Characteristics of

Oil and Gas Reservoirs

 Micro and Macro-Scales of Reservoir Rocks

Where are the oil, gas and water residing within the rock ?
❑ The reservoir rocks have connected pores

❑ The pores are tiny spaces between the rock grains

❑ The size of rock grains varies from hundreds
microns to millimeters; so, the size of pores should
vary from less than 2 microns to hundreds microns.
Typical of Pore Structure and Geometry
 Types of Reservoir Rocks

1.Lithology : Sandstones, Carbonates

(limestone, dolomite), igneous rocks
(granitic), Tuff , and Shale.

2.Based on secondary porosity : non-fractured

rocks and naturally fractured rocks.
Rock Types Where Petroleum Found
 Reservoir Rock Properties
Oil or gas and water occupy those very very tiny pore spaces.
Porous rock = rock grains + pore spaces
Volume of pore spaces
= porosity
Volume of the rock
Porosity = storage capacity of the rock for fluids to occupy
= 0.1 (or 10%) to 0.35 (or 35%).
Example : The volume of a rock = 1 m3
Porosity of the rock = 0.25 (or 25%)
Then, the pore volume or the volume of pore
spaces is
(0.25  1 m3) = 0.25 m3.
 Reservoir Rock Properties (cont’d)
In an oil reservoir, pore spaces are saturated with oil and connate
water. Those fluids occupy the same pore spaces together. Fraction of
pore space volume occupied by the oil is called oil saturation, denoted
by So.
Therefore,
Volume of oil,Vo
So =
Volume of pore spaces,V p
The range of So in most commercial oil reservoirs is about 0.4 (or 40%)
to 0.8 (or 80%).
It means that most commercial oil reservoirs contain 40 to 80 % oil with
the dissolved gas and 20 to 60 % water.

(So + Sw = 1.0 = 100%)

 Reservoir Rock Properties (cont’d)
Example : An oil reservoir has size of 3 km  5 km  10
m (= width  length  thickness), porosity of
20%, and initial water saturation of 30%.
Oil volume initially in the reservoir is then,
3000 m  5000 m  10 m  0.2  (1 - 0.3) =
21  106 m3 or about 130  106 barrels.
 Reservoir Rock Properties (cont’d)
Permeability is one of the most important
physical properties of reservoir rocks.
It is a measure of rock capability in transmitting
a fluid through the connecting pores.
Unit commonly used for permeability is
millidarcy or darcy (1 darcy = 1,000
millidarcies).
Permeability of commercial hydrocarbon
reservoirs ranges from few millidarcies to
thousands millidarcies.
Measuring Permeability of A Rock Sample
The Exploitation Oil and Gas From a Reservoir