Abstract

Waterflooding has become by far the most widely applied method for enhanced oil recovery, accounting for more than half of oil production worldwide. Changes in the wettability of a porous medium and the chemical composition of the wetting fluid result to changes in oil recovery. In recent time, pore-network modeling has been used increasingly to study the effect of wettability on waterflood oil recovery and multiphase flow properties in different types of petroleum reservoirs. Starting from single pore models of fluid arrangements, computations of relative permeability, interfacial area, mass dissolution rate and many other physical properties have been made. Using realistic representations of the pore spaces of various rock systems, it is now possible to predict many petro-physical properties that govern fluid flow and transport in petroleum reservoir rock systems. Such properties include porosity, permeability, waterflood relative permeability, capillary pressure, phase saturations, and fluid transfer coefficients. This review looks briefly into some of the successes made so far on pore network modeling, with an emphasis on models of wettability trends and oil recovery by waterflooding.

Key words: Wettability, pore scale modeling, petroleum reservoir, waterflooding, oil recovery.