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Publications (120)
This study corrects the micro-continuum model to improve the accuracy of simulating porous media flows. The correction includes adding the second Brinkman term to the averaged momentum balance equation and discretizing the gradients of this term using the Gaussian scheme with a harmonic interpolation in the finite-volume method. The corrected micro...
Acquiring 3D μCT images with a resolution of up to 8 microns per voxel on core samples 1.5 inches in diameter has become a standard practice in rock characterization. This high-resolution enables the identification of macropores with radii exceeding 4 microns. Image segmentation, performed using either a manually defined threshold or automatic meth...
Heterogeneities within reservoir cores significantly influence fluid flow behavior, potentially causing premature rupture and distorting experimental outcomes. Neglecting to account for these heterogeneities when incorporating relative permeabilities into reservoir simulation models can render such models non-representative of real field conditions...
The use of computational reservoir simulation plays a key role in understanding fluid flow in geological formations, enabling the development of advanced models and accurate predictions. These simulations rely heavily on parametric constitutive relations to represent essential properties such as relative permeability (Krel), which is required for m...
Numerical simulation stands as a pivotal method within the petroleum industry, enabling the prediction of fluid flow in porous media. Its primary goal lies in analyzing behavior and forecasting oil production through fluid injection. However, the necessity for numerous simulations, each encompassing diverse multidimensional and compositional charac...
The discovery of large accumulations of hydrocarbons in the reservoir coquinas of the Pre-Salt section of the Santos Basin has created a demand for research focused on characterizing the petrophysical properties of these rocks. However, obtaining rock samples in the Pre-Salt involves considerable complexity and costly logistics. The coquinas of the...
Exploring pre-salt oil deposits poses a significant challenge for the oil and gas industry. Carbonate rock reservoirs, being more susceptible to diagenetic actions, exhibit considerable complexity due to the heterogeneity of the porous system, making exploration activities in this scenario challenging. Microscale analysis of fluid behavior in porou...
Model quality and computational resources must be carefully balanced in numerical simulations due to the high computational cost that three-dimensional models pose. This is inherently true in the oil and energy industry, where reservoir modelling and complex real experiments are required, in which inaccuracies have a direct impact on financial outc...
Relative permeability is a crucial parameter in reservoir characterization as it directly influences the behavior of the rock-fluid system and, consequently, oil production. However, estimating this parameter is difficult due to uncertainties that can originate from various sources, such as geological, parametrical modelling, computational, and so...
With a growing focus on environmentally friendly solutions, biosurfactants derived from plants or microorganisms have gained attention for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) applications. Biosurfactants offer several advantages over existing options, including biodegradability, low toxicity, availability of raw materials, resistance to harsh reservoir con...
Proper characterization of the unsaturated hydraulic properties in rocks is significant for predicting fluid flow in soil, hydrogeologic, and petroleum science and engineering problems. In this study, we contributed rigorous analysis of the unsaturated hydraulic properties of three reservoir rock samples (Berea Sandstone, Guelph Dolomite, and India...
Digital samples offer many opportunities to study subsurface fluid flow and contaminant transport processes. The pore size distribution of especially fine‐textured porous media often covers many orders of magnitude in the length scale, which makes accurate microCT scanning and modeling of the underlying processes difficult. When a single‐resolution...
Accurately estimating the petrophysical properties of heterogeneous carbonate rocks across various scales poses significant challenges, particularly within the context of water and hydrocarbon reservoir studies. Digital rock analysis techniques, such as X‐ray computed microtomography and synchrotron‐light‐based imaging, are increasingly employed to...
Biopolymers, serving as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) agents, are posing challenges and opportunities within the oil industry, particularly in demanding operational conditions. The assessment of trimethyl chitosan (TMC) and its hydrophobized derivative with myristoyl chloride (TMC‐C14) becomes crucial in these rigorous scenarios, presenting a signifi...
The biggest challenges for E&P activities are the high viscosity of the oil, the geology of the formation, the high interfacial tensions (IFT) between fluids and the reservoir wetting conditions. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are applied to modify fluid–fluid and fluid–rock interactions in the reservoir, facilitating the oil displacement and,...
Asphaltenes are the heaviest crude oil components and active agents on the oil–water interface. Understanding the key parameters related to interfaces phenomenon, such as the adsorption kinetics, allows for the more efficient development of new E&P technologies. Therefore, this work aimed to study fluid–fluid interactions between a Brazilian Pre-sa...
The biggest challenges for E&P activities are the high viscosity of the oil, the geology of the formation, the high interfacial tensions (IFT) between fluids and the reservoir wetting conditions. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods are applied to modify fluid-fluid and fluid-rock interactions in the reservoir, facilitating the oil displacement and,...
Trapped or residual air (or gas) is known to affect the multiphase hydraulic properties of both soils and rocks. Trapped air is known to impact many vadose zone hydrologic applications such as infiltration and flow in the capillary fringe, but is also a major issue affecting recoverable oil reserves. Although many studies have focused on the relati...
The performances of eight mixing rules for calculating the speed of sound are evaluated at oil reservoir conditions. Their accuracies are measured by comparing predicted values with experimental data of three different binary mixtures containing n-decane, C10, and two mixtures comprising dissolved carbon dioxide, CO2. Three mixing rules (Rao, Wada...
Fine aggregates matrices (FAMs) are considered an important constituent of asphalt mixtures, where a great deal of damage occurs. FAMs are composed by asphalt binder, fine aggregates, fillers, and air voids. Among the relevant parameters that should be considered in the FAM design, the air voids stand out. This paper characterizes the air void cont...
Because of their extreme heterogeneity at multiple scales, carbonate rocks present a great challenge for studying and managing oil reservoirs. Depositional processes and diagenetic alterations of carbonates may have produced very complex pore structures and, consequently, variable fluid storage and flow properties of hydrocarbon reservoirs. To unde...
CO2 injection is a well-known Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technique that has been used for years to improve oil extraction from carbonate rock and other oil reservoirs. Optimal functioning of CO2 injection requires a thorough understanding of how this method affects the petrophysical properties of the rocks. We evaluated pore-scale changes in these...
This study proposes a pore-network modeling algorithm to simulate single-phase reactive transport and mineral dissolution in porous media. A novel pore-merging approach is introduced to guarantee the conservation of the most critical variables during the merging process by using correction factors and effective properties for throat conductances an...
In this study, highly accurate measurements of density and dynamic viscosities of a recombined live oil and its mixture with additional CO 2 were performed. The experiments were carried out under pressure and temperature gradients found in Brazilian Pre-salt reservoirs, that is, in the pressure range from (27.6 to 68.9) MPa and at (333.15 and 353.1...
Density measurements of the n-heptane + n-dodecane binary mixture were performed with a vibrating tube densitometer in the temperature range of (293.15 to 363.15) K and pressure up to 70 MPa at six different n-heptane mole fractions: x 1 = 0, 0.1999, 0.3991, 0.5999, 0.7998, and 1. Densities of the CO 2 + n-heptane + n-dodecane ternary mixtures were...
Relative permeability curves obtained in laboratory are used in reservoir simulators to predict production and establish the best strategies for an oil field. Therefore, researchers study several procedures to obtain relative permeability curves. Among these procedures are the multiple flow rates injection methods. Thus, this work proposes to devel...
The unsaturated hydraulic properties provide important theoretical and practical information about fluid flow in soils and rocks for a range of soil, environmental and engineering applications. In this study we used the evaporation (HYPROP) and chilled-mirror dew point (WP4C) methods to estimate the water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conduct...
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![Effective porosity and absolute permeability for each plug [10].](profile/Horrara-Diogenes-2/publication/346529847/figure/tbl2/AS:966083376857090@1607343634476/Effective-porosity-and-absolute-permeability-for-each-plug-10_Q320.jpg)
This paper correlates data from NMR, MICP and micro-CT tests in order to characterize the pore body to pore throat ratios (BTR) for coquinas from Morro do Chaves Formation, in the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin. The comparison between MICP and micro-CT data yields the pore body to throat ratios, which are known to vary considerably in carbonates due to the...
The pore structure of many carbonate formations is known to be very complex and heterogeneous. Heterogeneity is manifested by the presence of different types, sizes, and shapes of pores resulting from sedimentation and diagenetic actions. These complexities greatly increase uncertainties in estimated rock hydraulic properties in that different perm...
Carbon capture and storage is key for sustainable economic growth. CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are efficient practices to reduce emissions while increasing oil production. Although it has been successfully implemented in carbonate reservoirs, its effect on wettability and multiphase flow is still a matter of research. This work investig...
A pore-network modeling approach is proposed to understand mineral dissolution regimes during reactive transport, as well as changes in porosity and permeability. The transport problem is implemented with full consideration of the mass balance of the solute in all pore spaces, including pore-bodies and throats. The changes in geometry of the pore n...
Interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and brine is key to determine the Capillary Number, which governs capillary forces in the porous medium. As a result, changes in IFT affect the displacement efficiency and the residual oil saturation having direct impact on the Recovery Factor. Fluids in Pre-salt fields (offshore Brazil) have particular charact...
Petrophysical properties of rocks at reservoir scales are of great importance to the oil and gas industry, particularly for exploration, production and recovery purposes. However, running field-scale tests are expensive and time-consuming. Accordingly, the continuum scale is frequently used to represent the heterogeneous structure of rocks. This st...
Carbonate rocks host several large water and hydrocarbon reservoirs worldwide, some of them highly heterogeneous involving complex pore systems. Pre-salt reservoirs in the Santos Basin off the south-east coast of Brazil, are an example of such rocks, with much attention focused on proper characterization of their petrophysical and multiphase flow p...
In order to increase oil recovery from a reservoir, it is important to analyse adequate petrophysical description of rocks at different scales and perspectives. As large-scale tests demand time and are highly costly, being able to mimic field properties from laboratory measurements has shown to be a promising and feasible alternative in terms of re...
Wettability is an important property in reservoir characterization. For the heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs in the Brazilian Pre-Salt, parameters that represent wettability are needed to obtain improved reservoir models. In this work, we applied contact angle measurements to analyze rock-fluid interactions between synthetic brine, crude oil from...
Interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and brine plays a key role in determining the capillary forces in the porous medium. When studying Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods, it is of great relevance to characterize the IFT. In the case of Pre-Salt reservoirs, CO2 and water alternated with gas injections are being considered as EOR techniques. For p...
Due to the chemically active nature of carbonates rocks they are highly susceptible to the phenomenon of rock dissolution, a diagenetic process by which minerals are dissolved and removed by the fluid that fills the porous space creating and modifying the porous medium. This phenomenon might occur in small and medium proportions generating the so-c...
The reliable prediction of reservoir performance requires the cost effective implementation of oil recovery systems, and it is necessary to simulate the fluid flow processes in the reservoir and to measure the rock and fluid properties that determine reservoir behaviour. However, a good prediction relies on accurate values of reservoir physical pro...
Brazilian Pre-Salt carbonate reservoirs are natural candidates for Enhanced Oil Recovery combined with Carbon Capture and Storage due to their high CO2 production. However, the effect of CO2 on rock wettability still needs to be investigated to build representative reservoir models to predict the ultimate oil recovery. This work applied contact ang...
Accurate determination of rock types is essential for the characterization of a reservoir. Rock typing can be an arduous task due to high variation in the pore geometry and a lack of correlation between pore body and pore throat sizes, among other factors. In this work, rock types were determined from permeability bands in coquinas of the Morro do...
Characterization of carbonate rocks presents several challenges regarding the acquisition of petrophysical parameters and the understanding of fluid-flow dynamics in their pore system. To face these challenges, techniques such as X-ray microtomography, three-dimensional digital model reconstruction and fluid-flow numerical simulations have been con...
This research is part of a project developed to study the applicability and efficiency of surfactants on Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), in order to maximize oil production on carbonate reservoirs from Pre-Salt fields. The application of EOR methods has great importance on improving the Recovery Factor in these types of reservoir, which are naturally...
Several Pre-Salt reservoirs in offshore Brazil are characterized by high contents of CO2 in the produced gas. As a result, CO2 injection for EOR and storage is required to avoid environmental impacts. Since there is no data available describing the physical properties of the Pre-Salt reservoir fluids, there is no method to estimate the impact of CO...
Wettability is a fundamental property of oil reservoirs that defines the fluid's distribution in the porous medium. Therefore, assessing the wettability is required to model the reservoirs and simulate the flow of fluids across the pore volume. Nevertheless, wettability involves complex physical phenomena including intermolecular and surface forces...
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a recognized petrophysical tool in the oil and gas industry to characterize reservoir rocks and fluids. In this study, the pore system of coquinas from a single bed of a quarry in the Morro do Chaves Formation was evaluated. These sedimentary rocks have been considered as a potential analogous to some Brazilian p...
Apresenta-se, neste artigo, um estudo sobre a dinâmica do escoamento de fluidos em meios altamente porosos e com baixos números de Reynolds. A validade da equação de Darcy é questionável para estes meios, enquanto a equação de Brinkman, ainda pouco utilizada para escoamento de hidrocarbonetos, é proposta como uma alternativa.Neste trabalho se desen...
Corresponding Author Brazilian Pre-Salt carbonates have been the most significant discoveries over the last decade. According to Brazilian National Petroleum Agency (ANP) in Lula field alone, the recoverable reserves are over 6.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent. To maximize production and enhance recovery factor, reservoir wettability must be kno...
Contact angle measurement is a standard method to investigate isolated effects of parameters on rock wettability. One potential pitfall of the technique lies in the rock sample preparation: in order to restore rock wettability the mineral or rock sample is first aged in formation brine (FB) and then in crude oil at reservoir temperature. Before res...
Corresponding Author Brazilian Pre-Salt carbonates have been the most significant discoveries over the last decade. According to Brazilian National Petroleum Agency (ANP) in Lula field alone, the recoverable reserves are over 6.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent. To maximize production and enhance recovery factor, reservoir wettability must be kno...
The closed-loop field development (CLFD) under geological uncertainties is a general methodology that aims to optimize an objective function by successively adjust the development plan (DP) of an oil field as new information is made available by drilling and production of new wells. In this work, we propose a CLFD procedure and demonstrate its feas...
There is an intensive investigation reported in the literature regarding the development of robust methods to improve the economical performance during the production management of petroleum fields. One paradigm that emerged in the last decade and has been calling the attention of various research groups is known as closed-loop reservoir management...
Pre-salt carbonate reservoirs are known by their huge heterogeneity and their porous system present a challenge regarding reservoir characterization, petrophysical parameters analysis and full understanding of fluid flow dynamics. Besides that, the cost of obtaining rock samples from the reservoir and the destructive nature of most experimental tes...
![Temperature at x=xp\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath}...](publication/311341370/figure/fig4/AS:962190576218132@1606415518642/Temperature-at-xxpdocumentclass12ptminimal-usepackageamsmath_Q320.jpg)
Monitoring of downhole flowing temperatures in oil wells is gaining attention in the recent years due to the possibility of exploring these data for reservoir characterization and determination of inflow profiles along the well completions, leading to an increased interest in the development of solutions for the equations governing the thermal beha...
Due to the difficulty on accurately measuring reservoir rock/fluid properties, inverse techniques have been used for obtaining more reliable predictions of the fluid displacement. The achievement of more accurate estimations of Relative Permeability (kr) and Capillary Pressure (Pc), allows the numerical simulation of reservoir conditions. However,...
The architecture and geometry of voids in a porous medium and its complementary grain matrix determine several petrophysical parameters of the rock. Thus, it is important to study the microscopic structure of the reservoir pores and understand the Physics involved in the displacement of fluid through them. Traditionally, the petrophysical parameter...
Pre-Salt carbonates are the greatest oil reserves discovered in the last decades and are expected to play a major role in the Oil and Gas Industry due to their volume and quality of the oil. It accounts for more than 20% of the oil production in Brazil, and it is expected to become more important in the future. However, carbonates reservoirs with h...
![Transient pressure behavior at x=xp\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}...](publication/303635394/figure/fig2/AS:962190223896576@1606415434004/Transient-pressure-behavior-at-xxpdocumentclass12ptminimal-usepackageamsmath_Q320.jpg)
Solutions of the hydraulic diffusivity equation are of utmost importance for many reservoir engineering problems. Despite all the efforts, there is still a need for the development of rigorous and comprehensive solutions for transient flow problems in heterogeneous oil reservoirs. This study demonstrates the use of an integral transform approach to...
Many methods are used to group and classify rocks, most of them designed to be applied to all petrophysical properties, in general. Some authors, however, point out that these generic classifications may not be able to capture the complexity of the relative permeability property, resulting in highly spread relative permeability groups. These author...
Pre-salt carbonate reservoirs represent a great opportunity for the Brazilian technological development and for national and international companies that are involved in oil industry. This giant discovery consists of heterogeneous carbonate rocks found underneath a layer of salt with variable thickness (around 2.000 meters) and spread over very lar...
After the progressive advancement of the drilling technologies, such as mud motors and afterward rotary steerable systems, the successful execution of high angle wells became a common practice in the oil industry. Although the associtated costs have much superior magnitude when compared to the ones related to vertical wells, the production factor i...
With the advent of rotary steerable systems, successful drilling of horizontal wells became a reality in the oilfield. Even though the costs are much higher than for a vertical well, the production factor can be enhanced multiple times, making it very attractive. However, the drilling of horizontal wells is extremely difficult, mainly due to latera...
The successful drilling of horizontal wells is extremely difficult, mainly due to lithological discontinuities and seismic uncertainties. To overcome such challenge, Well Placement technique is used to interactively position the well based on geological and seismic criteria together with LWD measurements. While covering drilling, geology and geophy...
Analytical solutions for the Hydraulic Diffusivity Equation (HDE) are of great importance in reservoir engineering problems. As a common practice, they are used for numerical code validation, providing benchmark results for many situations. While numerical solutions are progressive in time and discrete in space, analytical solutions are direct and...
Rock classification is an important task to reservoir characterization and simulation. There are many methods used in the petroleum industry to classify rocks within groups, most of them designed to be applied generically to all petrophysical properties. Some authors, however, point out that these generic classifications may not be able to capture...
This paper discusses the impacts that rock wettability may have upon the production and recovery of oil with waterflooding in carbonate reservoirs and how it should be modeled. A broad review of the state of the art has been conducted surveying existing disagreements and knowledge gaps, basic definitions, as well as the correct understanding of the...
A general analytical solution for the multidimensional transient linear hydraulic diffusivity equation is presented and its application is discussed in this work. The analytical solution is valid for heterogeneous and anisotropic porous media in any orthogonal coordinate system within a regular boundary domain. A source term, dependent on position...
