The Economics of Enhanced Oil Recovery: Estimating Incremental Oil Supply and CO2 Demand in the Powder River Basin

Veld, Klaas van ’t; Phillips, Owen R.

doi:10.5547/issn0195-6574-ej-vol31-no4-2

Cited by 18 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…For such flow behaviour of multiple fluids with an interface in porous media, the instability of the displacement front directly impacts the oil recovery efficiency, the storage capacity and the rate of mass transfer between phases. In enhanced oil recovery, due to the unstable water–oil displacement front, water-flooding in natural reservoirs can produce only 10 %–20 % of the initial oil in place (Van’t Veld & Phillips 2010). In geological sequestration, when the injection of liquid stops and brine flows back to displace supercritical , the occurrence of fingering flow can significantly increase the efficiency of storage by increasing interfacial area and improving capillary trapping as well as dissolution trapping (Wang et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phase diagram of quasi-static immiscible displacement in disordered porous media

Lan

Guanju

et al. 2019

J. Fluid Mech.

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Immiscible displacement in porous media is common in many practical applications. Under quasi-static conditions, the process is significantly affected by disorder of the porous media and the wettability of the pore surface. Previous studies have focused on wettability effects, but the impact of the interplay between disorder and contact angle is not well understood. Here, we combine microfluidic experiments and pore-scale simulations with theoretical analysis to study the impact of disorder on the quasi-static displacement from weak imbibition to strong drainage. We define the probability of overlap to link the menisci advancements to displacement patterns, and derive a theoretical model to describe the lower and upper bounds of the cross-over zone between compact displacement and capillary fingering for porous media with arbitrary flow geometry at a given disorder. The phase diagram predicted by the theoretical model shows that the cross-over zone, in terms of contact angle range, expands as the disorder increases. The diagram further identifies four zones to elucidate that the impact of disorder depends on wettability. In zone I, increasing disorder destabilizes the patterns, and in zone II, a stabilizing effect plays a role, which is less significant than that in zone I. In the other two zones, invasion morphologies are compact and fingering, respectively, independent of both contact angle and disorder. We evaluate the proposed diagram using pore-scale simulations, experiments in this work and in the literature, confirming that the diagram can capture the effect of disorder on displacement under different wetting conditions. Our work extends the classical phase diagrams and is also of practical significance for engineering applications.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phase diagram of quasi-static immiscible displacement in disordered porous media

Lan

Guanju

et al. 2019

J. Fluid Mech.

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“…Wang et al, 2012;Yamabe et al, 2014). In enhanced oil recovery, due to the unstable water-oil displacement interface, the sweep efficiency of water-flooding is greatly reduced and more than 80% native oil is left in reservoirs (Orr & Taber, 1984;Veld & Phillips, 2010). Understanding the fundamental mechanism and controlling displacement patterns of multiphase flow in porous media is therefore, critical for optimizing subsurface resources management.Fluid-fluid interfacial instability is a central issue for immiscible multiphase flow in permeable media.…”

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confidence: 99%

Role of Pore‐Scale Disorder in Fluid Displacement: Experiments and Theoretical Model

Lan

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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Multiphase flow in porous media is related to various natural and industrial processes, such as geological CO 2 sequestration (Middleton et al., 2012; Pentland et al., 2011), enhanced oil/gas recovery (Lake, 1989; Orr & Taber, 1984), and groundwater contamination by D(L)NAPL (Dawson & Roberts, 1997; Molnar et al., 2020). When a less viscous fluid invades into the porous media to displace another more viscous one, it always causes interfacial instability and generates different displacement patterns. In geological CO 2 sequestration, the stages of CO 2 injection and postinjection give rise to complex flow behaviors in geological media and result in fingering flow that significantly increases the efficiency of storage by improving capillary/residual trapping (Bachu, 2015; Y. Wang et al., 2012; Yamabe et al., 2014). In enhanced oil recovery, due to the unstable water-oil displacement interface, the sweep efficiency of water-flooding is greatly reduced and more than 80% native oil is left in reservoirs (Orr & Taber, 1984; Veld & Phillips, 2010). Understanding the fundamental mechanism and controlling displacement patterns of multiphase flow in porous media is therefore, critical for optimizing subsurface resources management. Fluid-fluid interfacial instability is a central issue for immiscible multiphase flow in permeable media. Numerous experimental, numerical and theoretical efforts have been devoted in the past semi-century (Arm

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“…Two-phase displacement in porous media plays an important role in many natural and industrial processes, such as enhanced oil recovery, , gas hydrates extraction, − CO 2 geological sequestration, − rainfall-induced water infiltration into grounds, , and groundwater pollutant transport and remediation . The instability of the two-phase flow interface is vital for the effectiveness and efficiencies on oil-gas recovery and CO 2 geological storage .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Capillary and Viscous Forces on Two-Phase Fluid Displacement in the Microfluidic Model

Chen,

Liu,

Wang

et al. 2023

Energy Fuels

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Immiscible fluid−fluid displacement in porous media is an important phenomenon that impacts the field of underground energy and environmental engineering, such as enhanced oil/gas recovery, geological CO 2 sequestration, and transport and remediation of groundwater pollutants. In enhanced oil recovery, the occurrence of the fingering instability of the two-phase flow interface causes a significant reduction in the oil recovery factor for waterflooding. In geological CO 2 sequestration, the efficiency of CO 2 capillary/residual trapping is limited by the noncompact displacement pattern, presenting only part of brine displaced by scCO 2 . Although extensive studies have investigated viscous and capillary fingering in porous media, how viscous and capillary forces affect the crossover is not well understood. Quantifying and characterizing the transition of immiscible fluid−fluid displacement patterns are therefore important. In this article, comprehensive investigation of capillary number and viscosity ratio effects on displacement patterns and efficiency was established by a series of displacement microfluidic experiments in a homogeneous pore network. Three pairs of nonwetting−wetting immiscible fluids with viscosity ratios M ranging from 1/1000 to 1000 were used to perform the displacement experiments. The drainage experiments of water displacing silicone oil were conducted under five flow rate conditions with capillary number log 10 Ca ranging from −7.19 to −3.45, while the imbibition experiments of silicone oil displacing water displayed at four flow rates with log 10 Ca varying from −7.25 to −2.52. The relationship between displacement efficiency S inv and fractal dimension D f as a function of M and Ca was established to quantitatively determine the transition of displacement patterns (capillary fingering, viscous fingering, stable displacement, and ordered dendritic). The results indicated that D f increased with S inv under unfavorable conditions (M < 1) and decreased as S inv for M > 1, and lower invading fluid saturations were observed in the crossover zone between capillary fingering and viscous fingering for M = 1/20 and 1/200. Based on the pore-scale analysis of pore-filling events and microscopic observation, the theoretical model of the transitions for invasion modes were proposed to determine the critical capillary corresponding to viscosity ratio and contact angle. This study extends the classic log 10 M−log 10 Ca phase diagram and quantifies the dynamic effects of capillary force and viscous force on the immiscible fluid−fluid displacement process.

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The Economics of Enhanced Oil Recovery: Estimating Incremental Oil Supply and CO2 Demand in the Powder River Basin

Cited by 18 publications

References 17 publications

Phase diagram of quasi-static immiscible displacement in disordered porous media

Phase diagram of quasi-static immiscible displacement in disordered porous media

Role of Pore‐Scale Disorder in Fluid Displacement: Experiments and Theoretical Model

Effects of Capillary and Viscous Forces on Two-Phase Fluid Displacement in the Microfluidic Model

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