An Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Solvent Injection to Heavy Oil in Fractured Five-Spot Micromodels

Abstract

In this work a series of solvent injection experiments was conducted on horizontal glass micromodels at several fixed flow rate conditions. The micromodels were initially saturated with heavy crude oil. The produced oil as a function of injected volume of solvents was measured using image analysis of the continuously provided pictures. In order to investigate the macroscopic behavior of the process in different media, several fractured, with constant width, and nonfractured five-spot micromodels were designed and used. The measured data have also been used for verifying and developing a simulation model that was later used for sensitivity analysis of some parameters that affect oil recovery. The results show that when the fracture spacing increased, the oil recovery decreased. In contrast, as the fracture orientation angle (the angle with the mean flow direction) or solvent viscosity increased, the oil recovery increased. A critical value for the ratio of connate water saturation to the oil volume has been found that, beyond that the solvent injection process, loses its efficiency. The final recovery of a water alternating solvent (WAS) injection process in fractured medium in the presence/absence of connate water saturation was considerably greater than that obtained either by continuous solvent injection or water injection alone. Good agreement was observed between experimental and simulation results when a dual permeability model was used in our simulation.     

Wettability Restoration of Limestone Cores Using Core Material From the Aqueous Zone

Abstract

In the struggle to mimic the wetting state of a limestone reservoir, strongly water wet preserved cores from the aqueous zone have been used. By exposing the cores to the reservoir crude oil and formation water, the authors tried to mimic core properties from the oil leg. Wettability and oil recovery of restored cores were compared, confirming that both wettability and oil recovery depended on the fluids used in the cleaning process. When the preserved cores from the water zone was cleaned mildly and restored with formation brine and crude oil, they behaved in strongly water-wet way (reference core), while restored oil contaminated cores cleaned by organic solvents acted less water-wet. The water wetness was improved when the oil-contaminated cores were cleaned with hot seawater or hot seawater containing cationic surfactant. The oil recovery by spontaneous imbibition for the reference cores was significantly higher than the restored cores previously exposed to crude oil. In the case of forced displacement, the oil recovery from the water-wet reference core was lower than the same restored core.     

硫酸盐浓度对水驱提高采收率的影响

水驱提高采收率对注入水的离子组成有一定的要求,为了验证润湿性改变不是硫酸盐水驱提高原油采收率的唯一因素,在岩心润湿性为水湿的条件下进行水驱,研究了硫酸盐浓度、温度、注入速率和原油类型对硫酸盐水驱采收率的影响.结果表明,在水驱过程中,原油采收率随着硫酸盐浓度的增加而增加.在40℃下水驱提高采收率无明显增幅,随着温度的升高...     

Effect of wettability on oil recovery and breakthrough time for immiscible gas flooding

The effect of wettability on oil recovery at higher water saturation is still not fully understood, especially in the case of mixed wettability. This study was conducted to examine the effects of wettability on oil recovery and breakthrough time through experiments for two wettability conditions (water-wet and mixed-wet) and three water saturations (20%, 40%, and 60%). Clashach sandstone core with a porosity of 12.8% and a permeability of 75 md was utilized as the porous media. Immiscible gas flooding was performed by injecting nitrogen gas into the core at room temperature and pressure. The results showed 54.3% and 48.8% of the initial oil in place (IOIP) as the ultimate oil recovery at 40% water saturation from mixed-wet core and water-wet core respectively. In contrast, the water-wet core displayed better results (32.6% of the IOIP) in terms of breakthrough time compared to the results of water-wet core (10.6% of the IOIP) at the same water saturation. In conclusion, oil recovery was found highly dependent on water saturation while breakthrough time was mainly affected by the wettability of the cores.     

Experimental and modeling study of wettability alteration through seawater injection in limestone: a case study

Water flooding is widely applied for pressure maintenance or increasing the oil recovery of reservoirs. The heterogeneity and wettability of formation rocks strongly affect the oil recovery efficiency in carbonate reservoirs. During seawater injection in carbonate formations, the interactions between potential seawater ions and the carbonate rock at a high temperature can alter the wettability to a more water-wet condition. This paper studies the wettability of one of the Iranian carbonate reservoirs which has been under Persian Gulf seawater injection for more than 10 years. The wettability of the rock is determined by indirect contact angle measurement using Rise in Core technique. Further, the characterization of the rock surface is evaluated by molecular kinetic theory(MKT) modeling. The data obtained from experiments show that rocks are undergoing neutral wetting after the aging process. While the wettability of low permeable samples changes to be slightly water-wet,the wettability of the samples with higher permeability remains unchanged after soaking in seawater. Experimental data and MKT analysis indicate that wettability alteration of these carbonate rocks through prolonged seawater injection might be insignificant.     

多孔介质的润湿性对聚驱稠油微宏观效率的影响

岩石表面的润湿性影响聚合物微观和宏观驱油效率。采用可视化微观模型和微观照相技术研究了强水湿和油湿多孔介质下聚合物微观驱油效率和驱替机理。分析了束缚水与稠油分别在两种润湿介质下的微观形态和分布对聚合物的吸附、滞留,连续性和非连续性流动,驱替前缘以及洗油效率的影响。微观模型实验结果表明,在水湿环境,地层水趋向分布于岩石骨架表面并在孔壁附近形成较厚的水膜,聚合物趋于附着在孔壁处,在这些区域聚合物的洗油效率较高;在油湿环境,束缚水主要以非连续相分布在孔隙介质中,聚合物溶液发生咬断效应,原油吸附在孔喉处,聚合物只能部分扫除原油,乳液的形成能辅助聚合物溶液驱替油相。聚合物在水湿介质的微观驱油效率明显高于油湿介质。岩心流动实验结果与微观模型分析一致,相同浓度的聚合物溶液在强水湿岩心前缘突破所需的时间长于油湿岩心,突破前缘更规整,水湿岩心和油湿岩心的水驱采出程度分别为21.5%OOIP和15%OOIP。聚合物在油湿岩心的"门槛"黏度较大。聚合物黏度为500mPa·s时,水驱后水湿岩心和油湿岩心的原油采收率增幅分别为23%OOIP和17%OOIP。     

油藏岩石润湿性对气驱剩余油微观分布的影响机制

注气驱是目前油田进一步提高原油采收率的重要措施之一,油藏岩石润湿性对注气的效果有重要影响。基于三维孔隙级网络模型,运用孔隙级流动模拟方法,系统研究了6种不同润湿性油藏注气过程的油气水孔隙级分布和气驱效果。结果表明,水湿和MWS混合润湿(小孔隙为油湿)体系中的注气效果相对于另外4种润湿体系较差;这4种效果较好的润湿体系分别是油湿、中性润湿、MWL混合润湿(大孔隙为油湿)和部分润湿（其中30%孔隙水湿）体系。     

Impacts of Wettability on Immiscible Fluid Flow Pattern-Microfluidic Chip Experiment

Immiscible fluid flow is frequently found in resource recovery or soil remediation. The flow pattern in the porous media is affected by the wettability of pore surface. In this study, quartz substrates and microfluidic chips are treated by silica nanoparticles(SNP) and triethoxy(octyl)silane(TES) to fabricate the water-wet and oil-wet surfaces. The wettability of the treated-surface is measured in term of contact angle for several combinations of surrounding fluid and a liquid droplet. The effect of the wettability on the fluid flow pattern is explored by injecting oil and water alternately into the surface-treated microfluidic chips. The results reveal that the SNP-coated quartz substrate shows strong water-wet property and the TES coating makes water-repellent/oil-wet surfaces. In addition, it is found that the maximum and minimum oil and water saturation during alternate injection of oil and water depends on the surface wettability of the microfluidic chips. The characteristics of the pore-scale fluid flow pattern are also described.     

Dimensionless groups for three-phase gravity drainage flow in porous media

The downward displacement of oil by gas (either through gas cap expansion or by gas injection) at the crest of the reservoir is an attractive method of oil recovery. The drainage of oil under gravity forces is a potentially efficient method as it can reduce the remaining oil saturation to below that obtained after waterflooding. This paper describes a series of experiments of gas invasion under gravity-dominated conditions with special attention to the effects of wettability and water saturation on three-phase flow. The experiments were performed in bead-pack models by spontaneous gas invasion at both low and high water saturations with a spreading oil. Different oil recovery rates were observed depending on the wettability of the beads and initial water saturation. At irreducible water saturation, the process appeared to be less efficient for the oil-wet conditions, while similar oil recoveries are observed for both oil-wet and water-wet media at residual oil saturation. Different recovery rates occur with different fluid morphology, which depend on the matrix wettability and the balance between gravity, viscous and capillary forces. The results have been analysed using dimensionless groups. The Bond (N_B) and capillary numbers (N_C) were modified to include the 3-phase effects of gas, oil and water. However, for these cases the Bond and capillary numbers alone were insufficient to fully describe the dynamics of oil recovery by gravity drainage. Therefore, a new dimensionless group combining the effects of gravity and viscous forces to capillary forces was defined as: N=N_B+A(μ_d/μ_g)N_C, where A is a scaling factor (in all our experiments A=−17225) and (μ_d/μ_g) is the viscosity ratio between the displaced and displacing phase. A linear relationship was found between this new group and the total recovery for all the scenarios tested. The slope was approximately 40 for three cases, i.e., water-wet case at irreducible water saturation, and water-wet and oil-wet cases at residual oil saturation. The oil-wet case at irreducible water saturation has a larger slope, probably due to the blocking effect of water. These experimental results may be used as a benchmark to test theoretical models of three-phase flow under gravity dominated conditions. The new dimensionless group should improve the understanding of the pore scale mechanisms so that these processes can be included in the development of network models and in the processes of upscaling laboratory results.     

表面活性剂对致密砂岩储层自发渗吸驱油的影响

自发渗吸驱油是致密砂岩油藏比较重要的一种采油方式。为了研究表面活性剂对长庆油田致密砂岩储层渗吸效果的影响,采用核磁共振技术,根据天然岩心在地层水和表面活性剂中的自发渗吸实验,研究了不同润湿性岩心自发渗吸的特点,以及表面活性剂对中性润湿砂岩渗吸结果的影响。实验结果表明:强水润湿砂岩的渗吸采出程度为60%左右,而中性润湿砂岩的渗吸采出程度只有33%左右;表面活性剂的加入能够有效提高中性润湿砂岩的渗吸采出程度,0.05%HYZ-5的效果最好。通过岩心驱替实验评价了HYZ-5表面活性剂对中性致密砂岩周期注水采收率的影响,可以看出HYZ-5可以显著提高周期注水的采收率。现场试验证明,A井采用周期注水,注入HYZ-5表面活性剂溶液渗吸驱油后,取得了明显的增产效果,说明表面活性剂可以提高致密砂岩储层的自发渗吸驱油效率。     

Enhanced oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs by spontaneous imbibition of low salinity water

An experimental study was performed to investigate the impact of low salinity water on wettability alteration in carbonate core samples from southern Iranian reservoirs by spontaneous imbibition. In this paper, the effect of temperature, salinity, permeability and connate water were investigated by comparing the produced hydrocarbon curves. Contact angle measurements were taken to confirm the alteration of surface wettability of porous media. Oil recovery was enhanced by increasing the dilution ratio of sea water, and there existed an optimum dilution ratio at which the highest oil recovery was achieved. In addition, temperature had a very significant impact on oil recovery from carbonate rocks. Furthermore, oil recovery from a spontaneous imbibition process was directly proportional to the permeability of the core samples. The presence of connate water saturation inside the porous media facilitated oil production significantly. Also, the oil recovery from porous media was highly dependent on ion repulsion/attraction activity of the rock surface which directly impacts on the wettability conditions. Finally, the highest ion attraction percentage was measured for sodium while there was no significant change in pH for all experiments.     

Wettability Alteration of Low-permeable Carbonate Reservoir Rocks in Presence of Mixed Ionic Surfactants

Abstract

Altering the wettability of the carbonate reservoir rocks from oil-wet to water-wet has figured prominently as one of the enhanced oil recovery methods in recent years. The authors measured the effect of different ionic surfactants on the wettability alteration of the rock, saturated with crude oil, and the consequent improvement in oil production was investigated by spontaneous imbibitions of solutions containing cationic, anionic, and cationic-anionic surfactant mixtures. A very low-permeable carbonate rock from one of the Iranian oil reservoirs was selected for this study. The results of imbibition tests were furthermore supported by measuring IFT, taking pictures of producing oil drops from different exterior core plug surfaces and also observing the distribution of the remaining oil in cores at the end of experiments. The results show that cationic surfactants at concentrations higher than CMC can cause a remarkable oil production through alteration of wettability and, moreover, the extent of oil production increases with temperature. In contrast, it is observed that the anionic surfactants are not able to change the wettability of an oil-wet surface and their combination with the cationic type would reduce the oil production potential of cationic surfactants.     

Monitoring the Effect of Discontinuous Shales on the Surfactant Flooding Performance in Heavy Oil Reservoirs Using 2D Glass Micromodels

Although most heavy oil reservoirs contain discontinuous shaly structures, there is a lack of fundamental understanding how the shaly structures affect the oil recovery efficiency, especially during surfactant flooding to heavy oils. Here, an experimental study was conducted to examine the effect of discontinuous shales on performance of surfactant flooding by introducing heterogeneities to represent streaks of shale in five-spot glass micromodels. Results show that oil recovery in presence of shale streak is lower than in its absence. Based on the authors’ observations, the presence of flow barriers causes premature breakthrough of injected fluids and also an unstable displacement front. As well, displacement efficiency of surfactant flooding is dependent strongly on the shale distribution configuration. Increasing shale content causes reduction of ultimate oil recovery and also severe fingering during water flooding while it compensates during surfactant flooding considerably. In shaly patterns, in the case of surfactant flooding, the oil recovery after breakthrough increases significantly, while it changes much less for the case of water flooding as well as flooding in homogeneous model. Oil recovery efficiency and breakthrough time improved with increasing surfactant concentration. However, beyond a specific limit of sodium dodecyl sulfate concentration, around 2000 ppm, incremental oil recovery becomes insignificant. Presence of connate water in surfactant flooding scheme can improve the recovery efficiency in shaly patterns. Results of this work can be helpful to investigate the optimal location of injection/production wells during enhanced oil recovery schemes in shaly reservoirs using five-spot micromodels.     

Microbial improved oil recovery—bacterial induced wettability and interfacial tension effects on oil production

Microbial Improved Oil Recovery (MIOR) utilizes the effect of oil degrading bacteria that grow on the oil–water interface. It has been demonstrated that the presence of growing bacteria in an oil and water saturated sandstone core can result in significant increased oil recovery upon water flooding [Torsvik, T., Gilje, E. and Sunde, E., Aerobic Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery, Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery, Dallas TX, USA, Sep. 11, 1995]. Several mechanisms are proposed to explain this observed effect, among which are reduction in the oil–water interfacial tension (IFT) and changes in the wettability of the system. The experimental results from the present study indicate that bacterial growth can both reduce IFT and change the wettability towards less water-wet conditions. A subsequent simulation study shows that a change in wettability towards a less water-wet behavior can reproduce the increased oil recovery observed during the core flood reported by Torsvik et al. Furthermore, the simulations also indicate that a gradual and strong reduction in IFT can reproduce the same experimental data. Both the effect of changed wettability and reduction in IFT was included in the simulation model as changes to the relative permeability curves, constructed from general theory on IFT reduction and wettability alteration.     

Visualization of the Effect of Porous Media Wettability on Polymer Flooding Performance through Unconsolidated Porous Media using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

Waterflooding effectiveness depends on the mobility ratio of the injected water to displaced fluids, and on the geologic heterogeneity of the reservoir rock. Rock wettability also affects the performance of water and polymer flooding. It is generally recognized that waterflooding in a water-wet reservoir is more efficient than waterflooding in an oil-wet reservoir. Polymer absorption/retention in porous media is also affected by rock wettability. The Centric Scan SPRITE Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technique is applied in this work to visualize the performance of polymerflooding and to quantify in situ fluid saturation distribution in rocks with wettability ranging from strongly water-wet to preferentially oil-wet.     

润湿性对采收率及相对渗透率的影响

通过实验研究了润湿性对采收率及相对渗透率的影响,还研究了利用原油老化控制岩石润湿性的方法。结果表明弱水湿岩石水驱采收率最高,亲水岩石油相相对渗透率高于亲油岩石,原油中极性物质的吸附会影响岩石表面润湿性,油湿性随老化时间增加而增强。     

Study of wettability and spreading impact in three-phase gas injection by cryo-scanning electron microscopy

Much has been already done and written on the effect of wettability and spreading in three-phase displacement properties and efficiency. However, a direct visualization of the impact of these parameters in the distribution of the three fluids (water–oil–gas) within the pore space and consequently on the recovery mechanisms has been lacking. The objective of this paper is to obtain at the pore scale the necessary information to interpret the macroscopic behavior and to predict ultimate oil recovery for well controlled wetting and spreading conditions. To this end cryo-scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) observations are performed in water-wet and oil-wet Fontainebleau sandstone plugs for spreading and non-spreading conditions. It is demonstrated that cryo-SEM can be used as a tool to study at the pore scale the fluid distributions and efficiency of oil recovery processes involving three phases. It is also proved that in a real porous medium both wettability and spreading affect gas injection efficiency by controlling three-phase distributions at the pore level and phase connectivity.     

大庆油田三元复合驱驱油效果影响因素实验研究

通过岩心物理模拟实验及微观驱油实验,分析了界面张力、三元体系粘度、乳化油滴产生及岩石润湿性对三元复合驱驱油效果的影响规律和影响机理。研究结果表明,油水间平衡、动态界面张力大幅度降低可有效提高三元复合驱驱油效率,进行三元复合驱时,油水界面张力须降到10^-3mN/m数量级;增加体系粘度能够扩大三元复合驱的波及体积,水油粘度比大于2是三元复合驱提高采收率幅度达到20%的必要条件;乳化的油滴产生是三元复合驱提高驱油效率的主要形式,油水界面张力越低、驱替体系粘度越大,乳化油滴的产生能力越强,驱油效果越好;三元复合驱能够驱替亲油岩石表面的油膜,促进岩心润湿性由亲油向亲水转化。     

Prediction of wettability variation and its impact on flow using pore- to reservoir-scale simulations

We describe a pore- to reservoir-scale investigation of wettability variation and its impact on waterflooding. We use a three-dimensional pore-scale network model of a Berea sandstone to predict relative permeability and capillary pressure hysteresis. We successfully predict experimentally measured relative permeability data for the water-wet case, and demonstrate that the model captures experimentally observed trends in waterflood recovery for mixed-wet media. We then focus upon the effect of variations in initial water saturation associated with capillary rise above the oil–water contact (OWC). This may lead to wettability variations with height because the number of pore-walls which may be rendered oil-wet during primary drainage, increases as the oil saturation increases. We investigate empirical hysteresis models in which scanning curves are used to connect bounding drainage and waterflood curves for a given initial water saturation, and find that if wettability varies with initial water saturation, then the scanning water relative permeability curves predicted by the empirical model are significantly higher than those predicted by the network model. We then use a conventional simulator, in conjunction with the relative permeability curves obtained from the network and empirical models, to investigate the reservoir-scale impact of wettability variations on waterflooding. If the wettability varies with height above the OWC, we find that using the network model to generate scanning relative permeability curves yields a significantly higher recovery than using empirical models or assuming that the reservoir is uniformly oil-wet or water-wet. This is because the scanning water curves are generally low (characteristic of water-wet media), yet the residual oil saturation is also low (characteristic of oil-wet media). Our aim is to demonstrate that network models of real rocks may be used as a tool to predict wettability variations and their impact on field-scale flow.     

An evaluation of modified silica nanoparticles’ efficiency in enhancing oil recovery of light and intermediate oil reservoirs

The role of nanoparticles in enhancing oil recovery from oil reservoirs is an increasingly important topic of research. Nanoparticles have the properties that are potentially useful for enhanced oil recovery processes, as they are solid and two orders of magnitude smaller than colloidal particles. This paper presents a comparison between the efficiency of modified silica nanoparticles in enhancing oil recovery from two different Iranian light and intermediate oil reservoirs. The mechanisms used to recover additional oil would be oil–water interfacial tension reduction and wettability alteration. Oil phase contact angles and oil–water interfacial tensions were measured in the absence and the presence of nano fluids’ different concentrations (1–4 g/L). Results showed that the interfacial tension reduces dramatically in the presence of nanoparticles for both light and intermediate oil. In addition oil phase contact angle results showed a transformation of rock wettability from water-wet toward oil-wet condition. However, these nanoparticles are more capable in the reduction of the interfacial tension and the alteration of wettability in the case of light oil reservoir. A comparison between recovery results indicated that these nanoparticles are more efficient in light oil reservoirs and produce more incremental amount of oil after primary and secondary processes.