Investigation of Effect of Gas Injection Pressure on Oil Recovery Accompanying CO2 Increasing in Injection Gas Composition

Author(s):  
Saeed Abbasi ◽  
Mohsen Tavakkolian ◽  
Abbas Shahrabadi
Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1998
Author(s):  
Haishan Luo ◽  
Kishore K. Mohanty

Unlocking oil from tight reservoirs remains a challenging task, as the existence of fractures and oil-wet rock surfaces tends to make the recovery uneconomic. Injecting a gas in the form of a foam is considered a feasible technique in such reservoirs for providing conformance control and reducing gas-oil interfacial tension (IFT) that allows the injected fluids to enter the rock matrix. This paper presents a modeling strategy that aims to understand the behavior of near-miscible foam injection and to find the optimal strategy to oil recovery depending on the reservoir pressure and gas availability. Corefloods with foam injection following gas injection into a fractured rock were simulated and history matched using a compositional commercial simulator. The simulation results agreed with the experimental data with respect to both oil recovery and pressure gradient during both injection schedules. Additional simulations were carried out by increasing the foam strength and changing the injected gas composition. It was found that increasing foam strength or the proportion of ethane could boost oil production rate significantly. When injected gas gets miscible or near miscible, the foam model would face serious challenges, as gas and oil phases could not be distinguished by the simulator, while they have essentially different effects on the presence and strength of foam in terms of modeling. We provide in-depth thoughts and discussions on potential ways to improve current foam models to account for miscible and near-miscible conditions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilario Martin Rodriguez ◽  
Yalda Barzin ◽  
Gregory James Walker ◽  
Markus Gruenwalder ◽  
Matias Fernandez-Badessich ◽  
...  

Abstract This study has double objectives: investigation of the main recovery mechanisms affecting the performance of the gas huff-n-puff (GHnP) process in a shale oil reservoir, and application of optimization techniques to modelling of the cyclic gas injection. A dual-permeability reservoir simulation model has been built to reproduce the performance of a single hydraulic fracture. The hydraulic fracture has the average geometry and properties of the well under analysis. A history match workflow has been run to obtain a simulation model fully representative of the studied well. An optimization workflow has been run to maximize the cumulative oil obtained during the GHnP process. The operational variables optimized are: duration of gas injection, soaking, and production, onset time of GHnP, injection gas flow rate, and number of cycles. This optimization workflow is launched twice using two different compositions for the injection gas: rich gas and pure methane. Additionally, the optimum case obtained previously with rich gas is simulated with a higher minimum bottom hole pressure (BHP) for both primary production and GHnP process. Moreover, some properties that could potentially explain the different recovery mechanisms were tracked and analyzed. Three different porosity systems have been considered in the model: fractures, matrix in the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV), and matrix in the non-SRV zone (virgin matrix). Each one with a different pressure profile, and thus with its corresponding recovery mechanisms, identified as below: Vaporization/Condensation (two-phase system) in the fractures.Miscibility (liquid single-phase) in the non-SRV matrix.Miscibility and/or Vaporization/Condensation in the SRV matrix: depending on the injection gas composition and the pressure profile along the SRV the mechanism may be clearly one of them or even both. Results of this simulation study suggest that for the optimized cases, incremental oil recovery is 24% when the gas injected is a rich gas, but it is only 2.4% when the gas injected is pure methane. A higher incremental oil recovery of 49% is obtained, when injecting rich gas and increasing the minimum BHP of the puff cycle above the saturation pressure. Injection of gas results in reduction of oil molecular weight, oil density and oil viscosity in the matrix, i.e., the oil gets lighter. This net decrease is more pronounced in the SRV than in the non-SRV region. The incremental oil recovery observed in the GHnP process is due to the mobilization of heavy components (not present in the injection gas composition) that otherwise would remain inside the reservoir. Due to the main characteristic of the shale reservoirs (nano-Darcy permeability), GHnP is not a displacement process. A key factor in success of the GHnP process is to improve the contact of the injected gas and the reservoir oil to increase the mixing and mass transfer. This study includes a review of different mechanisms, and specifically tracks the evolution of the properties that explain and justify the different identified mechanisms.


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.


Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Xiang Li ◽  
Yuan Cheng ◽  
Wulong Tao ◽  
Shalake Sarulicaoketi ◽  
Xuhui Ji ◽  
...  

The production of a low permeability reservoir decreases rapidly by depletion development, and it needs to supplement formation energy to obtain stable production. Common energy supplement methods include water injection and gas injection. Nitrogen injection is an economic and effective development method for specific reservoir types. In order to study the feasibility and reasonable injection parameters of nitrogen injection development of fractured reservoir, this paper uses long cores to carry out displacement experiment. Firstly, the effects of water injection and nitrogen injection development of a fractured reservoir are compared through experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of nitrogen injection development of the fractured reservoir. Secondly, the effects of gas-water alternate displacement after water drive and gas-water alternate displacement after gas drive are compared through experiments to study the situation of water injection or gas injection development. Finally, the reasonable parameters of nitrogen gas-water alternate injection are optimized by orthogonal experimental design. Results show that nitrogen injection can effectively enhance oil production of the reservoir with natural fractures in early periods, but gas channeling easily occurs in continuous nitrogen flooding. After water flooding, gas-water alternate flooding can effectively reduce the injection pressure and improve the reservoir recovery, but the time of gas-water alternate injection cannot be too late. It is revealed that the factors influencing the nitrogen-water alternative effect are sorted from large to small as follows: cycle injected volume, nitrogen and water slug ratio, and injection rate. The optimal cycle injected volume is around 1 PV, the nitrogen and water slug ratio is between 1 and 2, and the injection rate is between 0.1 and 0.2 mL/min.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukhtar Elturki ◽  
Abdulmohsin Imqam

Abstract Minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) is a critical parameter when undergoing miscible gas injection operations for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Miscibility has become a major term in designing the gas injection process. When the miscible gas contacts the reservoir oil, it causes changes in the basic oil properties, affecting reservoir oil composition and equilibrium conditions. Changes in conditions may also favor flocculation and deposition of organic solids, mainly asphaltene, which were previously in thermodynamic equilibrium. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how the most important parameters, such as oil temperature and oil viscosity, could affect the nitrogen (N2) MMP and the instability of asphaltene aggregation. Three sets of experiments were conducted: first, the determination of MMP was performed using a slim-tube packed with sand. The impact of crude oil viscosity using 32, 19, and 5.7 cp; and temperature using 32, 45, and 70 °C, were investigated. The results showed that the N2 MMP decreased when crude oil temperature increased. The temperature is inversely proportional to the N2 MMP due to the N2 remaining in a gaseous phase at the same conditions. In terms of viscosity, the MMP for N2 was found to decrease with the reduction in oil viscosity. Second, the effect of miscibility N2 injection pressure on asphaltene aggregation using 750 psi (below miscible pressure) and 1500 psi (at miscible pressure) was investigated using a specially designed filtration vessel. Various filter membrane pores sizes were placed inside the vessel to highlight the effect of asphaltene molecules on plugging the unconventional pore structure. The results demonstrated that increasing the pressure increased asphaltene weight percentage. The asphaltene weight percent was higher when using miscible injection pressure compared to immiscible injection pressure. Also, the asphaltene weight percentage increased when the pore size structure decreased. Finally, the visualization of asphaltene deposition over time was conducted, and the results showed that asphaltene particles started to precipitate after 2 hours. After 12 hours, the colloidal asphaltenes were fully precipitated.


2020 ◽  
pp. 2004-2016
Author(s):  
Dahlia Abdulhadi Al-Obaidi ◽  
Mohammed Saleh Al-Jawad

The Gas Assisted Gravity Drainage (GAGD) process has become one of the most important processes to enhance oil recovery in both secondary and tertiary recovery stages and through immiscible and miscible modes.  Its advantages came from the ability to provide gravity-stable oil displacement for improving oil recovery, when compared with conventional gas injection methods such as Continuous Gas Injection (CGI) and Water – Alternative Gas (WAG). Vertical injectors for CO2   gas were placed at the top of the reservoir to form a gas cap which drives the oil towards the horizontal oil producing wells which are located above the oil-water-contact. The GAGD process was developed and tested in vertical wells to increase oil recovery in reservoirs with bottom water drive and strong water coning tendencies. Many physical and simulation models of GAGD performance were studied at ambient and reservoir conditions to investigate the effects of this method to enhance the recovery of oil and to examine the most effective parameters that control the GAGD process.      A prototype 2D simulation model based on the scaled physical model was built for CO2-assisted gravity drainage in different statement scenarios. The effects of gas injection rate, gas injection pressure and oil production rate on the performance of immiscible CO2-assisted gravity drainage-enhanced oil recovery were investigated. The results revealed that the ultimate oil recovery increases considerably with increasing oil production rates. Increasing gas injection rate improves the performance of the process while high pressure gas injection leads to less effective gravity mediated recovery.


SPE Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
pp. 345-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine E. Sobers ◽  
Martin J. Blunt ◽  
Tara C. LaForce

Summary We developed an injection strategy to recover moderately heavy oil and store carbon dioxide (CO2) simultaneously. Our compositional simulations are founded on pressure/volume/temperature- (PVT-) matched properties of oil found in an unconsolidated deltaic sandstone deposit in the Gulf of Paria, offshore Trinidad. In this region, oil density ranges between 940 and 1010 kg/m3 (9 to 18°API). We use countercurrent injection of gas and water to improve reservoir sweep and trap CO2 simultaneously; water is injected in the upper portion of the reservoir, and gas is injected in the lower portion. The two water-injection rates investigated, 100 and 200 m3/d, correspond to the water-gravity numbers 6.3 to 3.1 for our reservoir properties. We applied this injection strategy using vertical producers with two injection configurations: single vertical injector and a pair of horizontal parallel laterals in a simplified representation of the unconsolidated Forest sand found offshore Trinidad. Twelve simulation runs were conducted, varying injection-gas composition for miscible- and immiscible-gas drives, water-injection rate, and injection-well orientation. Our results show that water-over-gas injection can realize oil recoveries ranging from 17 to 30%. In each instance, more than 50% of injected CO2 remained in the reservoir, with less than 15% of the retained CO2 in the mobile phase.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (05n06) ◽  
pp. 1460007
Author(s):  
Hanshi Zhang ◽  
Pingya Luo ◽  
Lei Sun ◽  
Zhijun Fu

The fault roots of Liuzan north block in Jidong oilfield of China have been long-term explored by solution gas drive. Recently, oil production declined rapidly because of shortage of formation energy and needing high water injection pressure. Carbon dioxide injection pressure is found to be generally low, and CO 2 has good solubility in crude oil to supply formation energy and achieve high oil recovery efficiency. In this work, a pilot program of CO 2 EOR technology was carried out. The slim tube test results showed that the minimal miscible pressure of Liuzan north block was 28.28 MPa. The injection parameters were optimized by numerical simulation method: the injection method was continuous, the slug size was 0.2 HCPV and the EOR efficiency was 7.23%. After two months of gas injection field test, the formation pressure of two gas injectors just increased by 14.02 MPa and 2.98 MPa, respectively, indicating that carbon dioxide could supply the formation energy effectively. 16 months after gas injection, the CO 2 injection amount was 14640 t, and the oil increment was 16424 t. The present work demonstrates the potential applicability of CO 2 flooding technology from high water injection reservoirs.


SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mukhtar Elturki ◽  
Abdulmohsin Imqam

Summary For many years, miscible gas injection has been the most beneficial enhanced oil recovery method in the oil and gas industry. However, injecting a miscible gas to displace oil often causes the flocculation and deposition of asphaltenes, which subsequently leads to a number of production problems. Nitrogen gas (N2) injection has been used to enhance oil recovery in some oil fields, seeking to improve oil recovery. However, few works have implemented N2 injection and investigated its effect on asphaltene precipitation and deposition. This research investigated the N2 miscible flow mechanism in nanopores and its impact on asphaltene precipitations, which can plug pores and reduce oil recovery. First, a slimtube was used to determine the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) of N2 to ensure that all of the experiments would be conducted at levels above the MMP. Second, filtration experiments were conducted using nanocomposite filter membranes to study asphaltene deposition on the membranes. A filtration apparatus was designed specifically and built to accommodate the filter membranes. The factors studied include N2 injection pressure, temperature, N2 mixing time, and pore size heterogeneity. Visualization tests were conducted to highlight the asphaltene precipitation process over time. Increasing the N2 injection pressure resulted in an increase in the asphaltene weight percent in all experiments. Decreasing the pore size of the filter membranes increased the asphaltene weight percent. More N2 mixing time also resulted in an increase in asphaltene weight percent, especially early in the process. Visualization tests revealed that after 1 hour, the asphaltene particles were conspicuous, and more asphaltene clusters were found in the test tubes of the oil samples from the filter with the smallest pore size. Chromatography analysis of the produced oil confirmed the reduction in the asphaltene weight percent. Microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging of the filter membranes indicated significant pore plugging from the asphaltenes, especially for the smaller pore sizes. This research highlights the severity of asphaltene deposition during miscible N2 injection in nanopore structures so as to understand the main factors that may affect the success of miscible N2 injection in unconventional reservoirs.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 4308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evgeny Shilov ◽  
Alexey Cheremisin ◽  
Kirill Maksakov ◽  
Sergey Kharlanov

This work is devoted to CO2 Huff-n-Puff studies on heavy oil. Oil recovery for heavy oil reservoirs is sufficiently small in comparison with conventional reservoirs, and, due to the physical limitation of oil flow through porous media, a strong need for better understanding of tertiary recovery mechanisms of heavy oil exists. Notwithstanding that the idea of Huff-n-Puff gas injection technology for enhanced oil recovery has existed for dozens of years, there is still no any precise methodology for evaluating the applicability and efficiency of this technology in heavy oil reservoirs. Oil recovery factor is a question of vital importance for heavy oil reservoirs. In this work, we repeated Huff-n-Puff tests more than three times at five distinct pressure points to evaluate the applicability and efficiency of CO2 Huff-n-Puff injection to the heavy oil reservoirs. Additionally, the most critical factor that affects oil recovery in gas injection operation is the condition of miscibility. Experimental data allowed to distinguish the mixing zone of the light fractions of studied heavy oil samples. The experimental results showed that the pressure increase in the Huff-n-Puff injection process does not affect the oil recovery when the injection pressure stays between miscibility pressure of light components of oil and minimum miscibility pressure. It was detected that permeability decreases after Huff-n-Puff CO2 tests.


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