Performance Study of High-Temperature Foaming Agents for Improved Steam Flooding

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-194
Author(s):  
Fa-Jun Zhao ◽  
Yong-Jian Liu ◽  
Yun-Long Wang ◽  
Hao-liang Liu ◽  
Hai-cheng Ma
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianjun Wang ◽  
Xiangbin Liu ◽  
Borui Li ◽  
Qiang Yin ◽  
Zhonglian Han ◽  
...  

Abstract The reservoir of Daqing Heidimiao Oilfield (permeability 1736×10−3μm2) contains heavy oil, with the average viscosity of 3306 mPa•s. It is developed by steam flooding and steam huff and puff, however, the recovery rate is only 14.6%. Therefore, the multi-component thermal fluid huff-and-puff technology is applied to, dealing with pertinent problems such as gas channeling, corrosion and oil pump lock in the process so as to improve oil recovery and production. Mechanism: Cooling by water, the ultra-high temperature gas generated via combustion of diesel or natural gas with air produces a multi-component thermal fluid containing CO2,N2 and vapor, combining the advantages of gas absorption and thermal recovery. Simulation: A multi-component and multi-phase percolation model is built to optimize the huff-and-puff parameters including composition ratio, temperature and injection volume. Supporting techniques: a high temperature oil-and-acid resistant foam system to form a precedent-blocking slug and automatically adjust the huff-and-puff profile. a dedicated low-cost and high-efficiency corrosion inhibitor system to realize corrosion-resistance. a four-node down-hole gas-liquid separation device to increase efficiency. The comprehensive reduced-viscosity rate is more than 30%; high-pressure air chambers, ranging from 0.2 to 2.0MPa, are formed for elastic energy replenishment. Field tests show the average annual oil increase per well is about 3800 barrels, with the highest being about 7200 barrels. The numerical simulation results show that the optimal composition ratio (N2: CO2: vapor) is 5:1:1.5, that the best injection amount is 30∼50×104Nm3 and that the injection temperature is preferably 280 ∼ 300 °C. The oil-and-acid resistant foaming agent has improved recovery efficiency, as a significantly improved profile of gas absorption, and the oil extraction degree increases by about 31.5%. High temperature corrosion is prevented, through intermittent injection of high-temperature-resistant corrosion inhibitor (corrosion inhibition rate 70.5% at 350 °C), and the frequency of pipeline corrosion is reduced averagely by 98.5%. Air-lock in pump vanishes via gas-liquid separation devise, with the average indoor pump efficiency increases by more than 50% (gas-liquid ratio ≤3000m3/m3)and the one in field test increases from less than 20% to over 45%. More importantly, the maintenance period has reached 662d. This technology has been applied to 98 wells in Daqing to date, 95 of which are stimulated successfully. The multi-component thermal fluid huff-and-puff technology solves the problems such as gas channeling, corrosion and air-lock in pumps through supporting techniques and the synergism of steam flooding and thermal recovery to enhance oil recovery and can be used as a superseded technology after steam huff-and-puff treatment to increase the EUR, especially for heavy oil reservoirs with medium and high permeability.


2015 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Changjiu Wang ◽  
Huiqing Liu ◽  
Qiang Zheng ◽  
Yongge Liu ◽  
Xiaohu Dong ◽  
...  

Controlling the phenomenon of steam channeling is a major challenge in enhancing oil recovery of heavy oil reservoirs developed by steam injection, and the profile control with gel is an effective method to solve this problem. The use of conventional gel in water flooding reservoirs also has poor heat stability, so this paper proposes a new high-temperature gel (HTG) plugging agent on the basis of a laboratory experimental investigation. The HTG is prepared with nonionic filler and unsaturated amide monomer (AM) by graft polymerization and crosslinking, and the optimal gel formula, which has strong gelling strength and controllable gelation time, is obtained by the optimization of the concentration of main agent, AM/FT ratio, crosslinker, and initiator. To test the adaptability of the new HTG to heavy oil reservoirs and the performance of plugging steam channeling path and enhancing oil recovery, performance evaluation experiments and three-dimensional steam flooding and gel profile control experiments are conducted. The performance evaluation experiments indicate that the HTG has strong salt resistance and heat stability and still maintains strong gelling strength after 72 hrs at 200 °C. The singular sand-pack flooding experiments suggest that the HTG has good injectability, which can ensure the on-site construction safety. Moreover, the HTG has a high plugging pressure and washing out resistance to the high-temperature steam after gel forming and keeps the plugging ratio above 99.8% when the following steam injected volume reaches 10 PV after gel breakthrough. The three-dimensional steam flooding and gel profile control experiments results show that the HTG has good plugging performance in the steam channeling path and effectively controls its expanding. This forces the following steam, which is the steam injected after the gelling of HTG in the model, to flow through the steam unswept area, which improves the steam injection profile. During the gel profile control period, the cumulative oil production increases by 294.4 ml and the oil recovery is enhanced by 8.4%. Thus, this new HTG has a good effect in improving the steam injection profile and enhancing oil recovery and can be used to control the steam channeling in heavy oil reservoirs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céleste Odier ◽  
Margaux Kerdraon ◽  
Emie Lacombe ◽  
Eric Delamaide

Abstract In heavy oil reservoirs operated by steam injection, foam has a double benefit. By improving the steam sweep efficiency within the reservoir, foam increases oil recovery while reducing the amount of injected steam. However, in the field, this technology is not always very effective due to the fact that it is difficult to find foaming agents that can withstand temperatures above 200°C. Moreover, the agents that form stable foams at such temperatures are often insoluble at ambient temperature, and therefore difficult to solubilize in the field. Thus, a compromise between good solubility in surface conditions and high temperature foaming performances in the reservoir has to be found. In this study, we show that it is possible to boost chemicals that form foam at very high temperature with an additive to greatly improve their solubility at ambient temperature while maintaining their high foaming performance at high temperature. Two foaming agents of increasing degree of hydrophobicity (H and HH) were initially selected for this study. The first one shows high foaming performances in porous media and in a high-pressure cell at temperatures comprised in between 150 and 220°C. The second one, more hydrophobic, is particularly performant at temperatures comprised in between 220°C and at least 280°C. Using a robotic platform, the temperature at which the foaming solution for agents H and HH needs to be heated to be solubilized, was evaluated with an accuracy of 5°C in four brines (varying salinity and hardness). We found that the temperature at which both agents become soluble is above 60°C, still too high for a field application. In the second part of the study, these hydrophobic molecules were coupled to a pre-selected additive. The resulting mixtures were again qualified in terms of solubility and foaming performances. We show that by coupling these hydrophobic agents with an additive, we are able to maintain their excellent foaming performances while decreasing their solubilisation temperature down to room temperature. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that very high temperature foam stability assessment up to 280°C is combined to solubility measurements to design performant foaming solutions that will be easy to handle in the field for steam foam applications. Interestingly, we show that the hydrophobicity of agents that is required for high temperature foam generation can be balanced by a more hydrophilic agent without reducing their foaming performances.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongchun Cheng ◽  
Chunfeng Zhu ◽  
Guojin Tan ◽  
Zehua Lv ◽  
Jinsheng Yang ◽  
...  

In order to improve the performance of asphalt mastic, some researchers have added diatomite or basalt fiber as a modifier to the asphalt mastic, and the results show that some properties of the asphalt mastic were improved. For the simultaneous addition of diatomite and basalt fiber, two kinds of modifier, compound modified asphalt mastic had not been reported; in this paper, thirteen groups of diatomite and basalt fiber (DBFCMAM) compound modified asphalt mastic with different content were prepared to study the performance. Softening point, cone penetration, viscosity, and DSR tests were conducted, for the high temperature performance evaluation of DBFCMAM, whereas force ductility and BBR tests were used in the low temperature performance study of the DBFCMAM. The results demonstrated that the high temperature performance of DBFCMAM was increased; moreover, the low temperature performance of DBFCMAM improved by diatomite and basalt fiber according to the results of the force ductility test; however, the conclusion of the BBR test data was inconsistent with the force ductility test. In summary, the high temperature and low temperature properties of DBFCMAM had been improved.


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