Presidency of ministers counsil
Ministry of higher education
Tishk international university
Faculty of engineering
Petroleum and mining department
Porosity
Experiment No.4
Prepared by:
Zakariya Nyaz Ahmed
Diyari Ahmed Mohammed
Supervised by Submit date: 4/3/2024
Mr.Nabaz Ali
Mr.Omer Azad
1
Introduction
The ability of reservoir rocks to hold or contain liquids is known as porosity. Water, oil, and gas
may be the fluids kept in the pore spaces of the reservoir rocks. While low porosity
measurements suggest the reverse, high porosity values show that the reservoir rocks have a
large capacity to hold these fluids. As a result, porosity measurements are frequently employed
in both qualitative and quantitative analyses to evaluate and approximate the possible volume of
hydrocarbons present in a reservoir.(Anon, 2010)
For the purpose of characterising the pore structures of a petroleum reservoir, porosity is still a
basic and important quantity. The basic reservoir geological units are defined as porosity and
permeability.(Suresh, 2021)
Types of porosity based on morphological views
I. Catenary or interconnected pores: These pores have several throats that are connected
to other pores, and it is often simple to extract hydrocarbons from them.
II. Cul-de-sac, connected, or dead end: One neck is connected to bother pores in this kind
of pore. As reservoir pressure decreases, some of the hydrocarbon may be released by
expansion.
III. Pore that is closed or isolated: This kind of pore is closed. It is incapable of connecting
to any other pores and lacks a throat. Hydrocarbons cannot be produced by it using the
regular technique.(Ishaq, 2022)
2
Theory
In relation to the overall volume of the reservoir rock material, porosity is the volume of spaces
that have the potential to hold gas, oil, and/or water. Note that not every fluid in a petroleum
reservoir that is part of a complicated porous system is hydraulically coupled. Because of this,
some of the fluids connected to these complex pore-networks stay isolated and immobile, while
the other mobile, active fluids continue to flow through the constantly connected pores in
accordance with their local gradients. (Suresh, 2021)
The porosity is commonly represented by the symbol φ and can be provided in two ways: as a
percentage ranging from 0% to 100% or as a fraction fluctuating between 0 and 1. "Porosity
units," which are equivalent to percent (i.e., 100 porosity units (pu) = 100%), are sometimes used
to express porosity. (Paul, 2024)
𝑉𝑝
∅= × 100
𝑉𝑏
𝑉𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑘 − 𝑉𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑥
∅= ∗ 100
𝑉 𝑏𝑢𝑙𝑘
3
Apparatus
Helium porosimeter (gas expansion)
Saturator
4
Calculation
A= 𝜋 × (1)2 = 3.14 𝑖𝑛𝑐ℎ
𝑀 𝐾𝑔 108.94 − 105.5
𝑃= ⁄ 3=𝑉= = 3.95 𝑐𝑐
𝑉 𝑀 0.87
𝑉𝑏 = 𝐴 × 𝐿 ≡ 3.14 × 3.5 = 10.99𝑐𝑐
𝐴 = 𝜋𝑟 2
𝑉𝑝 3.95
∅= × 100, , = × 100 = 35.9%
𝑉𝑏 10.99
5
Discussion and conclusion
This experiment has done to understand the concept of porosity and determine the porosity of a
prepared core plug sample.
One of the main and frequent rock properties is porosity that can mention the storage capacity of
a reservoir rock for holding fluids. The samples are often applied by a pressure which is as same
as the pressure of the reservoir to be safe but, in the other hand the time should be observed that
not taking too much so that, a very low viscosity fluid will be used such as helium gas and easily
occupying the pores. For total porosity, the direct method is used by crushing the rock and for
active porosity, the Imbibition method is used by saturating the sample with a known density,
and also porosity can be measured by gas expansion method but, the pressure will be controlled
because the gas is compressible. For achieving the maximum accuracy, the devices will be
accurate and make sure the sample is not damaged, and also the rock heterogeneity in mineral
composition and texture will affect the accuracy, also environmental factors such temperature
and pressure variations can affect the accuracy.
6
References
Anonymous.,2010, Porosity of Reservoir Rocks, online available at:
https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1626870
Ishaq.,2022, classification of porosity, online available at:
https://oilfieldbeginner.com/classification-of-porosity/?amp=1
Paul.G.,2024, Porosity, petrophysics MSc coarse note, online available at:
https://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~earpwjg/PG_EN/CD%20Contents/GGL-
66565%20Petrophysics%20English/Chapter%202.PDF
Suresh.K.G.,2021, Reservoir Porosity, online available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361275809_Reservoir_Porosity#:~:text=Porosity%20c
orresponds%20to%20the%20volume,are%20not%20necessarily%20hydraulically%20connected.
