Extended application of radon as a natural tracer in oil reservoirs

¹ CDTN – Centre for Development of Nuclear Technology, PO Box -941, CEP: 30161-970, Brazil
² UNICAMP – State University of Campinas, Av. Albert Einstein, 500 – CEP: 13083-852, Brazil

Abstract

In the 80's it was a common practice in the study of contamination by NAPL to incorporate a tracer to the medium to be studied. At that time the first applications focused on the use of ²²²Rn, a naturally occurring radioactive isotope as a natural tracer, appropriate for thermodynamics studies, geology and transport properties in thermal reservoirs. In 1993 the deficit of radon was used to spot and quantify the contamination by DNAPL under the surface. For the first time these studies showed that radon could be used as a partitioning tracer. A methodology that provides alternatives to quantify the oil volume stored in the porous space of oil reservoirs is under development at CDTN. The methodology here applied, widens up and adapts the knowledge acquired from the use of radon as a tracer to the studies aimed at assessing SOR. It is a postulation of this work that once the radon partition coefficient between oil and water is known, SOR will be determined considering the increased amount of radon in the water phase as compared to the amount initially existent as the reservoir is flooded with water. This paper will present a description of the apparatus used and some preliminary results of the experiments.