Gas miscible displacement enhanced oil recovery: Technology status report

Technical Report · Wed Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1986

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6469720· OSTI ID:6469720

Gas miscible displacement enhanced oil recovery research is conducted by the US Department of Energy's Morgantown Energy Technology Center to advance the application of miscible carbon dioxide flooding. This research is an integral part of a multidisciplinary effort to improve the technology for producing additional oil from US resources. This report summarizes the problems of the technology and the 1986 results of the ongoing research that was conducted to solve those problems. Poor reservoir volumetric sweep efficiency is the major problem associated with gas flooding and all miscible displacements. This problem results from the channeling and viscous fingering that occur due to the large differences between viscosity or density of the displacing and displaced fluids (i.e., carbon dioxide and oil, respectively). Simple modeling and core flooding studies indicate that, because of differences in fluid viscosities, breakthrough can occur after only 30% of the total pore volume (PV) of the rock has been injected with gas, while field tests have shown breakthrough occurring much earlier. The differences in fluid densities lead to gravity segregation. The lower density carbon dioxide tends to override the residual fluids in the reservoir. This process would be considerably more efficient if a larger area of the reservoir could be contacted by the gas. Current research has focused on the mobility control, computer simulation, and reservoir heterogeneity studies. Three mobility control methods have been investigated: (1) the use of polymers for direct thickening of high-density carbon dioxide, (2) mobile ''foam-like dispersions'' of carbon dioxide and an aqueous surfactant, and (3) in situ deposition of chemical precipitates. 22 refs., 14 figs., 6 tabs.

• Research Organization: USDOE Morgantown Energy Technology Center, WV
• OSTI ID: 6469720
• Report Number(s): DOE/METC-87/0253; ON: DE87001049
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
ADDITIVES
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CARBON DIOXIDE INJECTION
COLLOIDS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONTROL
DATA
DISPERSIONS
DRILL CORES
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FIELD TESTS
FLUID INJECTION
FOAMS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS
INFORMATION
MISCIBLE-PHASE DISPLACEMENT
MOBILITY
NUMERICAL DATA
OIL WELLS
PETROLEUM
PHASE STUDIES
POLYMERS
RECOVERY
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
RESERVOIR ROCK
SIMULATION
SURFACTANTS
SWEEP EFFICIENCY
TESTING
WELLS