A New Correlation to Calculate Oil-Water Interfacial Tension

The oil-water interfacial tension (IFT) is by all means important in capillary pressure estimation and fluid-fluid and fluid-rock interactions analysis. Observations from experimental data indicate that oil-water IFT is a function of pressure, temperature, and compositions of oil and water. A reliable correlation to estimate oil-water IFT is highly desire. Unfortunately to our best knowledge no correlation that uses the compositions of oil and water as inputs is available. Our work is to fill this gap. In this research, we collected data from former studies and investigations and developed a correlation for oil-water IFT. In the proposed correlation oil-water IFT is a function of system pressure, temperature, and compositions of oil and water. Error analysis was conducted to check the accuracy of the equation by comparing the calculated values with the experimental data. The results indicated that the new correlation predicts reliable oil-water IFTs. Our correlation calculates the oil-water IFT from system pressure, temperature, and compositions of oil and water. It addresses the effect of composition of oil on IFT, which is not presented in existing correlations. Therefore it can not only be applied in the calculation of capillary pressure in the compositional simulation, but also be used in daily petroleum engineering calculation such as waterflooding analysis.