Induced polarization effect in reservoir rocks and its modeling based on generalized effective-medium theory

One of the major tasks of the petroleum resource-efficient technologies (pREFFIT) is the development and improvement of the methods of exploration for energy resources. This review paper summarizes the results of the research on induced polarization (IP) effect in reservoir rocks conducted by the University of Utah Consortium for Electromagnetic Modeling and Inversion (CEMI) and TechnoImaging. The electrical IP effect in hydrocarbon (HC) bearing reservoir rocks having nonmetallic minerals is usually associated with membrane polarization, which is caused by a variation in the mobility of the ions throughout the rock structure. This mobility is related to the size and shape of the pores filled with electrolyte and the double electrical layers. We have studied the IP response of multiphase porous systems by conducting complex resistivity (CR) frequency-domain IP measurements for two different groups of samples: sands and sandstones containing salt water in pores and those whose unsaturated pores were filled with synthetic oil. We have also studied selected carbonate reservoir formations, typical of some major HC deposits. The generalized effective-medium theory of induced polarization (GEMTIP) was used to analyze the IP parameters of the measured responses. This paper presents a conceptual model of polarizing clusters to explain the observed IP phenomena. The results of this study show that the HC bearing sands and sandstone samples and carbonate rocks are characterized by a significant IP response. These experimental observations, compared with the theoretical modeling based on the GEMTIP approach, confirm earlier geophysical experiments with the application of the IP method for HC exploration.