Effect of Viscosity Ratio of Injection Fluid and Reservoir Fluid on Prediction of Breakthrough Time Using Percolation Concepts

Estimation of the breakthrough time of injected fluid in water injection process is useful for process design and injection pattern during reservoir development. Conventional approach to this is to use reservoir simulation. An alternative is to use percolation theory approach. However, some of the assumptions used in developing the scaling function of breakthrough time such as similarity of viscosity of both injection and production fluids limits its applications to field scale. In this study, we use the dimensionless time approach for breakthrough which is based on a characteristic time. By using various reservoir simulation cases the effect of fluids viscosities was studied. The results showed that the suitable characteristic time for scaling of breakthrough time depends on both NTG and viscosity ratio of phases in a power law form with exponent of 1.3.