Title: Experimental research on remaining oil distribution and recovery performance after immiscible and miscible CO₂-WAG injection by direct visualisation

Authors: Hongyan Han; Tianxin Li; Hongqing Song; Yuhe Wang; John Killough

Addresses: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China ' School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China ' School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China; Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA ' Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University at Qatar, Qatar ' Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, Texas, USA

Abstract: More than half of oil remains in the reservoir pores after water flooding. A microscopic visualised physical model under high temperature and pressure was created to simulate a reservoir pore network. It is an efficient way to study the formation and distribution of microscopic remaining oil which can enhance oil recovery. Displacement mechanisms were researched for CO₂/water alternative flooding (CO₂-WAG). The remaining oil morphology and migration characteristics were directly observed and analysed. The distribution of the remaining oil of models in different flooding stages was quantitatively obtained by grey images processing technology. Comparing the distribution of different occurrences of microscopic remaining oil, the multiphase fluid transport characteristics in the experimental porous media is described. Experimental results show that the recovery efficiency under the CO₂-oil miscible state can be enhanced 5.75% more than the immiscible state. There exist four types of remaining oil after CO₂-WAG with different effects, namely: 1) clusters; 2) columnar; 3) membrane; 4) blind-end remaining oil. Miscible CO₂-WAG could efficiently improve oil recovery of cluster, column, and membrane types of remaining oil. Immiscible CO₂-WAG only caused an obvious recovery improvement for the cluster type of remaining oil. In order for CO₂-WAG flooding to be used to improve oil recovery most efficiently, the occurrence state and distributions of remaining oil should first be considered. [Received: June 23, 2015; Accepted: March 1, 2016]

Keywords: CO₂-WAG injection; immiscible; miscible; remaining oil; microscopic flooding experiment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOGCT.2017.083858

International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology, 2017 Vol.15 No.1, pp.47 - 59

Received: 25 Jun 2015
Accepted: 01 Mar 2016
Published online: 25 Apr 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article