Simulation of Oil Recovery by Steam Injection From the Franklin Heavy Oil Field

1965 ◽  
Vol 4 (04) ◽  
pp. 219-226
Author(s):  
David A.T. Donohue
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
Steam Injection ◽  
Oil Field

Tertiary Recovery Improvement of Steam Injection Using Chemical Additives: Pore Scale Understanding of Challenges and Solutions Through Visual Experiments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy Agra Pratama ◽  
Tayfun Babadagli
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Phase Change ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
Phase Distribution ◽  
Steam Injection ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Heavy Oil Recovery ◽  
Residual Oil ◽  
Tertiary Recovery

Abstract Our previous research, honoring interfacial properties, revealed that the wettability state is predominantly caused by phase change—transforming liquid phase to steam phase—with the potential to affect the recovery performance of heavy-oil. Mainly, the system was able to maintain its water-wetness in the liquid (hot-water) phase but attained a completely and irrevocably oil-wet state after the steam injection process. Although a more favorable water-wetness was presented at the hot-water condition, the heavy-oil recovery process was challenging due to the mobility contrast between heavy-oil and water. Correspondingly, we substantiated that the use of thermally stable chemicals, including alkalis, ionic liquids, solvents, and nanofluids, could propitiously restore the irreversible wettability. Phase distribution/residual oil behavior in porous media through micromodel study is essential to validate the effect of wettability on heavy-oil recovery. Two types of heavy-oils (450 cP and 111,600 cP at 25oC) were used in glass bead micromodels at steam temperatures up to 200oC. Initially, the glass bead micromodels were saturated with synthesized formation water and then displaced by heavy-oils. This process was done to exemplify the original fluid saturation in the reservoirs. In investigating the phase change effect on residual oil saturation in porous media, hot-water was injected continuously into the micromodel (3 pore volumes injected or PVI). The process was then followed by steam injection generated by escalating the temperature to steam temperature and maintaining a pressure lower than saturation pressure. Subsequently, the previously selected chemical additives were injected into the micromodel as a tertiary recovery application to further evaluate their performance in improving the wettability, residual oil, and heavy-oil recovery at both hot-water and steam conditions. We observed that phase change—in addition to the capillary forces—was substantial in affecting both the phase distribution/residual oil in the porous media and wettability state. A more oil-wet state was evidenced in the steam case rather than in the liquid (hot-water) case. Despite the conditions, auspicious wettability alteration was achievable with thermally stable surfactants, nanofluids, water-soluble solvent (DME), and switchable-hydrophilicity tertiary amines (SHTA)—improving the capillary number. The residual oil in the porous media yielded after injections could be favorably improved post-chemicals injection; for example, in the case of DME. This favorable improvement was also confirmed by the contact angle and surface tension measurements in the heavy-oil/quartz/steam system. Additionally, more than 80% of the remaining oil was recovered after adding this chemical to steam. Analyses of wettability alteration and phase distribution/residual oil in the porous media through micromodel visualization on thermal applications present valuable perspectives in the phase entrapment mechanism and the performance of heavy-oil recovery. This research also provides evidence and validations for tertiary recovery beneficial to mature fields under steam applications.

The Experimental Analysis of the Role of Flue Gas Injection for Horizontal Well Steam Flooding

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhanxi Pang ◽  
Peng Qi ◽  
Fengyi Zhang ◽  
Taotao Ge ◽  
Huiqing Liu
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
Flue Gas ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Steam Injection ◽  
Displacement Efficiency ◽  
Oil Viscosity ◽  
Sweep Efficiency ◽  
Steam Flooding ◽  
Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Heavy oil is an important hydrocarbon resource that plays a great role in petroleum supply for the world. Co-injection of steam and flue gas can be used to develop deep heavy oil reservoirs. In this paper, a series of gas dissolution experiments were implemented to analyze the properties variation of heavy oil. Then, sand-pack flooding experiments were carried out to optimize injection temperature and injection volume of this mixture. Finally, three-dimensional (3D) flooding experiments were completed to analyze the sweep efficiency and the oil recovery factor of flue gas + steam flooding. The role in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) mechanisms was summarized according to the experimental results. The results show that the dissolution of flue gas in heavy oil can largely reduce oil viscosity and its displacement efficiency is obviously higher than conventional steam injection. Flue gas gradually gathers at the top to displace remaining oil and to decrease heat loss of the reservoir top. The ultimate recovery is 49.49% that is 7.95% higher than steam flooding.

Experimental Design and Evaluation of Surfactant Polymer for a Heavy Oil Field in South of Sultanate of Oman

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Reham Al-Jabri ◽  
Rouhollah Farajzadeh ◽  
Abdullah Alkindi ◽  
Rifaat Al-Mjeni ◽  
David Rousseau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
History Matching ◽  
Oil Field ◽  
Reservoir Rock ◽  
Sultanate Of Oman ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Oil Viscosity ◽  
Injection Strategy ◽  
Operational Conditions

Abstract Heavy oil reservoirs remain challenging for surfactant-based EOR. In particular, selecting fine-tuned and cost effective chemical formulations requires extensive laboratory work and a solid methodology. This paper reports a laboratory feasibility study, aiming at designing a surfactant-polymer pilot for a heavy oil field with an oil viscosity of ~500cP in the South of Sultanate of Oman, where polymer flooding has already been successfully trialed. A major driver was to design a simple chemical EOR method, to minimize the risk of operational issues (e.g. scaling) and ensure smooth logistics on the field. To that end, a dedicated alkaline-free and solvent-free surfactant polymer (SP) formulation has been designed, with its sole three components, polymer, surfactant and co-surfactant, being readily available industrial chemicals. This part of the work has been reported in a previous paper. A comprehensive set of oil recovery coreflood tests has then been carried out with two objectives: validate the intrinsic performances of the SP formulation in terms of residual oil mobilization and establish an optimal injection strategy to maximize oil recovery with minimal surfactant dosage. The 10 coreflood tests performed involved: Bentheimer sandstone, for baseline assessments on large plugs with minimized experimental uncertainties; homogeneous artificial sand and clays granular packs built to have representative mineralogical composition, for tuning of the injection parameters; native reservoir rock plugs, unstacked in order to avoid any bias, to validate the injection strategy in fully representative conditions. All surfactant injections were performed after long polymer injections, to mimic the operational conditions in the field. Under injection of "infinite" slugs of the SP formulation, all tests have led to tertiary recoveries of more than 88% of the remaining oil after waterflood with final oil saturations of less than 5%. When short slugs of SP formulation were injected, tertiary recoveries were larger than 70% ROIP with final oil saturations less than 10%. The final optimized test on a reservoir rock plug, which was selected after an extensive review of the petrophysical and mineralogical properties of the available reservoir cores, led to a tertiary recovery of 90% ROIP with a final oil saturation of 2%, after injection of 0.35 PV of SP formulation at 6 g/L total surfactant concentration, with surfactant losses of 0.14 mg-surfactant/g(rock). Further optimization will allow accelerating oil bank arrival and reducing the large PV of chase polymer needed to mobilize the liberated oil. An additional part of the work consisted in generating the parameters needed for reservoir scale simulation. This required dedicated laboratory assays and history matching simulations of which the results are presented and discussed. These outcomes validate, at lab scale, the feasibility of a surfactant polymer process for the heavy oil field investigated. As there has been no published field test of SP injection in heavy oil, this work may also open the way to a new range of field applications.

Environmentally-Friendly Production and Recovery Processes for Heavy Oils

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celal Hakan Canbaz ◽  
Cenk Temizel ◽  
Yildiray Palabiyik ◽  
Korhan Kor ◽  
Luky Hendrandingrat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Steam Injection ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Recovery Processes ◽  
Injection Process ◽  
Environmental Footprints

Abstract Oil Industry is going green and there is no solid and comprehensive publication that outlines the use of green energies and methods in oil recovery. Thus, this paper is going to close that gap. As there are more environmental restrictions especially in developed countries, inclusion of green energy methods in petroleum recovery processes is very important for the future of these reserves. We will focus on extra/heavy oil as conventional oil is simpler to produce and doesn't need EOR processes that may come with environmental footprints. The objective of this study is to investigate and outline the ‘green’ production and recovery processes of heavy oil recovery in environmentally-sensitive locations where greenhouse gas emissions, type of energy used to extract oil and gas (e.g., generation of steam using natural gas vs solar), environmental impact of surface facilities, transportation of produced oil and gas and other associated materials/chemica ls required for recovery (e.g. solvents for steam injection process) are critical for the operations as well as economics.

Enhanced oil recovery techniques for heavy oil and oilsands reservoirs after steam injection

2019 ◽  
Vol 239 ◽  
pp. 1190-1211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohu Dong ◽  
Huiqing Liu ◽  
Zhangxin Chen ◽  
Keliu Wu ◽  
Ning Lu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
Steam Injection ◽  
Recovery Techniques

Indoor Study of Viscosity Reducer for Thickened Oil of Huancai

2012 ◽  
Vol 268-270 ◽  
pp. 547-550
Author(s):  
Qing Wang Liu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Zhen Zhong Fan ◽  
Jiao Wang ◽  
Rui Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Interfacial Tension ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
High Viscosity ◽  
Oil Field ◽  
Viscosity Reduction ◽  
Oil Viscosity ◽  
Low Viscosity ◽  
Viscosity Reducer ◽  
Oil Water

Liaohe oil field block 58 for Huancai, the efficiency of production of thickened oil is low, and the efficiency of displacement is worse, likely to cause other issues. Researching and developing an type of Heavy Oil Viscosity Reducer for exploiting. The high viscosity of W/O emulsion changed into low viscosity O/W emulsion to facilitate recovery, enhanced oil recovery. Through the experiment determine the viscosity properties of Heavy Oil Viscosity Reducer. The oil/water interfacial tension is lower than 0.0031mN•m-1, salt-resisting is good. The efficiency of viscosity reduction is higher than 90%, and also good at 180°C.

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