Exergy return on exergy investment analysis of natural-polymer (Guar-Arabic gum) enhanced oil recovery process

Abstract

This paper probes the transport of CO 2 soluble surfactant for foaming in porous media. We numerically investigate the effect of surfactant partitioning between the aqueous phase and the gaseous phase on foam transport for subsurface applications when the surfactant is injected in the CO 2 phase. A 2-D reservoir simulation is developed to quantify the effect of surfactant partition coefficient on the displacement conformance and CO 2 sweep efficiency. A texture-implicit local-equilibrium foam model is embedded to describe how the partitioning of surfactant between water and CO 2 affects the CO 2 foam mobility control when surfactant is injected in the CO 2 phase. We conclude that when surfactant has approximately equal affinity to both the CO 2 and the water, the transport of surfactant is in line with the gas propagation and therefore the sweep efficiency is maximized. Too high affinity to water (small partition coefficient) results in surfactant retardation whereas too high affinity to CO 2 (large partition coefficient) leads to weak foam and insufficient mobility reduction. This work sheds light upon the design of water-alternating-gas-plus-surfactant-in-gas (WAG + S) process to improve the conventional foam process with surfactant-alternating-gas (SAG) injection mode during which significant amount of surfactant could possibly drain down by gravity before CO 2 slugs catch up to generate foam in situ the reservoir.

Experimental Investigation and Performance Evaluation of Modified Viscoelastic Surfactant (VES) as a New Thickening Fracturing Fluid

“…This viscoelastic behaviour is attributed by the formation of wormlike micelles (WLMs) [28]. In addition, smart wormlike micelles (WLMs) or smart self-organized structures, can be used in a myriad of applications within the oil and gas industry, including hydraulic fracturing, emulsions, polymer, surfactant, and foam flooding [15,32]. Nowadays, investigation is carried out to develop WLMs that respond to external stimuli for the ease to control visco-elasticity [33,34].…”

“…[ 13 , 14 ]. At an early stage of hydraulic fracturing, polymer fluids such as guar gum [ 15 , 16 ] was used mostly as a thickening agent for the fracturing fluid [ 17 , 18 ]. Laboratory experiments have shown that traditional polymer-based fluids generate residue(s), which can damage the formation and reduce the pore conductivity.…”

Life-cycle assessment of water injection into hydrocarbon reservoirs using exergy concept

“…and production wells. The practical pumping exergy is calculated by including the mechanical efficiency of the pump (80%), efficiency of the electrical driver (90%), and the efficiency of the power plant (50%), which gives overall efficiency of 36% for the pumps (Eftekhari et al, 2012;Hassan et al, 2019):…”

“…The exergy analysis considers the exergy inputs and exergy "wastes". The proposed approach is similar to the energy return ratio (ERR) or energy return on investment (ERoEI) concept, that has been used to measure the "energetic productivity" of the oil industry (Brandt et al, 2015;Hassan et al, 2019). The ERR is the ratio between the energy provided and the energy consumed (Hassan et al, 2019).…”

“…The proposed approach is similar to the energy return ratio (ERR) or energy return on investment (ERoEI) concept, that has been used to measure the "energetic productivity" of the oil industry (Brandt et al, 2015;Hassan et al, 2019). The ERR is the ratio between the energy provided and the energy consumed (Hassan et al, 2019). The energy efficiency of offshore oil and gas platforms in the North Sea and Brazil has also been analyzed using exergy (Oliveira et al, 1997;Nguyen et al, 2013).…”