Effect of Temperature on Two-Phase Relative Permeabilities of Heavy Oil, Water, Carbon Dioxide, and Methane Determined by Displacement Technique

Two coreflood setups were used to measure heavy oil–water, heavy oil–carbon dioxide, and heavy oil–methane relative permeabilities. Using fractional effluents measured with precision meters and differential pressure data records, the Johnson–Bossler–Naumann technique was applied to calculate two-phase relative permeability in a consolidated sandstone core. In order to investigate the effect of temperature on the shape of relative permeability curves, a series of coreflood tests was conducted at three different temperatures (28, 40, and 52 °C) for each fluid pair. Analysis of the data obtained for the heavy oil–water system showed a linear increase of about 65% and 50% in water relative permeabilities when temperature ranged from 28 to 40 °C and 40 to 52 °C, respectively. However, although the oil relative permeability curve showed an increase of about 70% when temperature increased from 28 to 40 °C, it was dramatically decreased by about 30% when temperature was increased from 40 to 52 °C. In the case of heavy oil–gas a different effect was observed for methane and carbon dioxide. Although both methane and carbon dioxide relative permeabilities increased nonlinearly at higher temperatures, oil relative permeability in the presence of carbon dioxide decreased when temperature increased. In contrast, in the presence of methane, oil relative permeability experienced a reduction of 80% from 28 to 40 °C followed by a considerable increase of 15-fold from 40 to 52 °C.