

Appendix B
Solution Procedure

Operator Splitting
The scaled system (without ‘ notation) is written as:

(36)

The preserved variables are M1=sw and M2=sw c+a(c). The system is solved using an operator splitting
approach following the same principles as given in Andersen et al. (2015). From time tn to tn+1 the following
steps take place:
1. Phase transport: At time tn; based on the distribution of sw (x,tn),c(x,tn), fluid mobilities and capillary
pressures are calculated as , . Bulk flow of oil
and water phases in terms of advection and capillary diffusion terms are calculated forward until the
new time tn+1 (dispersion and adsorption changes are ignored):

(37)

An explicit second order discretization is used. The preserved variables now have the distributions
and where ĉ denotes
that the new concentration is only based on phase transport processes in the brine.
2. Component dispersion: Given the water velocity profile vw(x) during the time interval, the dispersion
coefficient D(x) is calculated. Holding the saturations and adsorbed concentrations constant, the
concentrations are updated by solving the dispersion term only.

(38)

This system is solved implicitly. The new concentrations are denoted .

The preserved variables now have the values: and
.
3. Brine-surface equilibration: The distribution of WA agent between the brine and surface is
equilibrated by calculating the brine concentration c(x,tn+1) that both is in equilibrium with the surface,
i.e. a=a(c(x,tn+1)), and preserves M2 (x):
(39)
The procedure is then repeated until the total number of time steps have been implemented. We
refer to Andersen et al. (2015) for details on the discretization.