Development of mobility control methods to improve oil recovery by CO/sub 2/. Final report

Technical Report · Tue Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

OSTI ID:5418944

Heller, J P; Taber, J J

In certain reservoir situations, highly compressed carbon dioxide has a great advantage over more common fluids as a displacement agent to force crude oil from the porous rock in which it's found. The advantage is that a much higher microscopic efficiency can be attained in the displacement process - at least in the laboratory. This research aims to relieve a major difficulty that has so far prevented this high efficiency from being reached in field applications. The difficulty is that because CO/sub 2/ is much less viscous than oil or water, the injected fluid does not displace the oil uniformly. Instead, the CO/sub 2/ moves faster in some regions and directions than others, and viscous fingers are formed, through which most of the injected fluid flows. Some of these breakthrough into the production wells, lowering the effectivenesss of both the injected CO/sub 2/ and of the production pumping capacity. The aims of this project has been to develop ways to thicken the injected CO/sub 2/, so as to forestall the growth of these parasitic flow patterns and the premature breakthrough that results from them. Two ways of thickening CO/sub 2/ have been investigated. Substantial progress has been made in both developments and both are promising. The first of the methods studied considers the use of polymer dissolved in the dense CO/sub 2/ to increase its viscosity by the needed extent. The second method to thicken the injected CO/sub 2/ is to combine it with aqueous surfactant solution in a CO/sub 2/ foam. The second of these methods is much nearer to field use than the other, particularly in lower temperature reservoirs. Work in this project has covered many details of the development of these thickening methods and has also considered the means by which they might be applied in the oilfield.

• Research Organization: New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology, Socorro (USA). New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center
• DOE Contract Number: AC21-79MC10689
• OSTI ID: 5418944
• Report Number(s): DOE/MC/10689-17; ON: DE84002852
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
ADDITIVES
ADSORPTION
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CARBON DIOXIDE INJECTION
COLLOIDS
CONTROL
DATA
DISPERSIONS
DRILL CORES
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUID INJECTION
FOAMS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
INFORMATION
MISCIBLE-PHASE DISPLACEMENT
MOBILITY
NUMERICAL DATA
OIL WELLS
PETROLEUM
POLYMERS
RECOVERY
RESERVOIR ROCK
SCREENING
SOLUBILITY
SORPTION
SURFACTANTS
VISCOSITY
WELLS