Comparison of Klinkenberg-Corrected Gas and Liquid Permeability in Kirthar Fold Belt Tight Gas Sands

Abstract

A detailed laboratory study was carried out to investigate the controls and differences between Klinkenbergcorrected gas and liquid permeability. For this reason outcrop core samples were collected from Kirthar fold belt of lower Indus basin, the plugs were horizontally taken, in cylindrical shape having dimension of 3.5-5.32 cm length and with maximum of 3.2 cm diameter. The sample porosity measurements were performed using calculations from grain volume and bulk volume method. For the purpose of comparison, slippage free gas permeability tests using nitrogen gas was measured and liquid permeability of samples was measured using brine (NaCl) of different compositions. The data obtained showed that liquid permeability was lower by an order of magnitude than the permeability of samples measured with gas. However, the gas permeability corrected for Klinkenberg effects showed difference of half an order of magnitude when compared with liquid permeability. Hence the differences in liquid permeability and gas permeability could be described by other mechanism of particles mobilization and dissolution and pore blocking phenomena. Moreover, the obtained data of gas and liquid permeability was then used to develop permeability estimation correlations. The results suggests that there is scatter in the measured values and predicted values of gas and liquid permeability data, which means that such correlations should not be used where accurate liquid permeability values of tight sandstones are needed. Permeability predicted using the existing correlations developed based on gas permeability data lead to an overestimation of permeability also the flow rates might be over predicted within such low permeability reservoirs.