Heavy oil production by carbon dioxide injection

Abstract

With the depletion of light oil, heavy oil is becoming one of the most promising resources for meeting future energy consumption. Heavy oil resources are abundant, but the traditional water flooding method can only achieve less than 20% of heavy oil recovery. Thermal recovery has proven effective in producing heavy oil, but not suitable for many heavy oil formations that are either thin or buried deep underground. Carbon Dioxide injection is a ‘win‐win’ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique for many heavy oil fields. Injected CO2 not only increases heavy oil output, but also traps injected CO2 underground. Carbon dioxide effectively recovers heavy oil thanks to several mechanisms, including oil swelling, viscosity reduction, and blow‐down recovery. This review discusses the advances of CO2 flooding at both laboratory scale and field scale. Laboratory tests show that CO2 can significantly improve heavy oil recovery. Several field cases in the USA, Turkey, Trinidad, and China are reviewed. Field experiences show that CO2 flooding is a successful EOR method for heavy oil fields. However, some issues were encountered in field applications, such as early gas breakthrough, corrosion, CO2 availability, and high costs.

A rigorous approach to predict nitrogen-crude oil minimum miscibility pressure of pure and nitrogen mixtures

“…Different problems such as corrosion in the production wells and surface facilities, CO 2 separation from the saleable hydrocarbons, large requirement of CO 2 per incremental barrel, and asphaltene precipitation cause formation damage and wettability alteration, etc.) have been reported for CO 2 injection process [6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

Crystallization behavior and optical properties of isotactic polypropylene filled with α-nucleating agents of multilayered distribution

“…21 Many reports have stated that multilayered distribution of llers exhibited more efficient for modication compared with the random state, that has been applied to prepare composites with outstanding mechanical, electrical, dielectric, barrier, and optical performances. [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] However, few studies focusing on the relationship between multilayered distribution of a-NAs and optical properties of iPP are concerned, as far as we know.…”

Assessing the application of miscible CO2 flooding in oil reservoirs: a case study from Pakistan

“…Among these three, the gas technology using CO 2 is perhaps the best method as it helps to achieve the minimum miscible pressure (MMP)-the lowest pressure for CO 2 phase to reach the multiple contact miscibility (MCM) under dynamic conditions (Bachu 2016;Gao et al 2013). As such, CO 2 can be applied for miscible EOR or immiscible EOR operation depending on the MMP (Gao et al 2013).…”

“…As such, CO 2 can be applied for miscible EOR or immiscible EOR operation depending on the MMP (Gao et al 2013).…”