Abstract
Relative permeability data are essential for almost all calculations of fluid flow in petroleum engineering. Water/oil relative permeability curves play important roles in characterizing the simultaneous two-phase flow in porous rocks and predicting the performance of immiscible displacement processes in oil reservoirs. This paper presents new empirical equations for calculating water/oil imbibition relative permeability curves. The models of relative permeability were developed using experimental data from 46 displacement core tests from sandstone reservoirs of Saudi fields. Three empirical equations are presented to calculate oil relative permeability, water relative permeability, and the endpoint of the water relative permeability curve. The relative permeability models were derived as a function of rock and fluid properties using stepwise linear and nonlinear regression analyses. The new empirical equations were both evaluated using the data utilized in the development and validated using published data, which were not used in the development stage, against previously published equations. Statistical results show that the new empirical equations developed in this study are in better agreement with experimental data than previous empirical equations, for both the data used in the development and validation stages. The new empirical equations can be used to determine water/oil relative permeability curves for other fields provided the reservoir data fall within the range of this study.
