Sandstone

Reservoir rocks are either of clastic or carbonate composition. The former are composed of silicates, usually sandstone, the latter of biogenetically derived detritus, such as coral or shell fragments. There are some important differences between the two rock types which affect the quality of the reservoir and its interaction with fluids which flow through them. 

The main component of sandstone reservoirs ( siliciclastic reservoirs ) is quartz (Si02). Chemically it is a fairly stable mineral which is not easily altered by changes in pressure, temperature or acidity of pore fluids. Sandstone reservoirs form after the sand grains have been transported over large distances and have deposited in particular environments of deposition. 

The pores between the rock components, e.g. the sand grains in a sandstone reservoir, will initially be filled with the pore water. The migrating hydrocarbons will displace the water and thus gradually fill the reservoir. For a reservoir to be effective, the pores need to be in communication to allow migration, and also need to allow flow towards the borehole once a well is drilled into the structure. The pore space is referred to as porosity in oil field terms. Permeability measures the ability of a rock to allow fluid flow through its pore system. A reservoir rock which has some porosity but too low a permeability to allow fluid flow is termed tight . 

The rate at which the drill bit penetrates the formation gives qualitative information about the lithology being drilled. For example, in a hard shale the rate of penetration ROP) will be slower than in a porous sandstone. 

With a few exceptions reservoir rocks are sediments. The two main categories are siliciclastic rocks, usually referred to as elastics or sandstones , and carbonate rocks. Most reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea are contained in a clastic depositional environment many of the giant fields of the Middle East are contained in carbonate rocks. Before looking at the significance of depositional environments for the production process let us investigate some of the main characteristics of both categories. 

For example, the many deepwater fields located in the Gulf of Mexico are of Tertiary age and are comprised of complex sand bodies which were deposited in a deepwater turbidite sequence. The BP Prudhoe Bay sandstone reservoir in Alaska is of Triassic/ Cretaceous age and was deposited by a large shallow water fluvial-alluvial fan delta system. The Saudi Arabian Ghawar limestone reservoir is of Jurassic age and was deposited in a warm, shallow marine sea. Although these reservoirs were deposited in very different depositional environments they all contain producible accumulations of hydrocarbons, though the fraction of recoverable oil varies. In fact, these three fields are some of the largest in the world, containing over 12 billion barrels of oil each ... 

Carbonate rocks are more frequently fractured than sandstones. In many cases open fractures in carbonate reservoirs provide high porosity / high permeability path ways for hydrocarbon production. The fractures will be continuously re-charged from the tight (low permeable) rock matrix. During field development, wells need to be planned to intersect as many natural fractures as possible, e.g. by drilling horizontal wells. 

Field analogues should be based on reservoir rock type (e.g. tight sandstone, fractured carbonate), fluid type, and environment of deposition. This technique should not be overlooked, especially where little information is available, such as at the exploration stage. Summary charts such as the one shown in Figure 8.19 may be used in conjunction with estimates of macroscopic sweep efficiency (which will depend upon well density and positioning, reservoir homogeneity, offtake rate and fluid type) and microscopic displacement efficiency (which may be estimated if core measurements of residual oil saturation are available). 

Scholle, Peter A. et al. (1982) Sandstone Despositional Environments, 41 Op, AAPG Memoir 31... 

Figure Bl.14.6. J -maps of a sandstone reservoir eore whieh was soaked in brine, (a), (b) and (e), (d) represent two different positions in the eore. For J -eontrast a saturation pulse train was applied before a standard spin-eeho imaging pulse sequenee. A full -relaxation reeovery eiirve for eaeh voxel was obtained by inerementing the delay between pulse train and imaging sequenee. M - ((a) and (e)) and r -maps ((b) and (d)) were ealeulated from stretehed exponentials whieh are fitted to the magnetization reeovery eurves. The maps show the layered stnieture of the sample. Presumably -relaxation varies spatially due to inliomogeneous size distribution as well as surfaee relaxivity of the pores. (From [21].)...

Attard J J, Doran S J, Flerrod N J, Carpenter T A and Flail L D 1992 Quantitative NMR spin-lattice-relaxation imaging of brine in sandstone reservoir cores J. Magn. Reson. 96 514-25... 

Whereas at the lower end of its range mercury porosimetry overlaps with the gas adsorption method, at its upper end it overlaps with photomicrography. An instructive example is provided by the work of Dullien and his associates on samples of sandstone. By stereological measurements they were able to arrive at a curve of pore size distribution, which was extremely broad and extended to very coarse macropores the size distribution from mercury porosimetry on the other hand was quite narrow and showed a sharp peak at a much lower figure, 10nm (Fig. 3.31). The apparent contradiction is readily explained in terms of wide cavities which are revealed by photomicrography, and are entered through narrower constrictions which are shown up by mercury porosimetry. 

Fig. 3J1 Comparison of pore volume size distributions for Clear Creek sandstone" (courtesy Dullien.) Curve (A), from mercury porosimetry curve (B), from photomicrography (sphere model).

Sandolase Sandopan DTC Sandopan KST Sandopart Sandoptal Sandostatin Sandoz SF7810F Sandpaper Sandpapering Sand reduction process Sandstone... 

Sandstone wheels Sand-surface ware Sandvik SX SANECTA SAN emulsions... 

Abrasives have evolved iato an essential component of modem iadustry. Sandstone, emery, and comndum were the abrasives of choice until the late 1800s when artificial materials were developed. Today synthetic abrasives offer such improved performance that the natural ones have been largely replaced except for jobs where cost is paramount. In 1987 U.S. statistics (4) showed natural abrasive production to be about 7 million while that of cmde manufactured abrasives was over 182 million. Total value of abrasives and abrasive products worldwide is estimated to be over 6 biUion dollars. 

Sandstone. Sandstone wheels were once quarried extensively for farm and industrial use, and special grades of stone for precision honing, sharpening, and lapping are a small but important portion of today s abrasive industry. Production of honing and sharpening stones from deposits of dense, fine grain sandstone in Arkansas account for 76% of the value (about 2 million in 1987) and 88% of the total quantity of such stones in the United States (4). 

In packed beds of particles possessing small pores, dilute aqueous solutions of hydroly2ed polyacrylamide will sometimes exhibit dilatant behavior iastead of the usual shear thinning behavior seen ia simple shear or Couette flow. In elongational flow, such as flow through porous sandstone, flow resistance can iacrease with flow rate due to iacreases ia elongational viscosity and normal stress differences. The iacrease ia normal stress differences with shear rate is typical of isotropic polymer solutions. Normal stress differences of anisotropic polymers, such as xanthan ia water, are shear rate iadependent (25,26). 

Fluorspar occurs in two distinct types of formation in the fluorspar district of southern Illinois and Kentucky in vertical fissure veins and in horizontal bedded replacement deposits. A 61-m bed of sandstone and shale serves as a cap rock for ascending fluorine-containing solutions and gases. Mineralizing solutions come up the faults and form vein ore bodies where the larger faults are plugged by shale. Bedded deposits occur under the thick sandstone and shale roofs. Other elements of value associated with fluorspar ore bodies are zinc, lead, cadmium, silver, germanium, iron, and thorium. Ore has been mined as deep as 300 m in this district. 

Tar Sands. Tar sands (qv) are considered to be sedimentary rocks having natural porosity where the pore volume is occupied by viscous, petroleum-like hydrocarbons. The terms oil sands, rock asphalts, asphaltic sandstones, and malthas or malthites have all been appHed to the same resource. The hydrocarbon component of tar sands is properly termed bitumen. 

Mercury ore deposits occur in faulted and fractured rocks, such as limestone, calcareous shales, sandstones, serpentine, chert, andesite, basalt, and rhyolite. Deposits are mostiy epithermal in character, ie, minerals were deposited by rising warm solutions at comparatively shallow depths from 1—1000 m (6). 

Lignite. Deposits generally classified as unconventional uranium resources occur in lignite and in clay or sandstone immediately adjacent to lignite. Examples are uraniferous deposits in the Serres Basin, Greece, North and South Dakota in the United States, and Melovoe in the CIS (17) (see... 

Domestic. Estimates of U.S. uranium resources for reasonably assured resources, estimated additional resources, and speculative resources at costs of 80, 130, and 260/kg of uranium are given in Table 1 (18). These estimates include only conventional uranium resources, which principally include sandstone deposits of the Colorado Plateaus, the Wyoming basins, and the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas. Marine phosphorite deposits in central Elorida, the western United States, and other areas contain low grade uranium having 30—150 ppm U that can be recovered as a by-product from wet-process phosphoric acid. Because of relatively low uranium prices, on the order of 20.67/kg U (19), in situ leach and by-product plants accounted for 76% of total uranium production in 1992 (20). 

Oil reservoirs are layers of porous sandstone or carbonate rock, usually sedimentary. Impermeable rock layers, usually shales, and faults trap the oil in the reservoir. The oil exists in microscopic pores in rock. Various gases and water also occupy rock pores and are often in contact with the oil. These pores are intercoimected with a compHcated network of microscopic flow channels. The weight of ovedaying rock layers places these duids under pressure. When a well penetrates the rock formation, this pressure drives the duids into the wellbore. The dow channel size, wettabiUty of dow channel rock surfaces, oil viscosity, and other properties of the cmde oil determine the rate of this primary oil production. 

Wettabihty is defined as the tendency of one fluid to spread on or adhere to a soHd surface (rock) in the presence of other immiscible fluids (5). As many as 50% of all sandstone reservoirs and 80% of all carbonate reservoirs are oil-wet (10). Strongly water-wet reservoirs are quite rare (11). Rock wettabihty can affect fluid injection rates, flow patterns of fluids within the reservoir, and oil displacement efficiency (11). Rock wettabihty can strongly affect its relative permeabihty to water and oil (5,12). When rock is water-wet, water occupies most of the small flow channels and is in contact with most of the rock surfaces as a film. Cmde oil does the same in oil-wet rock. Alteration of rock wettabihty by adsorption of polar materials, such as surfactants and corrosion inhibitors, or by the deposition of polar cmde oil components (13), can strongly alter the behavior of the rock (12). 

Pulpstones. Improvements have been made in the composition and speed of the grinding wheel, in methods of feeding the wood and pressing it against the stone, in control of power to the stones, and in the size and capacity of the units. The first pulpstones were manufactured from quarried sandstone, but have been replaced by carbide and alumina embedded in a softer ceramic matrix, in which the harder grit particles project from the surface of the wheel (see Abrasives). The abrasive segments ate made up of three basic manufactured abrasive siUcon carbide, aluminum oxide, or a modified aluminum oxide. Synthetic stones have the mechanical strength to operate at peripheral surface speeds of about 1200—1400 m /min (3900 to 4600 ft/min) under conditions that consume 0.37—3.7 MJ/s (500—5000 hp) pet stone. 

Tar sand, also variously called oil sand (in Canada) or bituminous sand, is the term commonly used to describe a sandstone reservoir that is impregnated with a heavy, viscous black extra heavy cmde oil, referred to as bitumen (or, incorrectly, as native asphalt). Tar sand is a mixture of sand, water, and bitumen, but many of the tar sand deposits in the United States lack the water layer that is beHeved to cover the Athabasca sand in Alberta, Canada, thereby faciHtating the hot-water recovery process from the latter deposit. The heavy asphaltic organic material has a high viscosity under reservoir conditions and caimot be retrieved through a weU by conventional production techniques. 

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