Identification of Seepage Mechanisms for Natural Gas Huff-n-Puff and Flooding Processes in Hydrophilic Reservoirs With Low and Ultra-Low Permeabilities

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taiyi Zheng ◽  
Xiangui Liu ◽  
Zhengming Yang ◽  
Yutian Luo ◽  
Yapu Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract Hydrocarbon gas flooding/Huff-n-Puff (HNP) can improve the oil recovery in the unconventional reservoirs. Here, the mechanisms accounting for fluid flow in the low-permeability and ultra-low permeability reservoirs were experimentally and theoretically investigated. Core plugs collected from a typical China oilfield were utilized for the experiments. Additionally, methane was used as the injection agent to conduct natural gas HNP/displacement experiments. The results indicated that the use of natural gas as an energy supplement agent and the HNP development method can effectively improve the recovery efficiency of the aforementioned two types of reservoirs. During the HNP process, the oil recovery is effectively enhanced mainly in the first round and second round. Meanwhile, during gas injection and HNP, natural gas can evidently weaken the extraction and reduce the precipitation of heavy components. However, the natural gas injection can establish an effective driving pressure system in low-permeability core plugs, and the interaction between natural gas and oil can change the mobility ratio. Furthermore, it aids in avoiding viscous fingering and premature breakthroughs. Moreover, the oil can be sandwiched between the interface of the gas and water phases to form a slip channel in a hydrophilic core sample, which can quickly produce oil. Finally, a numerical model was developed by considering the reservoir parameters of Changqing Oilfield, China. The oil recovery after eight rounds of CH4 HNP was 80% higher than that achieved via depletion development. Additionally, the oil recovery curves are especially similar in the previous three HNP rounds. These curves show obvious differences from the fourth round onwards, which indicates that the asphaltene deposition and CH4 diffusion slightly affect the oil recovery factor during the initial production period.

2014 ◽  
Vol 941-944 ◽  
pp. 1453-1458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Liu ◽  
Peng Qu ◽  
Yang Liu

There are wide scale of porous carbonate reservoirs in around the world, that have low permeability with undeveloped fracture. With study target of Savark formation in Middle East, core gas flooding experiments are conducted and microscope seepage mechanism is researched further. The study results indicate, with formation condition, miscible associated gas flooding is not achieved easily because of high minimum miscible pressure; flooding efficiency of hydrocarbon gas injection is high, especially for miscible flooding, because gas flooding makes oil volume expanse and viscosity decrease, and then oil mobility will be improved. In the experiments, gas injection mainly displace mobile oil in macropore, so changing displacement manner should be considered to improve flooding efficiency further.


Lithosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (Special 4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Qin ◽  
Haochuan Zhang ◽  
Chang Liu ◽  
Haifeng Ding ◽  
Tianyu Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract Field data indicates that oil production decline quickly and the oil recovery factor is low due to low permeability and insufficient energy in the tight oil reservoirs. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is required to improve the oil production rates of tight oil reservoirs. Gas flooding is a good means to supplement formation energy and improve oil recovery factor, especially for hydrocarbon gas flooding when CO2 is insufficient. Due to the permeability in some areas is too low, the injected gas cannot spread farther, and the EOR performance is poor. So multifractured horizontal well (MFHW) are usually used to assist gas injection in oilfields. At present, there are few studies on the optimization of hydrocarbon gas flooding parameters especially under the complex fracture network. This article uses unstructured grids to characterize the complex fracture networks, which more realistically shows the flow of formation fluids. Based on actual reservoir data, this paper establishes the numerical model of hydrocarbon gas flooding under complex fracture networks. The article conducts numerical simulation to analyze the effect of different parameters on well performance and provides the optimal injection and production parameters for hydrocarbon gas flooding in the M tight oil reservoir. The optimal injection-production well spacing of the M tight oil reservoir is about 800 to 900 m. The EOR performance is better when the total gas injection rates are about 0.45 HCPV, and gas injection rates of each well are about 3000 to 3500 m3/d (0.021 to 0.025 HCPV/a). The recommended injection-production ratio is about 1.1 to 1.2. This work can offer engineers guidance for hydrocarbon gas flooding of the MFHW with complex fracture networks. Hydrocarbon gas flooding in tight oil reservoirs can enhance oil recovery. The findings of this study can help for a better understanding of the influence of different parameters on hydrocarbon gas flooding in the M tight oil reservoir. This work can also offer engineers guidance for hydrocarbon gas flooding of the MFHW with complex fracture networks.


2004 ◽  
Vol 126 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. S. Shokoya ◽  
S. A. (Raj) Mehta ◽  
R. G. Moore ◽  
B. B. Maini ◽  
M. Pooladi-Darvish ◽  
...  

Flue gas injection into light oil reservoirs could be a cost-effective gas displacement method for enhanced oil recovery, especially in low porosity and low permeability reservoirs. The flue gas could be generated in situ as obtained from the spontaneous ignition of oil when air is injected into a high temperature reservoir, or injected directly into the reservoir from some surface source. When operating at high pressures commonly found in deep light oil reservoirs, the flue gas may become miscible or near–miscible with the reservoir oil, thereby displacing it more efficiently than an immiscible gas flood. Some successful high pressure air injection (HPAI) projects have been reported in low permeability and low porosity light oil reservoirs. Spontaneous oil ignition was reported in some of these projects, at least from laboratory experiments; however, the mechanism by which the generated flue gas displaces the oil has not been discussed in clear terms in the literature. An experimental investigation was carried out to study the mechanism by which flue gases displace light oil at a reservoir temperature of 116°C and typical reservoir pressures ranging from 27.63 MPa to 46.06 MPa. The results showed that the flue gases displaced the oil in a forward contacting process resembling a combined vaporizing and condensing multi-contact gas drive mechanism. The flue gases also became near-miscible with the oil at elevated pressures, an indication that high pressure flue gas (or air) injection is a cost-effective process for enhanced recovery of light oils, compared to rich gas or water injection, with the potential of sequestering carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lijuan Huang ◽  
Zongfa Li ◽  
Shaoran Ren ◽  
Yanming Liu

Abstract The technology of air injection has been widely used in the second and tertiary recovery in oilfields. However, due to the injected air and natural gas will explode, the safety of the gas injection technology has attracted much attention. Gravity assisted oxygen-reduced air flooding is a new method that eliminates explosion risks and improves oil recovery in large-dip oil reservoirs or thick oil layers. The explosion limit data of different components of natural gas under high pressure were obtained through explosion experiments, which verified the suppression effect of oxygen-reduced air on explosions. The influence of natural gas composition and concentration on explosion limits was also investigated. In addition, a rotatable displacement device was used to study the feasibility of gravity assisted oxygen-reduced air injection for improving the heavy oil reservoirs recovery. Under pressure and temperature conditions of 20MPa and 371K, the sand-filled gravity flooding experiments with different dip angles were carried out using oxygen-reduced air with an oxygen content of 8%. The results show that with the increase of the reservoir dip, the pore volume of the injected fluid at the gas channeling point, the efficient development time of gas injection, and the final displacement efficiency of gas injection development all increase through gravity stabilization caused by gravity differentiation. In the presence of a dip angle, the cumulative oil production before the gas breakthrough point exceeded 80% of the oil production during the entire production process, indicating that gravity assisted oxygen-reduced air flooding is an effective and safe improving oil recovery method. Finally, the explosion risk of each link of the air injection process is analyzed, and the high-risk area and the low-risk area are determined.


2011 ◽  
Vol 391-392 ◽  
pp. 1051-1054
Author(s):  
Shu Li Chen ◽  
Wen Xiang Wu ◽  
Jia Bin Tang

In laboratory, the minimum miscible pressure (MMP) of oil and CO2 was studied by using a slim tube model. The results showed that the greater the gas injection pressure, the higher the cumulative recovery. The gas breakthrough when the gas was injected with a volume of 0.7~0.8PV, the trend of cumulative recovery increase slowed down and the produced gas-oil ratio increased dramatically. Core flooding experiments were carried to compare the effects of CO2 and water flooding. As a result, the ultimate oil recovery of CO2 flooding increased with the increase of gas injection pressure. If the gas flooding was miscible, the ultimate recovery of CO2 flooding was generally higher than that of water flooding.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Tjokorde Walmiki Samadhi ◽  
Utjok W.R. Siagian ◽  
Angga P Budiono

The technical feasibility of using flare gas in the miscible gas flooding enhanced oil recovery (MGF-EOR) is evaluated by comparing the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) obtained using flare gas to the MMP obtained in the conventional CO2 flooding. The MMP is estimated by the multiple mixing cell calculation method with the Peng-Robinson equation of state using a binary nC5H12-nC16H34 mixture at a 43%:57% molar ratio as a model oil. At a temperature of 323.15 K, the MMP in CO2 injection is estimated at 9.78 MPa. The MMP obtained when a flare gas consisting of CH4 and C2H6 at a molar ratio of 91%:9% is used as the injection gas is predicted to be 3.66 times higher than the CO2 injection case. The complete gas-oil miscibility in CO2 injection occurs via the vaporizing gas drive mechanism, while flare gas injection shifts the miscibility development mechanism to the combined vaporizing / condensing gas drive. Impact of variations in the composition of the flare gas on MMP needs to be further explored to confirm the feasibility of flare gas injection in MGF-EOR processes. Keywords: flare gas, MMP, miscible gas flooding, EORAbstrakKonsep penggunaan flare gas untuk proses enhanced oil recovery dengan injeksi gas terlarut (miscible gas flooding enhanced oil recovery atau MGF-EOR) digagaskan untuk mengurangi emisi gas rumah kaca dari fasilitas produksi migas, dengan sekaligus meningkatkan produksi minyak. Kelayakan teknis injeksi flare gas dievaluasi dengan memperbandingkan tekanan pelarutan minimum (minimum miscibility pressure atau MMP) untuk injeksi flare gas dengan MMP pada proses MGF-EOR konvensional menggunakan injeksi CO2. MMP diperkirakan melalui komputasi dengan metode sel pencampur majemuk dengan persamaan keadaan Peng-Robinson, pada campuran biner nC5H12-nC16H34 dengan nisbah molar 43%:57% sebagai model minyak. Pada temperatur 323.15 K, estimasi MMP yang diperoleh dengan injeksi CO2 adalah 9.78 MPa. Nilai MMP yang diperkirakan pada injeksi flare gas yang berupa campuran CH4-C2H6 pada nisbah molar 91%:9% sangat tinggi, yakni sebesar 3.66 kali nilai yang diperoleh pada kasus injeksi CO2. Pelarutan sempurna gas-minyak dalam injeksi CO2 terbentuk melalui mekanisme dorongan gas menguap (vaporizing gas drive), sementara pelarutan pada injeksi flare gas terbentuk melaui mekanisme kombinasi dorongan gas menguap dan mengembun (vaporizing/condensing gas drive). Pengaruh variasi komposisi flare gas terhadap MMP perlu dikaji lebih lanjut untuk menjajaki kelayakan injeksi flare gas dalam proses MGF-EOR.Kata kunci: flare gas, MMP, miscible gas flooding, EOR


2020 ◽  
Vol 218 ◽  
pp. 02022
Author(s):  
Ping Guo ◽  
Shiyong Hu ◽  
Yisheng Hu ◽  
Qijian Ding

The heterogeneity of glutenite reservoir is serious, and breakthrough is easy to occur in the process of water drive and gas drive, which reduces the sweep efficiency. The serious vertical heterogeneity in the H well area of Xinjiang oilfield led to the rapid gas breakthrough during gas injection test. Water alternating gas flooding and foam profile control are often used to seal breakthrough. In this paper, based on the actual reservoir characteristics, vertical heterogeneous planar model is made for flooding experiment. The experimental results show that after gas breakthrough caused by water alternating gas flooding, the flue gas foam can effectively block the high permeability layer and develop the low permeability layer, improve the sweep efficiency and recovery percent, and provide reference for the development adjustment of actual reservoir after gas breakthrough.


Author(s):  
Sudad H AL-Obaidi ◽  
Miel Hofmann ◽  
Falah H. Khalaf ◽  
Hiba H. Alwan

The efficiency of gas injection for developing terrigenous deposits within a multilayer producing object is investigated in this article. According to the results of measurements of the 3D hydrodynamic compositional model, an assessment of the oil recovery factor was made. In the studied conditions, re-injection of the associated gas was found to be the most technologically efficient working agent. The factors contributing to the inefficacy of traditional methods of stimulating oil production such as multistage hydraulic fracturing when used to develop low-permeability reservoirs have been analyzed. The factors contributing to the inefficiency of traditional oil-production stimulation methods, such as multistage hydraulic fracturing, have been analysed when they are applied to low-permeability reservoirs. The use of a gas of various compositions is found to be more effective as a working agent for reservoirs with permeability less than 0.005 µm2. Ultimately, the selection of an agent for injection into the reservoir should be driven by the criteria that allow assessing the applicability of the method under specific geological and physical conditions. In multilayer production objects, gas injection efficiency is influenced by a number of factors, in addition to displacement, including the ratio of gas volumes, the degree to which pressure is maintained in each reservoir, as well as how the well is operated. With the increase in production rate from 60 to 90 m3 / day during the re-injection of produced hydrocarbon gas, this study found that the oil recovery factor increased from 0.190 to 0.229. The further increase in flow rate to 150 m3 / day, however, led to a faster gas breakthrough, a decrease in the amount of oil produced, and a decrease in the oil recovery factor to 0.19 Based on the results of the research, methods for stimulating the formation of low-permeability reservoirs were ranked based on their efficacy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Agger ◽  
Henrik Sørensen

Abstract The paper describes a fast and approximate 1D simulation algorithm for calculating the percent recovery that can be obtained from an oil reservoir if gas injection is carried out at a pressure lower than the minimum miscibility pressure. The algorithm is based on the Method of Characteristics. While a conventional 1D reservoir simulation of a gas injection scenario may take minutes or even hours, the proposed algorithm allows a full evaluation of the recovery to be completed within seconds. To make the method numerically robust, a number of approximations were needed. The result is an extremely fast algorithm that not only provides a good estimate of the recovery obtained by gas injection, but also gives a good visualization of how the gas displaces the oil.


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