Simulation and history-matching of polymer-assisted water alternating CO2 injection using MRST

CO2 flooding is a widely employed method for enhancing oil recovery. However, it faces challenges stemming from differences in viscosity and density between oil and CO2, leading to poor sweep efficiency. This can result in issues such as viscous fingering, channelling, and gravity segregation, causing premature breakthroughs and excessive gas...

The effect of water-soluble polymers on water-alternating CO2 performance in porous media

In order to supply the demand of oil, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques are nowadays widely applied in the oil recovery industry to maximize reservoir sweep efficiencies. CO2-EOR method has been largely used in the petroleum industry for several decades, which can contribute to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emission through CO2...

Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Quantification for Core Flooding

In light of our depleting fossil fuel reserves and the relatively `cheap' extraction of oil and in spite of the highly nonlinear nature of reservoirs, waterflooding has become big business. In recent times, the use of numerical reservoir simulation has not only become possible but has increasingly been used in the petroleum industry in the...

Hybrid Polymer-based System for EOR at High Salinity and High Temperature: Experiments

Polymer flooding plays an essential role in Enhanced Oil Recovery by means of achieving a more favorable mobility ratio through increasing the viscosity of the displacing phase and thus improve macroscopic sweep efficiency. Conventional polymer, e.g., hydrolyzed polyacrylamide, dissolved in brine at high-salinity and high-temperature can be...

Investigation on foam-assisted chemical flooding for enhanced oil recovery: An experimental and mechanistic simulation study

Foam-assisted chemical flooding (FACF) is a novel enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methodology that combines the injection of a surfactant slug, to mobilize previously trapped residual oil, with foam generation for drive mobility control, thus displacing the mobilized banked oil. The main goal of this study concerns the understanding of oil...

Numerical Simulation of Gas Flooding, Water-Alternating-Gas Injection, and Foam-Assisted Chemical Flooding

Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) methods can increase the oil recovery of a reservoir to more than 60% of the volumes originally in-situ. Typical oil recoveries range from 20% to 40% of OIIP under traditional primary and secondary recovery stages. The understanding of the mechanisms that control such complex processes is essential...

SAG foam flooding in carbonate rocks

Foam is used in gas-injection EOR processes to reduce the mobility of gas, resulting in greater volumetric sweep. SAG (Surfactant Alternating Gas) is a preferred method of injection as it results in greater injectivity in the field, but designing a successful process requires knowledge of foaming performance at very high foam qualities (gas...

Surfactant-Polymer Chemical EOR and Subsequent Oil Bank Behaviour

After a waterflood the oil saturation is (close to) the irreducible oil saturation, wherein oil in a porous medium is dispersed over the pore network in unconnected droplets due to snap off. In a chemical flood, the surfactant reduces oil-water interfacial tension and liberates the trapped oil droplets. These mobilised droplets coalesce into a...

Characterisation of Surfactant Polymer Oil Bank Mobilisation Through Relative Permeability Analysis

This research project attempts to improve the understanding of oil bank formation in Fontainebleau sandstone cores using a surfactant polymer (SP) EOR method. While oil bank formation is generally successful in longer length cores, it is elusive in short cores (<10cm). Core flooding experiments were performed in a specially designed setup...

Carbon dioxide flow and interactions in a high rank coal: Permeability evolution and reversibility of reactive processes

Uncertainties exist on the efficiency of CO₂ injection and storage in deep unminable coal seems due to potential reduction in the permeability of coal that is induced by CO₂ adsorption into the coal matrix. In addition, there is a limited knowledge about the stability of CO₂ stored in coal due to changes in...

Capillary-Driven Transport of Dissolved Salt to the Drying Zone During CO2 Injection in Homogeneous and Layered Porous Media

A major challenge of CO2 injection into saline aquifers is the risk of formation clogging due to salt precipitation. Capillary-driven flow of brine can provide a continuous transport of dissolved salt toward the dry zone around the injection well where it ultimately precipitates due to evaporation. In this study, core flooding experiments were...

Surfactant Screening for Foam EOR: Correlation between Bulk and Core-Flood Experiments

tAqueous foams play an important role in many industrial processes, from ore separation by froth flotationto enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In the latter case, the foam is used as a means of increasing the sweepefficiency through the oil bearing rock – the complex, structure dependent, flow behavior of the foammeans that it has improved...

Effect of Surfactant Concentration on Foam: From Coreflood Experiments to Implicit-Texture Foam-Model Parameters

We present a comparative study of foam coreflood experiments with various surfactant concentrations. Plots of apparent viscosity vs. injected gas fraction were obtained for surfactant concentrations at the critical micelle concentration and above. Bulk foam stability was measured for all concentrations and compared with the coreflood results....

Comparative study of foam stability in bulk and porous media

The oil recovery from a reservoir can be enhanced by gas injection. Creating a foam with the injected gas can improve the sweep efficiency. For an efficient foam displacement process the foam films must remain stable in the presence of oil. Unfortunately, most foams are destabilised by oil. It is therefore important to select an foaming agent...

Calcite dissolution behaviour during low salinity water flooding in carbonate rock

Low salinity water flooding (LSF) has been proved to be a promising enhanced oil recovery method for sandstone reservoirs. The efficiency of LSF in carbonate reservoirs has not been proven completely yet, because there are still uncertainties about the LSF recovery mechanism in carbonate. From experimental studies, it was shown that wettability...

Thermal Enhancement of Water-flooding in Medium-Heavy Oil Recovery

Water-flooding in heavy oils is generally not an efficient way of production due to high viscosity of heavy oil compared to water. Therefore, thermal recovery methods are commonly used in heavy oil production. Most thermal methods involve fluid injection to transfer heat further into the reservoir. Hot water-flooding is among these methods. In...