Core-Flow Experiments With Oil and Solids Containing Water

Abstract

TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435. AbstractThis paper describes core-flow experiments with sandstone cores and artificial produced water. The water contained small quantities of solids in the form of ground sandstone, of oil in the form of droplets, or both solid particles and oil droplets. In the case of water with solid particles the parameters having the largest influence were particles concentration and, to a lesser extent, size. Usually a considerable decrease of the permeability of the first section of the core was observed after an amount of a few hundred pore volumes was injected. For a relatively low particle concentration, in combination with a relatively small average particle size, this decrease was less severe. Injection of water with only oil droplets eventually led to a small permeability decrease in all core sections. Also for injection of water containing both oil droplets and solid particles, the particles concentration appeared to be the most influential parameter. Here the presence of oil usually led to some additional permeability decrease.

Permeability Reduction in Qishn Sandstone Specimens due to Particle Suspension Injection

“…Formation and well impairment due to particle invasion during produced water re-injection has been extensively studied using experiments (e.g., Barkman and Davidson 1972;Abrams 1977;Davidson 1979;Muecke 1979;Todd et al 1984;Eylander 1988;Vetter et al 1987;Sharma and Yortsos 1987;Todd et al 1990;van Oort et al 1993;Roque et al 1995;Pandya et al 1998;van den Broek et al 1999;Veerapen et al 2001;Moghdasi et al 2004;Al-Abduwani et al 2003;Al-Abduwani et al 2005). Roque et al (1995) proposed four different particle retention phases: deposition, bridging, internal accumulation, and external accumulation.…”

Water Quality and Well Injectivity: Do Residual Oil-in-Water Emulsions Matter?

“…In most DBF-based models, the deposition description contains the well-known fi ltration coeffi cient and the permeability impairment is handled through a fl ow-restriction parameter. Actually, these parameters hide much of the physics of the process and are themselves functions of several operating parameters, such as fl ow rate, particle and pore-throat size, and distribution and other physicochemical parameters (Soo et al 1986;Logan et al 1995;Tufenkji and Elimelech 2004). Much of our research work on injectivity decline aims at reducing the number of required parameters through a better understanding of the actual physics of the process using dimensional analysis.…”

Numerical modeling of formation damage by two-phase particulate transport processes during CO2 injection in deep heterogeneous porous media

“…However, widely reported causes of well plugging in the literature [10,33,25] are due to (i) clogging due to precipitation of secondary mineral phases when injecting either highly acidic or alkaline solutions into 'water sensitive' formations, as encountered in the deep well injection of liquid wastes; (ii) clay swelling as a result of dilution and mixing between fluids; (iii) the mobilization of fine particles in non-consolidated sands and limestone formations around the wellbore. Other reported mechanisms in the literature include bacterial growth and biofilm development [73,74], scaling [36], the occlusion of gases, and the fluids emulsification [83].…”