Brine versus Klinkenberg corrected gas permeability correlation for Shuaiba carbonate formation

Reservoir studies that are based on simulation techniques require data of absolute liquid permeability for static initialization of the dynamic model. Standard industry practice for determining permeability is to perform single point gas permeability measurements and use assumptions or correlations to get Klinkenberg-corrected gas permeability to be used in the dynamic model as the value for absolute liquid permeability or use values of liquid permeability based on a limited number of measured brine permeability. Corrected gas permeability is always higher than the absolute liquid permeability. A series of brine permeability measurements has been carried out on core samples from the Shuaiba formation with the objective of establishing a correlation between these data and previously measured Klinkenberg-corrected gas permeability data on the same core samples. This correlation is potentially useful for converting Klinkenberg-corrected gas permeability data from the Shuaiba formation to liquid permeability for input to the dynamic model.

► New correlation for evaluating KL from Klinkenberg-corrected K. ► Correlation has been validated. ► Stress effect on liquid permeability.