Formulation of a General Multiphase, Multicomponent Chemical Flood Model

A general multiphase, multicomponent chemical flood model has been formulated. The set of mass conservation laws for each component in an isothermal system is closed by assuming local thermodynamic (phase) equilibrium, Darcy's law for multiphase flow through porous media, and Fick's law of diffusion. For the special case of binary, two-phase flow of nonmixing incompressible fluids, the equations reduce to those of Buckley and Leverett. The Buckley-Leverett equations also may be obtained for significant fractions of both components in the phases if the two phases are sufficiently incompressible. To illustrate the usefulness of the approach, a simple chemical flood model for a ternary, two-phase system is obtained which can be applied to surfactant flooding, polymer flooding, caustic flooding, etc. Introduction Field tests of various forms of surfactant flooding currently are under way or planned at a number of locations throughout the country.1 The chemical systems used have become quite complicated, often containing up to six components (water, oil, surfactant, alcohol, salt, and polymer). The interactions of these components with each other and with the reservoir rock and fluids are complex and have been the subject of many laboratory investigations.2–22 To aid in organizing and understanding laboratory work, as well as providing a means of extrapolating laboratory results to field situations, a mathematical description of the process is needed. Although it seems certain that mathematical simulations of such processes are being performed, models aimed specifically at the process have been reported only recently in the literature.23–31 It is likely that many such simulations are being performed on variants of immiscible, miscible, and compositional models that do not account for all the facets of a micellar/polymer process. To help put the many factors of such a process in proper perspective, a generalized model has been formulated incorporating an arbitrary number of components and an arbitrary number of phases. The development assumes isothermal conditions and local phase equilibrium. Darcy's law32,33 is assumed to apply to the flow of separate phases, and Fick's law34 of diffusion is applied to components within a phase. The general development also provides for mass transfer of all components between phases, the adsorption of components by the porous medium, compressibility, gravity segregation effects, and pressure differences between phases. With the proper simplifying assumptions, the general model is shown to degenerate into more familiar special cases. Numerical solutions of special cases of interest are presented elsewhere.35