Experimental assessment of hybrid smart carbonated water flooding for carbonate reservoirs

Soleimani, Payam; Shadizadeh, Seyed Reza; Kharrat, Riyaz

doi:10.1016/j.petlm.2020.03.006

Cited by 16 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…A low pH promotes a positive charge on the surface of the shale (mainly calcite) due to the increase of positive species such as >CaHCO 3 + , >CO 3 Ca 2+ , and >CaOH 2 + . These species are either produced at the rock–brine interface or form in the aqueous phase and ultimately adsorb on the mineral rock surface through so-called mineral precipitation . The amount of their formation and adsorption is proportional to their concentration in the aqueous phase .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These species are either produced at the rock−brine interface or form in the aqueous phase and ultimately adsorb on the mineral rock surface through so-called mineral precipitation. 66 The amount of their formation and adsorption is proportional to their concentration in the aqueous phase. 67 This would imply that, in a brine where Ca 2+ is present, formation of the positively charged surface species is prompted to a larger extent.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Driving Mechanisms in CO₂-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Samara

Jaeger

2021

Energy Fuels

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Shales are currently regarded as potential hydrocarbon resources. At the same time, utilization of carbon dioxide (CO2) in enhanced oil recovery applications is being brought to the forefront worldwide. This necessitates that the mechanisms of oil recovery using CO2 are well understood. In this study, the wettability alteration and volumetric expansion upon CO2 injection into a system comprising organic-rich shale, water, and a model oil is investigated. Captive bubble tests performed at 0.1, 10, and 15 MPa and 60 °C using different aqueous phase compositions reveal that the shale is water wet under atmospheric pressure. Additionally, it is found that CO2 has an in situ aging effect that leads to reduced surface water wetting due to the expulsion of hydrocarbons from organic matter pores. This aging effect is in direct proportion to the CO2 pressure applied. Further, at elevated pressures, divalent ions promote a reduction in water wetness, while monovalent ions have less effect. Similar to contact angle measurements, the volumetric expansion is found to increase with pressure. The solubility of CO2 in the oil phase at 10 and 15 MPa is estimated to be around 20 and 28%, respectively.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Driving Mechanisms in CO₂-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Samara

Jaeger

2021

Energy Fuels

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“…The processes were summarized as follows: (i) The gray distribution of multiplied data was statistics (Figures 4), (ii) the segmentation threshold was set according to the gray distribution, and the segmentation results were evaluated visually, and (iii) the threshold was adjusted according to the visual evaluation results [73]. 4 Lithosphere and the main mineral components; this step was repeated until the segmentation results were confirmed. Finally, the solid was segmented into quartz, feldspar, dolomite, siderite, clay, and pyrite, and the segmented data was called CTsd 2.4.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Enhancing oil recovery (EOR) is crucial for oilfields to obtain stable oil production. Water flooding is a dominating enhanced oil recovery technique owing to its low cost, easy operation, and less pollution [1][2][3][4]. Therefore, it is significant for EOR to study the transport mechanisms of multiphase flow and distribution characteristics of fluids.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Wettability and Minerals on Residual Oil Distributions Based on Digital Rock and Machine Learning

Zhang

Lin

et al. 2022

Lithosphere

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The wettability of mineral surfaces has significant impacts on transport mechanisms of two-phase flow, distribution characteristics of fluids, and the formation mechanisms of residual oil during water flooding. However, few studies have investigated such effects of mineral type and its surface wettability on rock properties in the literature. To unravel the dependence of hydrodynamics on wettability and minerals distribution, we designed a new experimental procedure that combined the multiphase flow experiments with a CT scan and QEMSCAN to obtain 3D digital models with multiple minerals and fluids. With the aid of QEMSCAN, six mineral components and two fluids in sandstones were segmented from the CT data based on the histogram threshold and watershed methods. Then, a mineral surface analysis algorithm was proposed to extract the mineral surface and classify its mineral categories. The in situ contact angle and pore occupancy were calculated to reveal the wettability variation of mineral surface and distribution characteristics of fluids. According to the shape features of the oil phase, the self-organizing map (SOM) method, one of the machine learning methods, was used to classify the residual oil into five types, namely, network, cluster, film, isolated, and droplet oil. The results indicate that each mineral’s contribution to the mineral surface is not proportional to its relative content. Feldspar, quartz, and clay are the main minerals in the studied sandstones and play a controlling role in the wettability variation. Different wettability samples show various characteristics of pore occupancy. The water flooding front of the weakly water-wet to intermediate-wet sample is uniform, and oil is effectively displaced in all pores with a long oil production period. The water-wet sample demonstrates severe fingering, with a high pore occupancy change rate in large pores and a short oil production period. The residual oil patterns gradually evolve from networks to clusters, isolated, and films due to the effects of snap-off and wettability inversion. This paper reveals the effects of wettability of mineral surface on the distribution characteristics and formation mechanisms of residual oil, which offers us an in-deep understanding of the impacts of wettability and minerals on multiphase flow and helps us make good schemes to improve oil recovery.

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“…Along with fluid-rock interactions, fluid-fluid interactions have been noticed during carbonated waterflooding in the microfluidic model. Fluid-fluid interactions include: (a) promoting oil swelling, (b) oil viscosity reduction, , (c) lowering oil-brine interfacial tension (IFT), (d) micro dispersion generation, ,, and (e) exsolution of CO 2 . However, compared to intensive investigation of fluid-rock interactions, the contribution of fluid-fluid interactions to multiphase flow has not been adequately addressed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fluid–Fluid Interfacial Effects in Multiphase Flow during Carbonated Waterflooding in Sandstone: Application of X-ray Microcomputed Tomography and Molecular Dynamics

Chen

Sari

et al. 2021

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

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Fluid-fluid interfacial reactions in porous materials are pertinent to many engineering applications such as fuel cells, catalyst design, subsurface energy recovery (enhanced oil recovery), and CO2 storage. They have been identified to control physicochemical properties such as interfacial rheology, multiphase flow, and reaction kinetics. In recent years, engineered waterflooding has been identified as an effective way to increase hydrocarbon recovery and solid-fluid interaction has been assessed as the key mechanism. However, in this study, we demonstrated that in the absence of solid-fluid interactions (in strong hydrophilic porous media), fluid-fluid interfacial reactions can significantly affect multiphase flow and thus lead to an increased hydrocarbon recovery during engineered carbonated waterflooding. We designed a microwaterflooding system to evaluate the interfacial reactions during two phase flow with engineered carbonated waters. Given that salinity controls the amount of dissolved CO2, we injected carbonated high salinity water and carbonated low salinity water to achieve different fluid-fluid reactions. We injected the carbonated water in a sandstone with 99.5% quartz under X-ray microcomputed tomography (μCT) scanning at a resolution of 3.43 μm per pixel. Image processing shows that carbonated low salinity waterflooding can recover 8% more oil than carbonated high salinity waterflooding, while the quartz-rich sandstone remains strongly hydrophilic in both samples. A gradual CT intensity distribution indicates an interfacial phase generation between carbonated brine and crude oil during carbonated waterflooding. Therefore, we attributed the additional hydrocarbon recoveries to the fluid-fluid interfacial reactions. To understand the effects of fluid-fluid reactions on interfacial properties, we performed molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the chemical species distribution at the interface, interfacial tension (IFT) changes, and CO2 diffusion. The MD simulation results revealed a layered structure of the interface, a lower CO2 diffusion coefficient in carbonated high salinity water, a lower IFT in carbonated low salinity water, a swelling hydrocarbon phase in carbonated low salinity water, and more CO2 accumulated at the interface between the hydrocarbon phase and carbonated low salinity water. This work provides a general and fundamental understanding of the influence of fluid-fluid interactions on the interfacial properties between carbonated water and the hydrocarbon interface.

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Experimental assessment of hybrid smart carbonated water flooding for carbonate reservoirs

Cited by 16 publications

References 33 publications

Driving Mechanisms in CO₂-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Driving Mechanisms in CO₂-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Effects of Wettability and Minerals on Residual Oil Distributions Based on Digital Rock and Machine Learning

Fluid–Fluid Interfacial Effects in Multiphase Flow during Carbonated Waterflooding in Sandstone: Application of X-ray Microcomputed Tomography and Molecular Dynamics

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Experimental assessment of hybrid smart carbonated water flooding for carbonate reservoirs

Cited by 16 publications

References 33 publications

Driving Mechanisms in CO2-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Driving Mechanisms in CO2-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Effects of Wettability and Minerals on Residual Oil Distributions Based on Digital Rock and Machine Learning

Fluid–Fluid Interfacial Effects in Multiphase Flow during Carbonated Waterflooding in Sandstone: Application of X-ray Microcomputed Tomography and Molecular Dynamics

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Product

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Driving Mechanisms in CO₂-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales

Driving Mechanisms in CO₂-Assisted Oil Recovery from Organic-Rich Shales