Laboratory Study on Steam and Flue Gas Co-injection for Heavy Oil Recovery

Abstract

The surface steam injection is the most common enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process used in heavy oil production. Nevertheless, there are limitations due to the heat loss for deep reservoirs and for offshore fields. Downhole steam generators (DHSG) are a new technology that opens a new path for recovery of heavy oil from deep reservoirs, offshore fields and extreme cold regions. Downhole steam generators eliminate the need for surface steam distribution systems, for flowlines and wellbore steam strings. The outflow of DHSG generators are a mixture of steam and flue gas. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the recovery dynamics of steam injection combined with flue gas at lab scale to recover a 16.14°API heavy oil from a sandpack. Superheated steam at 170°C was co-injected at flow rates between 5 and 4.5 ml/min (cold-water equivalent) with flue gas at flow rates between 150 and 340 ml/min in a linear cell built for the continuous injection of steam. From the results it can be asserted that co-injection reduces by 10% the amount of steam needed for an equivalent recovery. That translates in cutting steam generator costs on a per barrel of oil produced basis. The results of the tests addressed in this study provide: 1) The gas helps to keep the pressure behind the front more stable; 2) the co-injection of steam with flue gas accelerates the start of oil production when compared with steam injection alone; 3) Results indicates recovery factors up to 79%. The results favors DHSG as a promising technology for enhanced oil recovery of heavy oils, mainly for offshore fields or reservoirs at great depth.

Advancements, Challenges, and Perspectives of Flue Gas Injection in Subsurface Formations: A Comprehensive Review

“…20 Furthermore, produced flue gas can move faster than steam as it does not need to preheat the reservoir to provide the circumstances for gas dissolution in heavy oil. 20 So, flue gas can deliver a massive amount of energy during the injection process at lower temperatures, which was comprehensively discussed by Capper et al 21 Monte-Mor et al 22 developed a set of experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of produced flue gas by down hole steam generators coupled with the dynamic steam injection to recover heavy oil (16.14°API) from sand pack, representing the sandstone reservoirs. They observed that flue gas and steam coinjection can reduce the steam volume (10% less steam) more than steam-only injection to produce the same amount of crude oil.…”

“…Flue gas can efficiently maintain the pressure drop behind the gas invading front, providing valuable guidance during injection scenarios. 22 3.2. Flue Gas and Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage.…”

Effect of Mineralogy on the Physicochemical Properties of a Heavy Crude Oil in Hybrid Steam Injection Technologies Using 1H NMR

“…According to Srivastava et al , there are two mechanisms of flue gas during oil production; the displacement by nitrogen and the effects generated by the dissolution of carbon dioxide. Similarly, Monte-Mor et al state that the improvement provided by flue gas is based on its capacity to contact a larger area, thus increasing the size of the vapor zone, and the combined effects of the base technique. Effects such as viscosity reduction due to the increase in temperature, CO 2 dissolution, and pressure increase are a result of the injected gas.…”

Investigation of flue gas water-alternating gas (flue gas–WAG) injection for enhanced oil recovery and multicomponent flue gas storage in the post-waterflooding reservoir

“…Many studies in the literature discuss CO 2 storage and EOR (Bachu et al 2004;Ettehadtavakkol et al 2014;Farajzadeh et al 2020;Gozalpour et al 2005;Godec et al 2011;Jia et al 2019;Zhang et al 2015) that have been proved to be effective techniques due to their high displacement efficiency, low cost, and high efficiency in reducing global warming phenomenon. However, only a few pieces of research have been investigated on flue gas injection in reservoirs (Dong and Huang 2002;Fong et al 1992;Fossum et al 1992;Liu et al 2011;Srivastava et al 1999;Shokoya et al 2005;Trivedi and Babadagli 2005;Trevisan et al 2013). The majority of flue gas injection studies were focused on maximizing the oil recovery, not flue gas storage.…”