scholarly journals Comparison of Different Gases Injection Techniques for Better Oil Productivity

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mohammed Samba ◽  
Yiqiang Li ◽  
Madi Abdullah Naser ◽  
Mahmoud O Elsharafi

There are many known enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods and every method has its criteria to use it. Some of those methods are gas injection such as CO2 injection, N2 and hydrocarbon gas injection. Where the CO2 has been the largest contributor to global EOR. Gas injection can be classified into two main types; continues gas injection (CGI) and water alternating gas injection (WAG). The objective of this research is to propose initial gases injection plan of the X field to maximize the total oil recovery. The feasibility study of different gases to maintain pressure and optimize oil recovery have been examined on a simple mechanistic reservoir model of considerably depleted saturated oil reservoir. In order to maximize the total oil recovery, the simulation study was conducted on 3-phase compositional simulation model. For more optimization, a sensitivity study was conducted on the injection cycling and component ratios. A sensitivity study was also conducted on the following parameters to study their effects on the overall field’s recovery such as flow rate and bottom-hole pressure. Results obtained in this paper shows that, the WAG CO2 injection was found to be significantly more efficient than different gas injection and continues gas injection. The oil recovery depends not only on the fluid-to-fluid displacement but also on the compositional phase behavior. 

SPE Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (01) ◽  
pp. 114-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mobeen Fatemi ◽  
Mehran Sohrabi

Summary Laboratory data on water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection for non-water-wet systems are very limited, especially for near-miscible (very low IFT) gas/oil systems, which represent injection scenarios involving high-pressure hydrocarbon gas or CO2 injection. Simulation of these processes requires three-phase relative permeability (kr) data. Most of the existing three-phase relative permeability correlations have been developed for water-wet conditions. However, a majority of oil reservoirs are believed to be mixed-wet and, hence, prediction of the performance of WAG injection in these reservoirs is associated with significant uncertainties. Reliable simulation of WAG injection, therefore, requires improved relative permeability and hysteresis models validated by reliable measured data. In this paper, we report the results of a comprehensive series of coreflood experiments carried out in a core under natural water-wet conditions. These included water injection, gas injection, and also WAG injection. Then, to investigate the impact of wettability on the performance of these injection strategies, the wettability of the same core was changed to mixed-wet (by aging the core in an appropriate crude oil) and a similar set of experiments were performed in the mixed-wet core. WAG experiments under both wettability conditions started with water injection (I) followed by gas injection (D), and this cyclic injection of water and gas was repeated (IDIDID). The results show that in both the water-wet and mixed-wet cores, WAG injection performs better than water injection or gas injection alone. Changing the rock wettability from water-wet to mixed-wet significantly improves the performance of water injection. Under both wettability conditions (water-wet and mixed-wet), the breakthrough (BT) of the gas during gas injection happens sooner than the BT of water in water injection. Ultimate oil recovery by gas injection is considerably higher than that obtained by water injection in the water-wet system, while in the mixed-wet system, gas injection recovers considerably less oil.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thaer I. Ismail ◽  
Emad W. Al-Shalabi ◽  
Mahmoud Bedewi ◽  
Waleed AlAmeri

Abstract Gas injection is one of the most commonly used enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods. However, there are multiple problems associated with gas injection including gravity override, viscous fingering, and channeling. These problems are due to an adverse mobility ratio and cause early breakthrough of the gas resulting, in poor recovery efficiency. A Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection process is recommended to resolve these problems through better mobility control of gas, leading to better project economics. However, poor WAG design and lack of understanding of the different factors that control its performance might result in unfavorable oil recovery. Therefore, this study provides more insight into improving WAG oil recovery by optimizing different surface and subsurface WAG parameters using a coupled surface and subsurface simulator. Moreover, the work investigates the effects of hysteresis on WAG performance. This case study investigates a field named Volve, which is a decommissioned sandstone field in the North Sea. Experimental design of factors influencing WAG performance on this base case was studied. Sensitivity analysis was performed on different surface and subsurface WAG parameters including WAG ratio, time to start WAG, total gas slug size, cycle slug size, and tubing diameter. A full two-level factorial design was used for the sensitivity study. The significant parameters of interest were further optimized numerically to maximize oil recovery. The results showed that the total slug size is the most important parameter, followed by time to start WAG, and then cycle slug size. WAG ratio appeared in some of the interaction terms while tubing diameter effect was found to be negligible. The study also showed that phase hysteresis has little to no effect on oil recovery. Based on the optimization, it is recommended to perform waterflooding followed by tertiary WAG injection for maximizing oil recovery from the Volve field. Furthermore, miscible WAG injection resulted in an incremental oil recovery between 5 to 11% OOIP compared to conventional waterflooding. WAG optimization is case-dependent and hence, the findings of this study hold only for the studied case, but the workflow should be applicable to any reservoir. Unlike most previous work, this study investigates WAG optimization considering both surface and subsurface parameters using a coupled model.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
H. Karimaie ◽  
O. Torsæter

The purpose of the three experiments described in this paper is to investigate the efficiency of secondary andtertiary gas injection in fractured carbonate reservoirs, focusing on the effect of equilibrium gas,re-pressurization and non-equilibrium gas. A weakly water-wet sample from Asmari limestone which is the mainoil producing formation in Iran, was placed vertically in a specially designed core holder surrounded withfracture. The unique feature of the apparatus used in the experiment, is the capability of initializing the samplewith live oil to obtain a homogeneous saturation and create the fracture around it by using a special alloy whichis easily meltable. After initializing the sample, the alloy can be drained from the bottom of the modified coreholder and create the fracture which is filled with live oil and surrounded the sample. Pressure and temperaturewere selected in the experiments to give proper interfacial tensions which have been measured experimentally.Series of secondary and tertiary gas injection were carried out using equilibrium and non-equilibrium gas.Experiments have been performed at different pressures and effect of reduction of interfacial tension werechecked by re-pressurization process. The experiments showed little oil recovery due to water injection whilesignificant amount of oil has been produced due to equilibrium gas injection and re-pressurization. Results alsoreveal that CO2 injection is a very efficient recovery method while injection of C1 can also improve the oilrecovery.


SPE Journal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (05) ◽  
pp. 841-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.. Shahverdi ◽  
M.. Sohrabi

Summary Water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection in waterflooded reservoirs can increase oil recovery and extend the life of these reservoirs. Reliable reservoir simulations are needed to predict the performance of WAG injection before field implementation. This requires accurate sets of relative permeability (kr) and capillary pressure (Pc) functions for each fluid phase, in a three-phase-flow regime. The WAG process also involves another major complication, hysteresis, which is caused by flow reversal happening during WAG injection. Hysteresis is one of the most important phenomena manipulating the performance of WAG injection, and hence, it has to be carefully accounted for. In this study, we have benefited from the results of a series of coreflood experiments that we have been performing since 1997 as a part of the Characterization of Three-Phase Flow and WAG Injection JIP (joint industry project) at Heriot-Watt University. In particular, we focus on a WAG experiment carried out on a water-wet core to obtain three-phase relative permeability values for oil, water, and gas. The relative permeabilities exhibit significant and irreversible hysteresis for oil, water, and gas. The observed hysteresis, which is a result of the cyclic injection of water and gas during WAG injection, is not predicted by the existing hysteresis models. We present a new three-phase relative permeability model coupled with hysteresis effects for the modeling of the observed cycle-dependent relative permeabilities taking place during WAG injection. The approach has been successfully tested and verified with measured three-phase relative permeability values obtained from a WAG experiment. In line with our laboratory observations, the new model predicts the reduction of the gas relative permeability during consecutive water-and-gas-injection cycles as well as the increase in oil relative permeability happening in consecutive water-injection cycles.


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


2022 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 139-149
Author(s):  
F. G. A. Pereira ◽  
V. E. Botechia ◽  
D. J. Schiozer

Pre-salt reservoirs are among the most important discoveries in recent decades due to the large quantities of oil in them. However, high levels of uncertainties related to its large gas/CO2 production prompt a more complex gas/CO2 management, including the use of alternating water and gas/CO2 injection (WAG) as a recovery mechanism to increase oil recovery from the field. The purpose of this work is to develop a methodology to manage cycle sizes of the WAG/CO2, and analyze the impact of other variables related to the management of producing wells during the process. The methodology was applied to a benchmark synthetic reservoir model with pre-salt characteristics. We used five approaches to evaluate the optimum cycle size under study, also assessing the impact of the management of producing wells: (A) without closing producers due to gas-oil ratio (GOR) limit; (B) GOR limit fixed at a fixed value (1600 m³/m³) for all wells; (C) GOR limit optimized per well; (D) joint optimization between GOR limit values of producers and WAG cycles; and (E) optimization of the cycle size per injector well with an optimized GOR limit. The results showed that the optimum cycle size depends on the management of the producers. Leaving all production wells open until the end of the field's life (without closing based on the GOR limit) or controlling the wells in a more restricted manner (with closing based on the GOR limit), led to significant variation of the results (optimal size of the WAG/CO2 cycles). Our study, therefore, demonstrates that the optimum cycle size depends on other control variables and can change significantly due to these variables. This work presents a study that aimed to manage the WAG-CO2 injection cycle size by optimizing the life cycle control variables to obtain better economic performance within the premises already established, such as the total reinjection of gas/CO2 produced, also analyzing the impact of other variables (management of producing wells) along with the WAG-CO2 cycles.


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