Improvement of CO sub 2 flood performance

Technical Report · Wed Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:6676037

Kovarik, F S; Heller, J P

This research program is designed to improve oil recovery through carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) flooding. The program is composed of two main areas: Displacements of Pure and Impure CO{sub 2}, and CO{sub 2} Mobility Control and Flow Heterogeneities. In Task Area I, work continued on assembling a comprehensive viscosity/density/composition database on CO{sub 2}/crude oil, CO{sub 2}synthetic oil, and lean gas/crude oil systems. A new procedure for estimating CO{sub 2}/crude oil viscosities applicable to both single-phase and equilibrium vapor- and liquid-phase mixtures from a single, internally consistent equation was developed using the database. A series of coreflood displacements concerning the effect of solution gas and free gas on the development of miscibility, using synthetic as well as crude oils, have been completed. Preliminary results from experiments using the new foam/coreflood apparatus to investigate flow through fractured rock systems are presented. Results were matched with the newly developed foam simulator. Foam mechanistic studies using glass micromodels at reservoir conditions have been conducted to compare the performances of SAG and WAG displacements as well as pregenerated vs. in-situ generated foams. Task II consists of research concerned with the reduced efficiency of floods caused by nonuniformity of flow in reservoirs. Research includes three separate areas: the mathematical description of rock heterogeneity, using the relatively new field of geostatistics, with special emphasis on the correlation of geostatistical parameters with calculated sweep efficiency; the history of tracer production from a well, as calculated from simulated displacements in synthetic random fields; and the measurement of small-scale heterogeneities in laboratory samples of reservoir rock, with an evaluation of their effect on flood results and scaling to the field. 149 refs., 121 figs., 24 tabs.

• Research Organization: New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM (USA). New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/FE
• DOE Contract Number: FC21-84MC21136
• OSTI ID: 6676037
• Report Number(s): DOE/MC/21136-24; ON: DE90000254
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
ADDITIVES
CARBON DIOXIDE INJECTION
COLLOIDS
CORRELATIONS
DISPERSIONS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLOW RATE
FLUID INJECTION
FOAMS
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
GAS SATURATION
HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS
MISCIBLE-PHASE DISPLACEMENT
NMR SPECTRA
OIL SATURATION
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC SULFUR COMPOUNDS
PERFORMANCE
PETROLEUM
PHASE STUDIES
POLYMERS
PROGRESS REPORT
RECOVERY
RESERVOIR ROCK
SATURATION
SPECTRA
SULFONATES
SURFACE PROPERTIES
SURFACE TENSION
SURFACTANTS
SWEEP EFFICIENCY
VISCOSITY