The Effect of overburden Pressure on pore volume and permeability

of the reservoir rock and the effective over burden stress

Introduction
Understanding the influence of stress on porosity and permeability properties of
rocks is crucial for studying the fluid flow in subsurface formations. The micro-pore
31 structure of subsurface reservoirs can change when the reservoir stress field is
disrupted. As a result, the porosity, permeability and other important physical
properties of the reservoir may change in response. Any changes in porosity and or
permeability can impact the storage capacity and also the production or injection
capability of such formations. These rock properties are specifically important in
CO2 injection and storage projects where the multistage and discontinuous nature of
CO2 injection and storage causes the stress magnitude in reservoirs to repeatedly
change. Over the years, numerous laboratory-based experiments have investigated
stress dependency of porosity and permeability of rock and fault gouges which are
unconsolidated rocks with small grain size.

In all the experimental observations, effective stress has shown to play the most
important role in altering the magnitude of porosity and permeability. Therefore,
effective stress should be considered during study of the porosity and permeability
properties of rocks. The effective stress concept developed by Terzaghi (1951) using
Biot’s coefficient.
Pore Volume Change With Overburden Pressure:
A reservoir thousands of feet underground is subjected to an overburden pressure
caused by the weight of the overlying formations. Overburden pressures vary from
area to area depending on factors such as depth, nature of the structure, consolidation
of the formation, and possibly the geologic age and history of the rocks. Depth of
the formation is the most important consideration, and a typical value of overburden
pressure is approximately one psi per foot of depth.

The weight of the overburden simply applies a compressive force to the reservoir.
The pressure in the rock pore spaces does not normally approach the overburden
pressure. A typical pore pressure, commonly referred to as the reservoir pressure, is
approximately 0.5 psi per foot of depth, assuming that the reservoir is sufficiently
consolidated, so, the overburden pressure is not transmitted to the fluids in the pore
spaces.

During pressure depletion operations, the internal pore pressure decreases and,
therefore, the effective overburden pressure increases. This increase causes the
following effects:

• The bulk volume of the reservoir rock is reduced.

• Sand grains within the pore spaces expand.

These two volume changes tend to reduce the pore space and, therefore, the
porosity of the rock. Often these data exhibit relationships with both porosity and
the effective overburden pressure. Compressibility typically decreases with
increasing porosity and effective overburden pressure.
Figure(1) :Schematic of pores and channels(throats); solid line shows initial status
of pores and channels and dashed line shows pores and channels after applying
stress

Pore compressibility, Cp
The pore compressibility coefficient is defined as the fractional change in pore
volume of the rock with a unit change in pressure and given by the following
relationship:

Where, p = pore pressure, psi

cp = pore compressibility coefficient, psi−1

Vp = pore volume

Equation(1) can be expressed in terms of the porosity φ by noting that φ increases

with the increase in the pore pressure; or:
For the effect of overburden pressure on the most petroleum reservoirs, the rock and
bulk compressibility are considered small in comparison with the pore
compressibility cp. The formation compressibility cf is the term commonly used to
describe the total compressibility of the formation and is set equal to cp,

Equation(1) can be rewritten as:

or
𝛥𝑉𝑝 = 𝑐𝑓 𝑉𝑃 𝛥𝑝

where 𝛥𝑉𝑝 and 𝛥𝑝 are the change in the pore volume and pore pressure,
respectively.
 A B
Figure(2) : pore space A) at normal overburden stress B) at extreme overburden
stress.

Pore space Compressibility estimation:

We mentioned that the pores comp. is equal to the formation comp. with neglecting
to rock and bulk compressibility because they are considered small in comparison
with the pore compressibility cp

In general, the formation compressibility cf is the same order of magnitude as the

compressibility of the oil and water and, therefore, cannot be regulated.
Several authors have attempted to correlate the pore compressibility with various
parameters including the formation porosity. Hall (1953) correlated the pore
compressibility with porosity as given by the following relationship:
Newman (1973) used 79 samples for consolidated sandstones and limestones to
develop a correlation between the formation compressibility and porosity. The
proposed generalized hyperbolic form of the equation is:

Where,
• For consolidated sandstones
a = 97.32 × 10−6
b = 0.699993
c = 79.8181
• For limestones
a = 0.8535
b = 1.075
c = 2.202 × 106

Example 4-15
Calculate the reduction in the pore volume of a reservoir due to a pressure drop of
10 psi. The reservoir original pore volume is one million barrels with an estimated
formation compressibility of 10 × 10−6 𝑝𝑠𝑖 −1 .

Solution
Applying Equation 4-64 gives

𝛥𝑉𝑝 = (10 × 10−6 ) (1 × 106 ) (10) = 100 𝑏𝑏𝑙

Although the above value is small, it becomes an important factor in undersaturated
reservoirs when calculations are made to determine initial oil-in-place and aquifer
contents.

The reduction in the pore volume due to pressure decline can also be expressed in
terms of the changes in the reservoir porosity. Equation (2) can be rearranged, to
give:

Integrating the above relation gives:

where po = original pressure, psi

𝜑𝑜 = original porosity
p = current pressure, psi
𝜑 = porosity at pressure p
So,
−6 )∗10
∅ = 1 ∗ 106 ∗ 𝑒 (10∗10 = 1001000.5 𝑏𝑏𝑙

Pressure drop about only 10 psi resulting pore volume increase by 1000.5 bbl,

Permeability Change With Overburden pressure:

According to the general formula of Darcy’s equation, the permeability K is
reversely proportional with the pressure change, any increase in the overburden
pressure results direct decrease in the permeability with the same cross section area,
the permeability is

It is well known that both porosity and permeability k change with stress. The
relation between the change in porosity and the change in permeability due to stress
can be described by a power-law relation

∅ 𝐴 𝐾
( ) =
∅𝑜 𝐾𝑜

where ∅𝑜 and Ko represent the porosity and permeability measured at a reference

stress state and exponent A is a parameter that varies with rock type and sometimes
the range and history of applied stress. The values of A in the literature vary from
1.2 to 21. Note that in some studies the value of A changed with applied stress due
to plastic deformation and annealing. The special case of A with a value of 3 can be
represented using the Carman-Kozeny equation

∅3 ∗ (1 − ∅2 )
𝐾=
𝐶𝜏 2 ∗ 𝑆12
By dividing the net connected porosity into “effective” and “non-effective”
porosities and assuming that the “effective” porosity controls the permeability (pore
throats) and is much more stress-sensitive than the “non-effective” porosity (pore
bodies), show that a cubic dependence of k on the “effective” porosity can lead to A
> 3 when k is plotted as a function of the total connected porosity. It should be
mentioned that the “non-effective” porosity was defined as the pore space in which
the flow velocity is much slower than the mean velocity through the entire porous
medium and it may equal to zero.

Permeability is generally anisotropic in a rock, partly because of depositional effects,

and partly because of the in-situ stress field in the crust. To account for this,
permeability measurements are made both parallel to and perpendicular with
bedding. The permeability perpendicular to bedding will be about a third to half of
that parallel to bedding. Clearly this has implications for extracting oil from a
reservoir, as oil would usually much rather travel laterally than vertically.

Schematic of angular shape pores. a) initial status of angular shape pores, b) angular
shape pores after applying stress
The effective stress:
The determination of effective stress is an important aspect of stability analysis and
has a number of engineering applications especially in geotechnical and petroleum
engineering, including underground and surface rock structures, oil and gas
production, and sequestration of carbon dioxide. Failure criteria for porous media
are represented using the effective stress, the concept of which was first introduced
by Terzaghi (1936) for soil and is commonly known as Terzaghi's effective stress
principle. It states that the effect of the total stress σ and the pore pressure Pp can be
described using a single parameter, which is known as the effective stress σ ʹ , and
is defined as follows:
𝜎 ′ = 𝜎 − 𝑃𝑝

The effective stress corresponding to the variations of the permeability of the rocks
has been studied theoretically and experimentally by different researchers. Berryman
has studied the problem theoretically and has derived the expressions of the effective
stress coefficient for the permeability of the rocks constituted by one single and two
different minerals. His approach resulted in an effective stress coefficient which is
smaller than one for a micro homogeneous material made up of one single mineral
and which may be greater than one for a porous material constituted by two different
minerals. This is for example the case in clayrich sandstones as the grains modulus
of the pore-filling material is much smaller than the one of the sand grains.
Experimental studies on both sedimentary and crystalline rocks can be found in the
literature. Most of the studies on sedimentary rocks have been conducted on clay
rich sandstone.
Biot’s effective stress coefficient
Experimental determination of Biot’s effective stress coefficient, α for peak and
residual strengths is very important in rock engineering problems because failure
criteria for strengths of rocks are written by effective stress. The concept of effective
stress was first introduced by Terzaghi (Terzaghi, 1936) for soil, which is commonly
known as the Terzagi’s effective stress principle. As mentioned It states that the
effect of the total stress σ and pore pressure Pp can be denoted by a single parameter
which is known as effective stress 𝜎′ defined as,
𝜎 ′ = 𝜎 − 𝑃𝑝

Terzarghi’s effective stress principle is not always valid for the fluid related rocks.
Therefore, the Biot’s effective stress coefficient was suggested by Biot and Willis in
1957 to modify the effective stress principle and the effective stress principle finally
is given by
𝜎 ′ = 𝜎 − 𝛼 ∗ 𝑃𝑝

where α is the Biot’s effective stress coefficient which denotes the ratio of the area
occupied by the fluid to the total area in a cross section in the porous material.
Effective stress coefficient is usually calculated using experimentally measured data
from the elastic region, based on poroelasticity theory. Effective stress coefficient
values for the peak and residual strengths are important to evaluate rock failure;
however, α obtained as above is not necessarily valid for these strengths.
Conclusion

• During pressure depletion operations, the internal pore pressure decreases

and, therefore, the effective overburden pressure increases. This increase
causes decrease the pore volume of the reservoir rock.
• The porosity is directly affected by the change in the effective overburden
pressure, any small change in the overburden pressure will lead to a significant
change in the porosity percentage.
• Rock and Bulk compressibility is small in comparison with the pore space
compressibility, therefore the overall formation compressibility assumed to
be equal to the pore volume comp.
• Absolute permeability decreases with increase the overburden pressure,
because of the reduction in the flow channels size due to the compressibility
of the pore space and the throat between them.
• A correlation between permeability and overburden pressure and between
porosity and overburden pressure has been developed using linear
regression analysis.
• The irreducible water and residual oil saturations increase with the increase in
the overburden pressure.
• The study of the effective stress is essential in the reservoir rock structural
analysis.
• Terzarghi’s effective stress principle is not always valid for the fluid related
rocks. Therefore, the Biot’s effective stress coefficient was suggested to
estimate the effective overburden stress value.
References:
- Reservoir engineering handbook, Tarek Ahmed, 2010.
- Research Gate,
- OnePetro, website, [Link]
121795-MS.
- Springer Link, website, [Link] .