Predicting the transport properties of sedimentary rocks from microstructure

Understanding transport properties of sedimentary rocks, including permeability, relative permeability, and electrical conductivity, is of great importance for petroleum engineering, waste isolation, environmental restoration, and other applications. These transport properties axe controlled to a great extent by the pore structure. How pore geometry, topology, and the physics and chemistry of mineral-fluid and fluid-fluid interactions affect the flow of fluids through consolidated/partially consolidated porous media are investigated analytically and experimentally. Hydraulic and electrical conductivity of sedimentary rocks are predicted from the microscopic geometry of the pore space. Cross-sectional areas and perimeters of individual pores are estimated from two-dimensional scanning electron microscope (SEM) photomicrographs of rock sections. Results, using Berea, Boise, Massilon, and Saint-Gilles sandstones show close agreement between the predicted and measured permeabilities. Good to fair agreement is found in the case of electrical conductivity. In particular, good agreement is found for a poorly cemented rock such as Saint-Gilles sandstone, whereas the agreement is not very good for well-cemented rocks. The possible reasons for this are investigated. The surface conductance contribution of clay minerals to the overall electrical conductivity is assessed. The effect of partial hydrocarbon saturation on overall rock conductivity, and on the Archie saturation exponent, is discussed. The region of validity of the well-known Kozeny-Carman permeability formulae for consolidated porous media and their relationship to the microscopic spatial variations of channel dimensions are established. It is found that the permeabilities predicted by the Kozeny-Carman equations are valid within a factor of three of the observed values methods