Analytical pore network approach (apna) for rapid estimation of capillary pressure behaviour in rock samples

Capillary pressure measurements are an integral part of special core analysis (SCAL) to which oil and gas industry greatly rely on. Reservoir engineers implement these macroscopic properties in simulators to determine the amount of hydrocarbons as well as the flowing capacity of fluids in the reservoir. Despite their importance, conventional laboratory techniques used to measure capillary pressure curves of core samples are expensive, tedious, time-consuming and prone to error. Motivated by the importance of capillary pressure measurements in oil and gas industry, here we propose a novel methodology called Analytical Pore Network Approach (APNA) that can provide a reliable forecast of capillary pressure using pore-scale 3D images of reservoir rocks. The proposed approach provides oil and gas companies inexpensive, fast and accurate estimation of capillary pressure data, and reduces the number of required laboratory experiments and facilitates the estimation of such properties from uncored sections of the reservoir (i.e. using drill cuttings).