1
SPE 102138
Dependence on Temperature, Pressure, and Salinity of the IFT and Relative
Permeability Displacement Characteristics of CO2 Injected in Deep Saline Aquifers
D.B. Bennion, Hycal Energy Research Laboratories Ltd., and S. Bachu, Alberta Energy and Utilities Board
Copyright 2006, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2006 SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition held in San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A., 24–27 September 2006.
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Abstract
Sequestration of CO2 in deep saline aquifers is a means with
great potential for reducing emissions of this greenhouse gas
produced from a wide range of industrial operations. The
displacement characteristics of CO2 injected into deep saline
aquifers are essential in that they control both the migration of
CO2 and the available pore space in the reservoir at irreducible
saturation conditions, yet very little information exists about
these characteristics. This paper presents continuing results of
a research study conducted by the authors to investigate the
displacement characteristics of CO2-brine systems at reservoir
conditions for cases specific to the Alberta basin and
representative for intracratonic and foreland basins in North
America. More specifically, the work reported here focuses
on a controlled series of tests in which the effects of
temperature, pressure and brine salinity were varied in a
systematic manner to identify and quantify their effect on the
interfacial tension between CO2 and equilibrium brine. The
results indicate that the CO2-brine IFT decreases with
increasing pressure, while increasing temperature and brine
salinity have an opposite effect. These results were then
extended under similar controlled conditions to consolidated
porous media to investigate the effect of interfacial tension, as
impacted by specific reservoir conditions of temperature,
pressure and salinity, on the relative permeability character of
CO2 displacing brine for a number of different interfacial
tension conditions. The results are presented, and the
significance with respect to the feasibility and optimization of
CO2 sequestration in deep saline aquifers is discussed.
Introduction
Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as
carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) have increased since
the beginning of the industrial revolution in the mid 19th
century, and evidence supports the supposition that these
increasing concentrations are affecting the Earth’s climate1.
This increase is due to deforestation, agricultural practices and
mainly to the use of fossil fuels for power generation and
transportation. The high use of fossil fuels will continue this
century2, 3, thus, a major challenge in mitigating climate
change effects is the reduction of CO2 emissions to the
atmosphere. Among various mitigation measures, CO2
capture and geological storage (CCGS) will play an important
role in reducing CO2 atmospheric emissions3-5. The
technology for the injection of CO2 into deep underground
formations is well developed and currently practiced mainly
by the energy and petrochemical industries for enhanced oil
recovery (EOR)6 and acid gas (CO2 and H2S) disposal7.
Carbon dioxide can also be sequestered in various geological
media, of which deep saline aquifers have the largest storage
capacity and widest distribution, but oil reservoirs are the most
likely to be used preferentially initially because of the positive
economic potential for increased oil production through CO2
or acid gas based EOR4,6schemes. In both cases, the basic
phenomenon is the displacement of a fluid (water and/or oil)
by CO2 during injection and the displacement of CO2 by either
water or oil after cessation of injection by influx of fluids from
adjacent aquifers or hydrocarbon sources. In the case of CO2
being displaced, a significant amount of CO2 may be stored in
the pore space8once the mobile oil/water phase has been
displaced to its irreducible saturation. Even in oil and gas
producing regions, such as Alberta in Canada and Texas in the
U.S.A., it may be more economic in some cases to inject CO2
into a deep saline aquifer that underlies a major CO2 source
than to transport it to oil and/or gas reservoirs some distance
away, particularly if these are still producing and not available
or suited for CO2 storage or injection.
The processes of CO2 injection and migration within the
storage unit, and the sequestration of CO2 in the pore space all
depend on the relative permeability of CO2 and formation
water systems and on the CO2-brine capillary pressure
character. Furthermore, numerical models for predicting the
fate of the injected CO2 also need information about these two
important parameters. However, because CO2 storage in
geological media, particularly in deep saline aquifers, is a
recently emerging field, up to 2005 no relevant data have been
published regarding the relative permeability and capillary
pressure of CO2-brine systems at in-situ conditions
2 SPE 102138
characteristic of deep saline aquifers. Seeking to cover this
gap in knowledge, the authors commenced in 2004 a series of
tests on core plugs taken from several sandstone, carbonate
and shale formations in the Wabamun Lake area southwest of
Edmonton in Alberta in western Canada. The results have
been presented in a series of SPE papers9-11. The interfacial
tension (IFT) and relative permeability measurements were
performed at the specific in-situ conditions of pressure,
temperature and water salinity characteristics of each rock
sample. The pressure, temperature and water salinity vary
between the various tests in an unstructured way, ranging from
8.6 MPa to 27 MPa for pressure, 35°C to 75°C for
temperature, and ~28,000 ppm to 248,000 ppm for salinity,
according to the in-situ conditions of the strata where the core
samples which were tested originated from. The measured
IFT varied between 27 mN/m and 49 mN/m for these
conditions. The results indicate a dependency of capillary
pressure on pore size distribution and of IFT on pressure,
which was expected, but also on temperature and salinity10.
Also, a weak dependency of endpoint relative permeability
and of maximum CO2 saturation on IFT was also observed.
Because of the unstructured variability in pressure,
temperature and salinity conditions, it was difficult to identify
and quantify the IFT dependency on these parameters, and of
displacement characteristics on IFT. To verify the emerging
pattern, a series of controlled tests was performed in which the
effects of temperature, pressure and brine salinity were varied
in a systematic manner to identify and quantify their effect on
the interfacial tension between CO2 and equilibrium brine,
with the results being reported elsewhere12. These results,
which confirmed the IFT dependency on pressure, temperature
and salinity, were then extended under similar controlled
conditions to consolidated porous media to investigate the
effect of interfacial tension, as impacted by specific reservoir
conditions, on the relative permeability character of CO2
displacing brine, and the results are presented in this paper.
Core plugs from the sandstone Cardium Formation in the
Pembina area were used in the analysis of the effect of IFT on
relative permeability. This oil field is located in west-central
Alberta, southwest of Edmonton and of Wabamun Lake, the
area from which the rock samples used in the previous work
originate (Figure 1). This formation was selected for several
reasons. First, it augments the data base of rock properties,
IFT and relative permeability measurements generated
through this research program, all the other previous analyses
and tests being performed on core samples from underlying
formations. Second, the Cardium Formation is water, oil and
gas saturated, depending on location13, and it contains the
Pembina oil field which is the largest oil field in Canada.
Currently water injection is used in various parts of this giant
oil field, but now there is growing interest in the oil and gas
industry to use CO2 from industrial sources for CO2-EOR
tertiary recovery, and a pilot operation is currently being
conducted in the area using CO2 brought in from a local gas
plant.
The Cardium Formation is one of several thin, isolated,
interbedded progradational packages of sandstones and
conglomerates of various extent embedded in a thick wedge of
marine shales deposited in the Cretaceous during a lull in
tectonic activity between the Columbian and Laramide
orogenies in what was then the Western Interior Seaway that
extended all the way from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico14.
Carbon dioxide from refineries and petro-chemical industries
in Fort Saskatchewan area northeast of Edmonton, and/or from
power plants in the Wabamun Lake area southwest of
Edmonton will likely be used for large-scale implementation
of CO2-EOR in the Pembina oil field and possibly for storage
outside the field itself in the water-saturated portions of this
sandstone formation.
Results and Discussion
The specific details of the equipment and procedures used to
conduct the relative permeability and IFT measurements have
been presented by the authors in previous papers9,10 and will
not be repeated here. Core samples from the Cardium
sandstone were taken from Pembina area well 02/7-11-48-
9W5M. The relative permeability measurements for various
IFT levels were conducted on the same core plug to eliminate
possible effects of various pore distributions and rock
characteristics on relative permeability and irreducible
saturations. A number of different core samples with various
permeability and porosity distributions were subjected to
mercury injection capillary pressure testing to select a sample
that had a fairly wide distribution of pore throat sizes, as
opposed to “spike” type, narrow distribution. It was thought
that media with this type of pore distribution character would
be a better candidate for illustrating the effect of interfacial
tension on pore system accessibility and, hence, changes in
residual saturations and relative permeability with variations
in IFT. The characteristics and in-situ conditions of the core
plug used in this work are presented in Table 1. Results
specific to the work presented here include pore size
distribution, capillary pressure and relative permeability
measurements for three different IFT conditions. Given the
IFT dependence on pressure, temperature and salinity12, the
variation in IFT was obtained by maintaining temperature and
salinity constant at in-situ conditions typical of the Pembina
Cardium reservoir (43°C and 27,096 mg/l, respectively) and
varying only the pressure to obtain a range of water-CO2
interfacial tensions. This allowed maintaining the majority of
the parameters used in the test, such as temperature, flow rate
and fluid composition, as constants between the various
experiments. However, the viscosity ratio varied between the
tests due to the fact that increases in pressure increase the
viscosity of CO2, with little effect on the viscosity of the brine.
This was unavoidable, as no other method of varying the IFT
was practical which would not have created similar changes in
the viscosity of either the brine or the CO2 phase (e.g., altering
temperature or water salinity).
The relative permeability measurements were performed at
operating pressures of 1,378 (200 psig) kPa, 6,890 kPa (1,000
psig) and 20,000 kPa (2900 psig) respectively. The
corresponding IFT values for the Cardium brine-CO2 system
for a complete range of pressures that span the operating
conditions used in this study are contained in Table 2. The IFT
values for the relevant pressure points are given in Table 1.
SPE 102138
Figure 2 shows a plot of the pore size distribution of the
Cardium Formation core sample used in the test program. The
sample exhibits a relatively wide, unimodal type size
distribution as desired. Figure 3 provides the CO2-brine
capillary pressure curves for the test sample, corrected to
reservoir conditions, for the various IFT that correspond to the
three pressure levels chosen in the study. As expected the
lower IFT levels have a proportional reducing effect on the
capillary pressure values. Table 2 provides a summary of the
endpoint permeability, relative permeability and saturation
data for the three different IFT level tests. Table 3 provides the
primary drainage and secondary imbibition relative
permeability data for the three IFT levels and these data have
been plotted in Figure 4 for the 55.4, 33.5 and 19.8 mN/m IFT
tests that correspond to increasing pressures of 1,378 kPa,
6,890 kPa and 20,000 kPa at in-situ conditions of temperature
and water salinity. Figure 5 shows the comparative plots of the
primary drainage and imbibition relative permeability curves
as a function of IFT for the three displacements.
Examination of the data, particularly in Figure 5, indicates the
following trends:
1. It can be clearly observed that the endpoint relative
permeability to CO2 increases as IFT decreases, in this
case as a result of pressure increase.
2. Similarly, the maximum endpoint CO2 saturation increases
as IFT decreases.
3. The value of the trapped gas saturation on secondary
imbibition decreases as IFT decreases with increasing
pressure, although there appears to be a limiting value as
little reduction in trapped gas saturation was observed
between the 33.5 mN/m (6,890 kPa) and 19.8 mN/m
(20,000 kPa) IFT levels.
4. The relative permeability curves for both CO2 and brine
display classical hysteresis behavior by which, for each
phase, relative permeability is higher when fluid saturation
increases than when it decreases. However, contrary to
expectations, the wetting phase (brine) has a more
pronounced hysteresis effect than the non-wetting phase
(CO2).
5. Multiphase interference effects, as indicated by the
curvature of the relative permeability curves, are reduced
(the curves in general became more linear) as IFT
decreases.
In general the results are classic of what would be expected as
a function of reducing IFT in a gas-oil system. The immediate
conclusion would of course be that IFT has a strong effect on
relative permeability for CO2-brine systems, which we believe
is the case; however, the effect of variable viscosity ratio
between the various tests must also be considered. It is
interesting to plot both endpoint relative permeability to water
and maximum CO2 saturation on primary drainage as a
function of both IFT and viscosity ratio (Figure 6).
Examination of these data indicates virtually identical trends
with both variables. This is because the relative decrease in
the brine-to-CO2 viscosity ratio, caused by the increase in CO2
viscosity due to pressure increase, is of a similar magnitude to
the decrease in IFT. Furthermore, both IFT and viscosity ratio
3
have similar dependencies on pressure, temperature and water
salinity, so, regardless of which one of these three primary
parameters is used, the results will indicate the same trends
with no possibility of discerning which is the dominant
variable on displacement characteristics, viscosity contrast or
IFT. It is likely that both play a role, and, of course, in a
reservoir situation it is impossible to decouple the natural
variation of viscosity from changes in IFT, but is interesting to
compare the Krg values and trapped gas saturation values
generated as a function of secondary imbibition versus those
obtained in primary drainage.
In the primary drainage process we see very consistent
reductions in irreducible water saturation and increases in Krg
as the IFT is reduced. This process has a very unfavorable
mobility ratio, with the low viscosity CO2 displacing the much
more viscous brine. This being the case, at relatively constant
displacement pressure levels as used in this work, one would
expect that, if viscous effects were dominating, relatively little
reduction in irreducible water saturation would be present
(which is not the case). If we then examine the secondary
imbibition process, which has a very favorable viscosity ratio
in contrast to the primary drainage process, we see relatively
little change in trapped gas saturation and endpoint gas
permeability at lower IFT levels. Since this displacement has
a vastly superior viscosity ratio to the primary drainage tests,
we would expect that, as the viscosity ratio continues to
improve at higher pressures, additional reductions in trapped
gas saturation and increases in endpoint relative permeability
to brine would occur. Once again, if IFT dominates, these
effects would be less pronounced, which is rather the case.
Thus, the comparison suggests that IFT likely plays a more
significant role in the changes in relative permeability and
endpoint saturation character than the viscosity ratio, but the
impact of viscosity cannot be excluded as a potentially
significant factor at this time without more controlled tests.
Developing such tests represents a significant challenge, since,
as discussed, both IFT and viscosity depend on the same
primary variables: pressure, temperature and water salinity, in
a similar manner, hence one of the two cannot be kept
constant while the other varies on the basis of variations in any
of these primary variables.
Conclusions
The results of the study indicate that:
1. As expected for constant temperature and water salinity,
the brine-CO2 IFT has a strong dependency on pressure.
Interfacial tension is found to be significantly reduced by
increases in pressure.
2. For the variable IFT CO2-brine drainage and imbibition
relative permeability experiments conducted on a single
reservoir rock sample with a defined pore size distribution
it was found that:
a. The endpoint relative permeability to CO2 increases
as IFT decreases.
4 SPE 102138
b. The maximum endpoint CO2 saturation increases as
IFT decreases.
c. The value of the trapped gas saturation on
secondary imbibition decreases as IFT decreases.
d. The relative permeability curves for both CO2 and
brine display classical hysteresis behavior by
which, for each phase, relative permeability is
higher when fluid saturation increases than when
fluid saturation decreases. However, contrary to
expectations, the wetting phase (brine) has a more
pronounced hysteresis effect than the non-wetting
phase (CO2).
e. Multiphase interference effects, as expressed by the
curvature of the relative permeability curves, are
being reduced as IFT decreases (the curves in
general became more linear).
3. Analysis of the data suggests that in these experiments the
variation of the IFT with pressure is roughly proportional
to the variation of the viscosity ratio of the brine/CO2
displacement over the same pressure range. This makes it
difficult to conclude if the observed variations in
displacement characteristics can be solely attributed to IFT
effects or to viscosity ratio effects as well.
4. Analysis of the drainage and imbibition data and additional
unpublished work and experience lead the authors to
believe that the observed variation in displacement
characteristics of CO2-brine systems in this test program
can be more strongly attributed to changes in IFT than to
variations viscosity ratio, however, additional testing
would be required in order to conclusively state this.
The results suggest that reservoir conditions strongly impact
the value of CO2-brine displacement characteristics in a
typical lower permeability porous media with a broad pore
size distribution which includes significant fractions of
microporosity. The data suggest that these effects may be less
pronounced in higher permeability porous media where a
greater level of accessibility to larger pores could be obtained
at higher IFT conditions, but once again, additional studies
would be required in order to verify this supposition.
Acknowledgements
The authors express appreciation to the Alberta Energy and
Utilities Board for permission to publish the data and to
Donna Leach and Dan Magee for assistance in the preparation
and formatting of the manuscript and the figures.
References
1. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change),
Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report (eds. R.T. Watson
and the Core Writing Team), Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, U.K., and New York, NY, U.S.A., 397 p.,
2001.
2. Bajura R.A., The role of carbon dioxide sequestration in
the long term energy future; Fifth International
Greenhouse Gas Technologies Conference (GHGT-5),
Cairns, Australia, (eds. D.J. Williams, R.A. Durie, P.
McMullan, C.A.J. Paulson, and A.Y. Smith), CSIRO
Publishing Collingwood, VIC, AU, 52-58, 2001.
3. IEA (International Energy Agency), Prospects for CO2
Capture and Storage, OECD/IEA, Paris, France, 249 p.,
2004.
4. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), IPCC
Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage
(eds. B. Metz, O. Davidson, H.C. de Coninck, M. Loos and
L.A. Mayer), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
U.K., and New York, NY, U.S.A., 442 p., 2005.
5. Socolow, R.H., Can we bury global warming? Scientific
American, v. 293, no. 1, 49-55, 2005.
6. Moritis G., Special Report: Enhanced oil recovery-2002
worldwide EOR survey; Oil and Gas Journal, v. 100, no.
15, 43-47, Apr. 15, 2002.
7. Bachu, S., and Haug, K., In-situ characteristics of acid-gas
injection operations in the Alberta basin, western Canada:
Demonstration of CO2 geological storage; Geologic
Storage of Carbon Dioxide with Monitoring and
Verification, v. 2 (ed. S.M. Benson), Elsevier, London,
867-876, 2005.
8. Kumar, A., Noh, M., Pope, G.A., Sepehrnoori, K., Bryant,
S., and Lake, L.W., Reservoir simulation of CO2 storage in
deep saline aquifers; Paper SPE 89343, presented at the
SPE/DOE Fourteenth Symposium on Improved Oil
Recovery, Tulsa, OK, USA, April 17-21, 2004.
9. Bennion, B., and Bachu, S., Relative permeability
characteristics for CO2 displacing water in a variety of
potential sequestration zones in the Western Canada
Sedimentary Basin; Paper SPE 95547, 15 p., presented at
the 2005 SPE Annual Technical Conference and
Exhibition, Dallas, TX, October 9-12, 2005.67
10. Bennion, B., and Bachu, S., The impact of interfacial
tension and pore size distribution/capillary pressure
character on CO2 relative permeability at reservoir
conditions in CO2-brine systems; Paper SPE 99325, 10 p.,
presented at the SPE/DOE Fifteenth Symposium on
Improved Oil Recovery, Tulsa, OK, USA, April 22-26,
2006.
SPE 102138 5

11. Bennion, B., and Bachu, S., Supercritical CO2 and H2S-
brine drainage and imbibition relative permeability
relationships for intergranular sandstone and carbonate
formations; Paper SPE 99326, 13 p., presented at the SPE
Europec/EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition,
Vienna, Austria, June 12-15, 2006.
12. Bachu, S., and Bennion, B., Effects of in-situ conditions on
relative permeability characteristics of CO2-brine systems;
Environmental Geology, in press.
14. Leckie, D.A., Upper Zuni sequence, Middle Cretaceous to
Lower Tertiary; Western Canada Sedimentary Basin – a
Case History (ed. B.D. Ricketts), Canadian Society of
Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, AB, 269-284, 1989.
15. Janos, T, Tibor, B., and Szucs, P., Direct determination of
relative permeability from nonsteady constant pressure and
rate displacements; Paper SPE 67318, presented at the SPE
Production and Operations Symposium, Oklahoma City,
OK, USA, March 24-27, 2001.

13. Michael, K., and Bachu, S., Fluids and pressure
distributions in the foreland-basin succession in the west-
central part of the Alberta basin, Canada: Evidence for
permeability barriers and hydrocarbon generation and
migration; AAPG Bulletin, v. 85, no. 7, 1231-1252, 2001.
16. Wellman, T.P., Grigg, R.B., McPherson, B.J. and Svec,
R.K., Evaluation of CO2 – brine reservoir rock interaction
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February 5-7, 2003.

Table 1 – Summary of test parameters.

Parameters Value
Sample Depth (m) 1626.33
Net Overburden Pressure (kPa) 11,000
In-situ Temperature (°C) 43
In-situ salinity (ppm) 27,096
Sample Length (cm) 3.73
Sample Diameter (cm) 3.77
Flow Area (cm2) 11.16
Displacement Rate (cm3/hr) 10.0
Average Porosity (%) 15.3
Pore Volume (cm3) 6.37

Table 2 – Fluid properties and displacement characteristics for the three different IFT values that correspond to
different pressures at constant temperature and water salinity (see Table 1 for the last two parameters).

Pressure IFT Viscosity (mPa·s) Krg Sgmax Krw Trapped

(psi) (kPag) mN/m Brine CO2 Gas
Saturation
200 1,378 56.2 0.648 0.014 0.2978 0.621 0.4044 0.224
1000 6,890 33.2 0.649 0.035 0.4557 0.729 0.8600 0.107
2900 20,000 19.8 0.651 0.075 0.5260 0.803 0.9053 0.102
6 SPE 102138

Table 3 – Drainage and imbibition data for CO2-brine relative permeability displacement tests performed for
variable IFT: a) 56.2 mN/m; b) 33.2 mN/m, and c) 19.8 mN/m, that correspond to various pressures and constant
temperature and water salinity. For test conditions see Tables 1 and 2.

a) IFT = 56.2 mN/m (P = 1,378 kPa)

Drainage Imbibition

b) IFT = 33.2 mN/m (P = 6,890 kPa)

Drainage Imbibition

c) IFT = 19.8 mN/m (P = 20,000 kPa)

Drainage Imbibition
SPE 102138 7

Figure 1 – Location of Pembina Cardium oil field in Alberta, Canada, and of the well sampled for testing of relative permeability and
displacement characteristics of CO2-brine systems in the Cardium Formation.

Figure 2 –Pore size distribution of the core sample from the Figure 3 –Capillary pressure curves for various IFT for the
Cardium Formation in well 02/7-11-48-09W5M. same core sample from the Cardium Formation in well 02/7-
11-48-09W5M.
8 SPE 102138

Figure 4 – Relative permeability curves (drainage and imbibition) for a core sample from the Cardium Formation in Wabamun Lake
area, Alberta, Canada, for CO2-brine systems at in-situ temperature of 43°C and water salinity of 27,096 ppm, and for various IFT: a)
56. 2 mN/m, b) 33.5 mN/m, and c) 19.8 mN/m, that corresponds to increasing pressures of 1,378 kPa, 6,890 kPa and 20,000 kPa,
respectively.
SPE 102138 9

Figure 5 – Dependence on IFT of the relative permeability of a rock sample from the sandstone Cardium Formation in Alberta,
Canada: a) drainage, and b) imbibition.

Figure 6 – Comparison of endpoint relative permeability to gas (primary drainage), maximum gas saturation, endpoint relative
permeability to water (secondary imbibition) and trapped gas saturation for: a) different IFT, and b) different viscosity ratios, both
corresponding to the same in-situ temperature and water salinity and pressures of 1,378 kPa, 6,890 kPa and 20,000 kPa, respectively.