R. Amin et Tn. Smith, MEASUREMENT OF INTERFACIAL-TENSION AND SPREADING COEFFICIENT UNDER RESERVOIR CONDITIONS - EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION, Colloids and surfaces. A, Physicochemical and engineering aspects, 137(1-3), 1998, pp. 35-43
The variation of interfacial tension with temperature and pressure inf
luences the transport of the fluid in a reservoir strongly. This makes
the interfacial tension probably the most important of the factors th
at make one-third of the total oil in place (in reservoir rock) unreco
verable by gas drive or water flooding. Several models and correlation
s were used to predict the measured data presented here. We have studi
ed the applicability of four of the most commonly used IFT-correlation
s, those of Katz et al. [AIME Technical Publications No. 1624, pp. 285
-294], Hough and Stegemeier [Soc. Pet. Eng. J. (1961) 259-263], Lee an
d Chien [SPE/DOE 12643, Fourth Symp. on EOR, Tulsa, OK], and Pedersen
et al. [Properties of oils and natural gases, Gulf Publishing Co., 198
9, pp. 196-207]. The experimental results from the three binary system
s as well as the recombined crude oil system have shown that the inter
facial tension in the high pressure region (below saturation pressure)
remains quite low despite large pressure decrements. This study was t
hen extended to include measurements of the equilibrium interfacial te
nsion for oil-brine, oil-gas and gas-brine at reservoir temperature an
d pressure over the range 250 to 3728 psia. The interfacial tensions w
ere used to evaluate the spreading coefficient as a function of pressu
re at reservoir temperature. The viscosity and density of the oil and
gas and brine phases were also measured over the same range of reservo
ir conditions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.