Canada contains vast reserves of heavy oil and bitumen. Viscosity determination is key to the successful recovery of this oil, and low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) shows great potential as a tool for estimating this property. An NMR viscosity correlation previously had been developed that is valid for order-of-magnitude estimates over a wide range of viscosities and temperatures. This correlation was built phenomenologically, using experiments relating NMR spectra to viscosity. The present work details a more thorough investigation into oil viscosity and NMR, thus providing a theoretical justification for the proposed correlation. A novel tuning procedure is also presented, whereby the correlation is fitted using the Arrhenius relationship to improve the NMR viscosity estimates for single oils at multiple temperatures. Tuning allows for NMR to be potentially used in observation wells to monitor thermal enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects or online to monitor the viscosity of produced-fluid streams as they cool.

Keywords:
relaxation, nmr, viscosity correlation, prediction, spe reservoir evaluation, experiment, well logging, bitumen, engineering, correlation
Subjects:
Fluid Characterization, Fluid modeling, equations of state, Formation Evaluation & Management, Improved and Enhanced Recovery, Oil sand, oil shale, bitumen, Oil sand/shale/bitumen, Open hole/cased hole log analysis, Reserves Evaluation, Reservoir Fluid Dynamics, Unconventional and Complex Reservoirs
Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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