Modeling the properties of porous medium by statistical experiments

Oil in an oilfield of the Perm region is situated in porous layers, which are similar to a sponge. Reservoir pressure is not enough to raise it to the surface, and therefore the following method of oil production is used: spaced apart rigs are mounted in two rows (one row is forcing, the other one is extracting); rigs of a forcing row pump some liquid (usually water) underground, this liquid forces oil out of the porous layer, which allows extracting rigs to bring it to the surface. Simulation of this process is a rather difficult problem; part of it is to model the behavior of the porous medium itself. In this paper we consider the method of modeling a porous medium by its representation as a bundle of parallel capillaries, based on a method of statistical experiments. The goal of modeling is to derive dependence of such characteristics of medium as porosity and permeability on redundant pressure in the layer. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.