Mass transfer from bypassed zones during gas injection
Gasflooding in oil reservoirs leads to bypassing of the oil due to gravitational, viscous and/or heterogeneity effects. The bypassed oil can be recovered by the flowing solvent by pressure-driven, gravity-driven, dispersion/diffusion-driven and capillarity-driven crossflow/mass transfer. It is difficult to represent all of these mechanisms explicitly in large-scale simulations. In this work, we have studied the effect of the orientation of the bypassed region and the enrichment of the solvent on the mass transfer. Laboratory-scale mass transfer and coreflood experiments were conducted. Numerical simulation was used to identify the role of the different mechanisms. Results indicate that the mass transfer is the least for the vertical orientation, intermediate for the inverted orientation and the highest for the horizontal orientation. The mass transfer increases with enrichment for all orientations. Liquid phase diffusion controls vertical orientation mass transfer for the fluids studied. Phase behavior determines the liquid phase saturation. Capillary pumping does not contribute to the mass transfer of oil because the interfacial tension decreases towards the flowing region. Gravity-driven flow contributes the most to the mass transfer in the horizontal and the inverted orientations. The gravity-driven flow, however, is impeded by the capillarity whose magnitude decreases with solvent enrichment. Oil recovery in the horizontal gasfloods is nonmonotonic with enrichment for this fluid system in an almost homogeneous Berea core. Multiphase flow in the near-miscible floods leads to less gravity override compared to the FCM floods. In the heterogeneous core studied, the heterogeneity is very strong and the capillary forces do not prevent bypassing. The capillary forces, in fact, reduce oil recovery by diminishing mass transfer from the bypassed regions.
- OSTI ID:
- 199486
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-951002-; TRN: 96:000706-0058
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Annual meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Dallas, TX (United States), 22-25 Oct 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Reservoir engineering. 1995 SPE annual technical conference and exhibition; PB: 1008 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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