One of the major problems that production geologists and reservoir engineers encounter is establishing a good relationship between porosity and permeability. As an aid to achieving this goal, a new technique to image core samples, using neutrons, has been developed by workers at the Centre of Excellence in Petroleum Geology at Curtin University.
Last month, a neutron radiography facility, the only one currently in Australia, was established in Perth. Neutron image analysis has an advantage over X-ray CT and NMR techniques in that it can directly image the presence of the hydrogen in the liquids (water or oil) occupying pore space. From these images, one can deduce total porosity, effective porosity, permeability, and pore-throat radius.
A study has been carried out on a suite of samples from the Mardie Greensand from the Barrow Sub-basin. Excellent quality (and extremely pretty) images have been obtained from this suite of samples. The processed images of the Mardie Greensand reveal several populations of pore-throat radii in each sample, and support previous hypotheses related to 'producible' porosity. Dynamic core-flooding experiments have also been imaged by this technique to obtain relative fluid saturation and relative permeability.
Mike Middleton completed a PhD at Sydney University in 1978. From 1979 to 1990, he worked for the CSIRO, ECL (Australia) and the Geological Survey of Western Australia. In 1990, he established his own consultancy in Perth, and joined the Department of Exploration Geophysics at Curtin University as an Adjunct Associate Professor.
In 1993, he was appointed as the Nordic Professor of Petrophysics, which entailed the role of promoting research cooperation in the field of petroleum technology in the Nordic countries. In 1999, he was appointed as Professor, and Director of the Centre of Excellence in Petroleum Geology, at Curtin University.
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