Influence of Transient Effects on Fitting Parameters to SAG Foam Core-Foods

Abstract

Foam is a promising means of increasing sweep efficiency in enhanced oil recovery processes where gas is injected into a reservoir. However, the effectiveness of foam is hard to predict due to its complex behavior. Therefore accurate modeling is important to effectively predict field performance. This requires correct foam parameters in reservoir simulation. These parameters can be fit to laboratory data where gas is injected into surfactant-saturated rock samples. Foam simulation models can be used to translate experimental laboratory data to the field scale. Unfortunately, the widely used local equilibrium model assumes instant local equilibrium everywhere, while the lab data shows dynamic behavior. Distortion in late-time simulation results of the model could occur as consequence of not having a good fit in the dynamic period, where the chosen foam modeling parameters are incorrect. The aim of this paper is to research how much influence this mismatch has on the fit of the model to the laboratory data, which is taken from literature. Testing will be performed with the use of a one-dimensional dynamic foam model. The findings in this work do not indicate clear evidence that fitting long-time behavior is distorted by disregarding a good fit in dynamic short-time behavior. This means that the researched modeling parameters could be correct in predicting local equilibrium behavior. Even when a good fit for short times where dynamics play a role is disregarded.