Viscous Oil Recovery and In Situ Deasphalting in Fractured Reservoirs: Part 1. The Effect of Solvent Injection Rate

Sie, Chao-yu; Nguyen, Bradley; Verlaan, Marco; Díaz, O. Castellanos; Adiaheno, Kelli; Nguyen, Quoc P.

doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.7b03375

Cited by 18 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Figure 11a shows that the measured steady-state bitumen mass flux increased rapidly up to a toluene flow rate of approximately 3 cm 3 /min and then gradually from 3 to 15 cm 3 /min. This trend is consistent with the results from Sie et al 49 who measured gravity drainage with liquid butane in a sandstone core with an artificial fracture. They observed that the bitumen production rate increased as the solvent flow rate increased up to 4 cm 3 / min.…”

Section: Effect Of Solvent Flow Ratesupporting

confidence: 93%

Investigation of Solvent-Assisted Gravity Drainage in a Packed Hele-Shaw Cell with Liquid Toluene over Bitumen

2022

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The condensing solvent process is a heavy oil (or bitumen) recovery method where the injected vapor solvent condenses when it contacts the colder bitumen and the bitumen diffuses into the condensed liquid. The process has been piloted, but field implementation is impeded by the absence of a reliable model to upscale laboratory measurements to the field scale. In order to better understand and represent the mechanisms controlling the process, a glass-bead-packed Hele-Shaw type apparatus was partially filled with bitumen with a sloped interface, and liquid toluene was flowed on top of the bitumen layer at a fixed flow rate. Bitumen and solvent recoveries were measured over time, and the change in the bitumen profile was tracked with a camera. The key mechanisms of the process were verified to be the diffusion of bitumen into solvent through convective mass transfer and convective flow of the resulting mixture in the drainage layer by gravity. An approximate analytical solution was derived for dilute conditions (high solvent flow rates) and used to identify the transition from a finite to a semi-infinite mass transfer boundary condition in the drainage layer. A numerical model was fitted to the experimental data, and a correlation was established for the convective mass transfer coefficient of bitumen into the solvent in porous media. The correlation has only one adjustable parameter which was constant for steady-state mass transfer in the semi-infinite acting regime.

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Section: Effect Of Solvent Flow Ratesupporting

confidence: 93%

Investigation of Solvent-Assisted Gravity Drainage in a Packed Hele-Shaw Cell with Liquid Toluene over Bitumen

2022

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“…Crude oil composition also changes in CO 2 or steam injection for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) − and during the mixing of various crude streams . The attraction between nanoaggregates increases, which results in microaggregation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microfluidic Study of the Deposition Dynamics of Asphaltene Subfractions Enriched with Island and Archipelago Motifs

et al. 2019

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Asphaltene-related flow assurance problems are prevalent in oil production processes and are at the heart of issues such as the plugging of pipelines, the damage of rock formations, and the stabilization of viscous water-in-oil emulsions. A comprehensive understanding of the interfacial behavior of asphaltenes, from a physical–chemical perspective, is required for an accurate design of solutions to these challenges. In this work, we elucidate the deposition dynamics of various asphaltene subfractions in a porous media microfluidic model. Extrography fractions from the interlaboratory sample known as PetroPhase 2017 asphaltenes, reported to be a mixture of abundant island and archipelago motifs, and Wyoming deposit C7 asphaltenes, known for being island type dominated, are investigated. The deposition rate increases when the compositional ratio archipelago/island motif increases for PetroPhase 2017 derived fractions, whereas Wyoming deposit asphaltenes appear to exhibit stronger aggregation for fractions whose composition is uniformly island type. In general, the deposition rate is consistent with the amount of precipitated asphaltenes. However, the correlation is not merely a linear one and the pore-scale morphology changes even with similar deposition rates. Estimated diffusivity, the relative ratio of convection and diffusion, and fluid flow profiles are used to explain the dynamic growth of the deposit at the pore scale.

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“…Also, increasing gas expansion as pressure continues to drop could carry more crude oil from the matrix to the fracture (Mahzari et al 2019(Mahzari et al , 2020. When the huff 'n' puff process is operated at high interfacial tension (e.g., below the MCP), the lower huff pressure provides less driving forces for the mass transfer between the oil and the injection gas (Tang et al 2020;Sie et al 2018Sie et al , 2019Anand et al 2019). As the interfacial tension is reduced at elevated huff pressure (e.g., above the MCP), this mass transfer is greatly enhanced.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-Scale EOR Pilot in the Eastern Eagle Ford Boosts Production

Bozeman¹,

Nelle

Nguyen

2023

SPE Reservoir Evaluation &Amp; Engineering

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Summary Low primary and secondary recoveries of original oil in place from modern unconventional reservoirs beg for utilization of tertiary recovery techniques. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) via cyclic gas injection (“huff ‘n’ puff”) has indeed enhanced the oil recovery in many fields, and many of those projects have also been documented in industry technical papers/case studies. However, the need remains to document new techniques in new reservoirs. This paper documents a small-scale EOR pilot project in the eastern Eagle Ford and shows promising well results. In preparation for the pilot, full characterization of the oil and injection gas was done along with laboratory testing to identify the miscibility properties of the two fluids. Once the injection well facility design was completed, a series of progressively larger gas volumes were injected followed by correspondingly longer production times. Fluids in the returning liquid and gas streams were monitored for compositional changes, and the learnings from each cycle led to adjustments and facility changes to improve the next cycle. After completing five injection/withdrawal cycles in the pilot, a few key observations can be made. The implementation of cyclic gas injection can be both a technical and a commercial success early in its life if reasonable cost controls are implemented and the scope is kept manageable. The process has proved to be both repeatable and predictable, allowing for future economic modeling to be used to help determine timing of subsequent injection cycles. A key component of the success of this pilot has been the availability of small compressors capable of the high pressures required for these projects and learning how to implement cost saving facility designs that still meet high safety standards.

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Viscous Oil Recovery and In Situ Deasphalting in Fractured Reservoirs: Part 1. The Effect of Solvent Injection Rate

Cited by 18 publications

References 53 publications

Investigation of Solvent-Assisted Gravity Drainage in a Packed Hele-Shaw Cell with Liquid Toluene over Bitumen

Investigation of Solvent-Assisted Gravity Drainage in a Packed Hele-Shaw Cell with Liquid Toluene over Bitumen

Microfluidic Study of the Deposition Dynamics of Asphaltene Subfractions Enriched with Island and Archipelago Motifs

Small-Scale EOR Pilot in the Eastern Eagle Ford Boosts Production

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