Hello German:

A few background points below before I answer your questions specifically.

1. The live water pH sample (downhole conditions and dissolved gas) is usually taken to surface, reconditioned and flashed to give gas phase and a dead water phase at ambient conditions. It is important to keep in mind that ALL surface measurements on water are made on the dead water phase. Usually the GWR and gas phase GC is also done. To compare if the surface analysis is consistent with downhole analysis, it is important to have information on both flashed gas and flashed water phases. There are models (which have their own limitations) that can mathematically recombine the two phases to reconstruct the downhole live water and predict its properties. Comparing live water at reservoir conditions to surface dead water at ambient conditions is like comparing density of live oil at reservoir T, P with dead oil at surface T, P. They are expected to be different. One needs to know the GOR and dissolved gas to reconcile the two. Of course if it so happens there is no dissolved gas, then it is just the T and P effect on density. For the case of pH, it is the same- effects of dissolved gas, T, P. However, the T, P effect is not easy to predict for pH as there are usually multiple (10-100 or even more) simultaneous ionic interactions in the water phase with each having its own sensitivity to T and P and the overall effect is a combination of all of that. One can ONLY predict this with models, one cannot predict this by just looking at the ion concentrations from an analysis as there are multiple parameters in formation water systems with T, P sensitivity. 2. Surface pH is in general a very non-robust measurement and must not be used for making interpretation or for modeling. The main reasons for this are if you take a flashed water sample and it is now exposed to air, there usually will be CO2 exchange. Depending on dissolved CO2 and bicarbonate, you can have CO2 come out of solution (more common) and the pH rises or it may absorb CO2 and pH drops. Presence of Fe2+ also causes change in pH due to oxidation over time. It is very common to find that the pH of flashed water changes over a period of hours in the laboratory. In some cases, you will also notice precipitation of salts cause by these pH changes- this totally invalidates any water analysis you do after that. In general therefore, surface pH is ignored. Stiff plots and ion concentrations are good to use to compare waters AS long as there is no precipitation of salts. NOTE that downhole pH on live waters avoids all these issues as it measures directly at native conditions and hence is very robust.