Investigating the Impact of Temperature on Relative Permeability Curves Curing Geological CO2 Storage

Wettability of a formation is defined as the tendency of one fluid to spread on the surface in competition with other fluids which are also in contact with it. However, the impacts of temperature on the wettability distribution in the reservoir and modification of relative permeability curves are not well studied in the literature. Therefore in this work we studied the effect of temperature on modifying the relative permeability curves based on the relative permeability models and on the CO2 solubility in an aquifer by the use of numerical methods (i.e. ECLIPSE software). By injecting high temperature CO2 the wettability of the formation changes towards a more CO2 wet condition. This increases the risk of leakage and also changes the relative permeability curves as the CO2 is moving in the reservoir which must be considered in the reservoir simulations. The results show that the amount of dissolved CO2 in the reservoir will change as the relative permeability curves are updated and modified based on the temperature distribution.