Mobility control during CO2 EOR in fractured carbonates using foam: Laboratory evaluation and numerical simulations

Fernø, Martin A.; Eide, Øyvind; Steinsbø, Marianne; Langlo, Stig Andre Winter; Christophersen, A.; Skibenes, A.; Ydstebø, Tom; Graue, A.

doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2015.10.005

Cited by 55 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“… 24 , 25 Foam injection in naturally fractured reservoirs is growing as a potential EOR method by introducing and using new surfactant types. 26 , 27 Fernø et al 28 studied the ability of pure CO 2 and CO 2 foam to be applied for EOR in fractured carbonate systems. It was concluded that CO 2 foam injection increased oil recovery when compared to the injection of pure CO 2 in fractured core samples.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A severe reduction was recorded in the apparent foam viscosity to reach 50% of its original value when the temperature was 80 °C. Ferno et al 28 studied the pressure effect on the stability of bulk foam using CO 2 and N 2 foams in their experiments with a pressure range up to 1450 psi. They observed a decrease in CO 2 foam stability with an increase in pressure and attributed this observation to the enhancement of gas permeation between two adjacent gas bubbles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mixed CO₂/N₂ Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO₂ Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

2020

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Among the various enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes, CO 2 injection has been widely utilized for oil displacement in EOR. Unfortunately, gas injection suffers from gravity override and high mobility, which reduces the sweep efficiency and oil recovery. Foams can counter these problems by reducing gas mobility, which significantly increases the macroscopic sweep efficiency and results in higher recovery. Nevertheless, CO 2 is unable to generate foam or strong foam above its supercritical conditions (for CO 2 , 1100 psi at 31.1 °C), and most of the reservoirs exist at higher temperatures and pressure than CO 2 supercritical conditions. The formation of strong CO 2 foam becomes more difficult with an increase in pressure and temperature above its supercritical conditions and exacerbated CO 2 -foam properties. These difficulties can be overcome by replacing a portion of CO 2 with N 2 because a mixture of N 2 and CO 2 gases can generate foam or strong foam above CO 2 supercritical conditions. Although many researchers have investigated EOR by using CO 2 or N 2 foam separately, the performance of mixed CO 2 /N 2 foam on EOR has not been investigated. This study provides a solution to generate CO 2 foam above its supercritical conditions by replacing part of CO 2 with N 2 (mixed CO 2 /N 2 foam). The mixed foam not only generates strong foam above CO 2 supercritical conditions but also remarkably increases the oil recovery. This solution overcomes the difficulties associated with the formation of CO 2 foam at HPHT conditions enabling the use of the CO 2 -foam system for effective EOR and other applications of CO 2 foam such as conformance control.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mixed CO₂/N₂ Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO₂ Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

2020

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“…However due to the large density and viscosity contrast between CO 2 and the crude oil, the sweep efficiency of CO 2 flood is limited by gravity override and viscous fingering. The scenario could be worse if the reservoir is highly heterogeneous or fractured where the fluids of high mobility tend to finger through a preferential path and leave a large portion of the reservoir un-swept [2,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Hassan

Ayoub

Eissa

et al. 2019

Energy

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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.

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“…Foam can effectively resist in high permeable layer and control gas flow. At the same time, the surfactant in the foam can reduce oil-water interfacial tension, reduce capillary force and improve oil displacement efficiency (Memon et al 2017;Gandomkar et al 2012;Åsmund et al 2014;Fernø et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental study on nitrogen and nitrogen foam-assisted gravity drainage for enhancing oil recovery

Tao

Huang

Liu

et al. 2019

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

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Many factors will affect the result of nitrogen-assisted gravity drainage (NAGD). In this work, sandpack and 2-dimensional (2D) visual plate model were employed to investigate the influence factors of NAGD, such as gas cap volume, formation dip angle, and back pressure. Nitrogen foam was also studied to improve the gas channeling and breakthrough. The experimental results indicated that the gas cap volume was the most significant influence factor on the oil recovery. With the increase of the gas cap volume, the oil recovery increased first and then decreased, and finally increased. The NAGD had a better performance in big dip angle of formation. There was a critical value of back pressure to obtain the maximum oil recovery. However, the gas channeling was intensely observed by experiments of both sandpack and 2D visual plate model. Fortunately, nitrogen foam could effectively inhibit the gas channeling and improve the result of NAGD.

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Mobility control during CO2 EOR in fractured carbonates using foam: Laboratory evaluation and numerical simulations

Cited by 55 publications

References 47 publications

Mixed CO₂/N₂ Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO₂ Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

Mixed CO₂/N₂ Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO₂ Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

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

Experimental study on nitrogen and nitrogen foam-assisted gravity drainage for enhancing oil recovery

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Mobility control during CO2 EOR in fractured carbonates using foam: Laboratory evaluation and numerical simulations

Cited by 55 publications

References 47 publications

Mixed CO2/N2 Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO2 Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

Mixed CO2/N2 Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO2 Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

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

Experimental study on nitrogen and nitrogen foam-assisted gravity drainage for enhancing oil recovery

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Mixed CO₂/N₂ Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO₂ Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs

Mixed CO₂/N₂ Foam for EOR as a Novel Solution for Supercritical CO₂ Foam Challenges in Sandstone Reservoirs