Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
PAPER 2008-064
New Investigations into Carbon Dioxide Flooding by Focusing on Viscosity and Swelling Factor Changes
M. ENAYATI
Iranian Offshore Oil Company
E. HEIDARYAN
Islamic Azad University-Masjidsolayman Branch B. Mokhtari Iranian Offshore Oil Company
This paper is accepted for the Proceedings of the Canadian International Petroleum Conference/SPE Gas Technology Symposium 2008 Joint Conference (the Petroleum Societys 59th Annual Technical Meeting), Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 17-19 June 2008. This paper will be considered for publication in Petroleum Society journals. Publication rights are reserved. This is a pre-print and subject to correction.
Abstract
Carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) flooding is an efficacious method of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) that has nowadays become one of the most important EOR processes. It is a very complicated process, involving phase behavior that could increase oil recovery by means of swelling, evaporating and lowering oil viscosity. The present investigation reports the results of extensive experimental and theoretical work (with the aim of computer software, ECLIPSETM) to determine the viscosity and swelling factor changes of the live oil in the Cheshmeh Khoshk reservoir at southern of Iran (Ilam District) and also minimum miscible pressure. In this study we setup a series of slim tube experiments. In order to get representative fluid samples of a reservoir, it was necessary that the right operation of mixing the separator oil and gas samples to match the bubble point pressure be carried out. And, the potential application of the study is that we could have a good estimate of the recovery improvement under CO2 gas injection, which will be the basic input parameters for the economic feasibility study and also a
decision can then be made whether to implement or abandon the prospective project.
Introduction
Carbon dioxide gas as an injection fluid into oil reservoirs has been a recognized well and tested as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method, because CO2 dissolves easily into oil, it reduces oil viscosity, and it can extract the light components in oil at sufficiently high pressure, and it can become miscible with oil at very low pressure [1]. The injection of carbon dioxide for secondary and tertiary oil recovery has received considerable attention in the industry because of its high displacement efficiency and relatively low cost [2]. It appeared in 1930s and had a great development in 1970s. Over 30 years production practice, CO2 flooding has become the leading enhanced oil recovery technique for light and medium oil. It can prolong the production lives of light or medium oil fields nearing depletion under waterflooding by 15
to 20 years, and may recover 15% to 25% of the original oil in place [3]. Experience gained from CO2 flooding worldwide indicates that enhanced oil recovery by using CO2 as injection gas may result in additional oil ranging from 7 to 15 % of the oil initially in place [4]. CO2 flooding process involves very complicated phase behavior, which depends on the temperature, pressure and fluids properties of a certain reservoir. Many factors have been found contributing to the oil recovery in CO2 flooding. These mainly include: Low interface tensions, Viscosity reduction, Oil swelling, Formation permeability improvement, Solution gas flooding, and Density change of oil and water [3]. In the case of viscosity, there is a reduction for carbon dioxide as long as temperature increases. Appreciable solubility of carbon dioxide in the crude oil reduces its viscosity. At low temperatures, viscosity reduction for light oils is more than heavy oils [5]. Screening criteria have been proposed elsewhere for selecting reservoirs where CO2 may sustain or increase the production of oil. They estimate that upwards of 80% of oil reservoirs worldwide might be suitable for CO2 injection based upon oil-recovery criteria alone. Moreover, the process is widely applicable in both sandstone and carbonate formations with a variety of permeabilities and thickness of hydrocarbon bearing zones. The major factors limiting CO2 injection as an oil recovery process have been availability of CO2 and the cost to build pipelines to carry CO2 into oil producing regions [6]. Over 8,000 Alberta pools were first screened for CO2 -flood suitability, and pertinent reservoir properties were used for the remaining 4,729 pools to calculate oil recovery. The predicted recoveries for all pools ranged from 1.2-13.9%, 6.3-18.7% and 11.8-27.1% at breakthrough and 0.25 and 0.5 Hydrocarbon Pore Volume (HCPV) injection respectively. These values compared well to an average of 13% incremental oil recovery from the field experience of CO2 floods [7]. However, before a further decision be made on whether to apply it in field or not, generally some laboratory experiments need to be done, one of them being a series of slim tube experiments. The experiments on slim tube will indicate the microscopic efficiency of the injection process. They need to be combined with the macroscopic sweep efficiency and invasion efficiency obtained from the reservoir characterization, to have an overall injection efficiency of the process. Since experiments on slim tube at high pressures are costly, time consuming and prone to experimental failures, it is of great interest to simulate those experiments with a numerical simulator. With a numerical simulator, besides the economic and time benefits, we could also calculate results on certain conditions, which otherwise would have never been possible with experiments due to technical constraints [1]. We took a laboratory study of CO2 miscible flooding on one of the Iranian southern reservoir oil. From the slim tube generated and also data calculated finally by ECLIPSETM software it was shown that viscosity reduction and oil swelling by CO2 contributed to oil recovery. The viscosity showed an almost linear decrease with CO2 concentration. The same study taken by R.K Srivastava et al. [8] has shown also a linear decrease of viscosity with CO2 concentration.
temperature is about 2542 psia, which is very close to 2650 psia given by the field. Figures 3 in accordance with Table 4 shows that the bubble point will increase due to increasing of temperature and it is nearly linear in our study range (90 F217 F).
show the output result of the software. In a report published by Reeves S.R. [12] the optimized differential swelling factor in CO2 flooding determined is 1.65 which confirms our estimation (S.F.ave = 1.70 ) . The Multiple Contact Miscibility Pressure (MCMMP or just MMP) (Mathiassen O.M. 2003) was also calculated by ECLIPSETM software to compare with the experimental value of MMP. It is 3375.7 psia which is in a good agreement with the slim tube result (3432 psia).
Conclusions
1. The better method to get eligible reservoir fluid is recombination of the separator oil and gas samples base on gas/oil ratio of reservoir fluid to match the bubble point pressure. The oil swelling and the reduction in viscosity are two major factors in enhanced oil recovery by CO2 flooding. Knowing the slim tube data, the swelling factor and viscosity in each step of pore volume of CO2 injection can easily calculated by ECLIPSETM software. Figure 5 shows a nearly linear decrease of viscosity during CO2 flooding as the concentration of CO2 increases. EOR with CO2 injection is mainly attributed to multicontact miscibility due to its low MMP in our case of study. (MMP reported by the instructor for separator gas recycled injection of this reservoir is about 5000 psia). A comparison of MMP estimated by slim tube with MMP calculated by ECLIPSETM software shows low error (1.63%). So in the cases that we have a short time only a test can be run by slim tube instead of several runs and the data obtained give to the computer simulator in order to calculate MMP. The results of our study with the results of other gas injection projects (such as N2, methane, and etc.) can be used as a basic input parameter for the economic feasibility study and also a decision can then be made whether to implement or abandon the prospective project or which type of injection lead to a better performance.
2. 3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Pars Special Economy Energy ZoneResearch program for their financial and technical support. Discussions with Dr. Seyed Abdoljalil Razavi, concerning the economic analysis inputs, were much appreciated.
REFERENCES
Abdassah, D., Kristanto, D., The Potential of Carbon Dioxide Gas Injection Application in Improving Oil Recovery, Paper SPE Presented at the SPE Seventh International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Beijing, China, November (2000) 64730. [2] Stakup, F.I., Carbon Dioxide Miscible Flooding Miscible Flooding: Past, Present and Outlook for the Future, J. Pet. Tech. August (1978) 1102-1112. [3] Yongmao, H., Zenggui, W., Yueming, J.B.Ch., Xiangjie, L., Laboratory Investigation of CO2 Flooding, Paper SPE Presented at the 28th Annual SPE International Technical
3
[1]
Simulator Results
CO2 injection reduces the viscosity of oil and trend of viscosity reduction can be calculated with Darcy equation also [10,11]. Using PVT apparatus we can find the viscosity reduction of oil and changing in Swelling Factor (S.F) in each step of pore volume injected. But because of the large number of calculations and also time consuming work we used ECLIPSETM software for calculation of viscosity and swelling factor in different amount of gas added. Figure 12 and figure 13
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
Conference and Exhibition in Abuja, Nigeria, August (2004) 88883. Mathiassen, O.M., CO2 as Injection Gas for Enhanced Oil Recovery and Estimation of the Potential on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, MSc. Thesis, Trondheim, May (2003) 2. Paitakhti-Oskouie, Tabatabaei-Nezhad, Mechanisms of Oil Recovery by Non-hydrocarbon Gas Injection, 13th Oil, Gas & Petrochemical Congress with particular emphasize on Improved Oil Recovery, Tehran , Iran, January (2005) 2. Jessen, K., Sam-Olibale, L.C., Kovscek, A.R., Orr, F.M., Increasing CO2 Storage in Oil Recovery, First National Conference on Carbon Sequestration, sponsored by National Energy Technology Laboratory, Washington DC, May (2001) 2. Shaw, J.C., Bachu, S., CO2 Flooding Performance Prediction for Alberta Oil Pools, Paper Presented at the Petroleum Societys Canadian International Petroleum Conference (2002) 2002-026. Srivastava, R.K., Huang, S.S., Dong, M., Laboratory Study of Weyburn CO2 Miscibile Flooding, JCPT, February (2000) 41.
[9] Javadpour, F.G., Jamialahmadi, M., Shadizadeh, S.R., Investigation of Hydrocarbon Miscible Gas Injection by Experimental and Modeling Approaches for Iranian Oil Reservoirs, Paper SPE Presented at the 1998 SPE India Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held in New Delhi, India, February (1998) 39552. [10] Dinarvand. N., Mokhtari, B., Enayaty, M. Mahzari, P., Laboratory Investigation of Carbon Dioxide Flooding by Focusing on the Viscosity and the Swelling Factor Changes for one of the Iranian Southwestern Oil Reservoirs, 2nd National Petroleum Congress, Petroleum University of Technology, Ahvaz, Iran, February (2008). [11] Mokhtari, B., Pourabdollah, K., Heydaryan, E., Enayati, M., Laboratory Investigation of CO2 Flooding by Focusing on the Viscosity and Swelling Factor Changes, 2nd Professional Conference of Environment Engineering, The University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, Accepted for 2122 May (2008). [12] Reeves, S.R., Reservoir Simulation Modeling of the Yubari CO2 -ECBM/ Sequestration Pilot, Ishikari Basin, Japan, Prepared for Japan Coal Energy Center (JCOAL) CO2ECBM Symposium, Tokyo, Japan, February (2007).
Molecular Weight CO2 44.10 C1 16.04 C2 30.07 C3 44.10 I-C4 58.12 N-C4 58.12 I-C5 72.15 N-C5 72.20 C6 86.17 C7+ 256 Total 736.98 SG. C7+= 0.9015 MW C7+= 256 MW Reservoir Oil= 108.05 (Calculated) Component
1st Stage Separator Gas 0.90 76.47 14.11 5.55 0.65 1.33 0.32 0.29 0.26 0.12 100.00
1st Stage Separator Oil 0.17 6.37 5.88 6.53 1.44 4.93 2.67 2.64 5.33 64.04 100.00
Reservoir Oil 0.51 38.61 9.67 6.08 1.08 3.27 1.59 1.56 3.00 34.63 100.00
Pump Reading (cc) 149.44 149.08 148.67 148.27 147.83 147.40 146.91 146.75 146.61
Pressure Reading (psia) 5960 5520 5010 4550 4040 3550 3040 2830 2710
Pump Reading (cc) 146.42 146.24 146.07 145.86 145.46 145.06 144.26
Pressure Reading (psia) 2520 2320 2130 2050 1990 1930 1820
Pump Reading (cc) 126.1 125.62 125.16 124.7 124.23 123.99 123.74
Pressure Reading (psia) 4700 4250 3840 3435 3030 2810 2615
2600
30
20
10
10