Effect of pressure,temperature, and mass fraction of CO2 on the stability of the asphaltene constituents in crude oil

This paper focus on the main influence factors (temperature, pressure, and mass fraction of CO₂) on the state of asphaltene in the crude oil during CO₂ flooding by using high temperature and high pressure microanalysis system of solid precipitation. For the simulated oil sample – CO₂ system, the state of asphaltene is not affected by temperature within this range of 50°C to 100°C, the particle size of the asphaltene has an increase with the increase of the pressure from 8MPa to 40 MPa. When the mass fraction of CO₂ is less than 35%, the state of the asphaltene has not changed and the asphaltene particles are in a suspension state. When the mass fraction of CO₂ increases to 40%, the aggregation of the asphaltenes occurs and then form precipitation. With the further increase of the mass fraction of CO₂, the particle of the asphaltene aggregates has a significant increase. For the field development project design of CO₂ flooding, the influence of the temperature can be ignored, the appropriate mass fraction of CO₂ is below 35% and the gas injection pressure should maintain a relatively low value. The results can provide a theoretical basis to avoid the asphaltene precipitation during CO₂ flooding.     

CO2 miscible flooding in low permeability sandstone reservoirs and its influence on crude oil properties

Miscible CO₂ injection process has become widely used technique for the enhanced oil recovery in low permeability reservoirs. Core flooding experiments and field test of CO₂ miscible flooding in low permeability sandstone reservoirs and its influence on crude oil properties was studied. The results showed that CO₂ miscible flooding in low permeability sandstone reservoirs can enhance oil recovery both in laboratory study and field test. The permeability of sandstone reservoirs decreased during CO₂ miscible flooding due to the precipitation of asphaltene of crude oil. The precipitation of asphaltene lead to a reduction of asphaltene content and the apparent viscosity of crude oil. A further study on inhibitors and removers for asphaltene deposits from crude oil should be investigated to prevent and remove asphaltene deposits in low permeability sandstone reservoirs.     

沥青质沉积对轻质油藏CO2驱的影响

为了解沥青质沉积对轻质油藏CO_2驱的影响,以CO_2及延长轻质原油为介质,在不同压力、不同CO_2与原油物质的量比的实验参数下,研究了CO_2对沥青质的沉积规律以及沥青质沉积对油水界面性质、原油组成、储层渗透率及采收率的影响。研究结果表明:当压力从0 Pa升至20 Pa时,沥青质沉积量从0.17%增至6.27%;沥青质沉积导致的储层渗透率损害程度从1.87%增至13.64%,油水界面张力原来的2.40 mN/m增至16.80 mN/m。压力在25 MPa时原油采收率最大,达到11.83%。     

The Impact of CO2 Injection and Pressure Changes on Asphaltene Molecular Weight Distribution in a Heavy Crude Oil: An Experimental Study

Abstract

This work concerns observing the pressure as well as CO₂ mole percentage effects on asphaltene molecular weight distributions at reservoir conditions. A high-pressure, high-temperature asphaltene measurement setup was applied, and the amount of precipitated asphaltene at different pressures as well as CO₂ mole percentage in an Iranian heavy crude oil was measured. Moreover, the asphaltene molecular weight distributions during titration of crude oil with different n-alkanes were investigated. The gel permeation chromatography (GPC) apparatus was used for characterization of asphaltene molecular weight under different conditions. It has been observed that some thermodynamic changes such as pressure depletion above the bubble point increase the average molecular weight of asphaltene and cause the asphaltene molecular weight distributions changes from a bimodal curve with two maxima to a single maxima curve. One the other hand, below the bubble point, pressure reduction causes a decrease in the average molecular weight of asphaltene and also causes the shape of asphaltene molecular weight distributions to restore, which might be due to dissolution of asphaltene aggregates. An interesting result is that asphaltene molecular weight distribution at the final step of pressure reduction tests, ambient condition, shows approximately the same trend as the distribution of asphaltene molecular weight obtained at reservoir condition. This behavior explains the reversibility of the asphaltene precipitation process under pressure depletion conditions. In the case of CO₂ injection, the graphs of asphaltene molecular weight distributions always show a single modal trend and shift toward larger molecular weight values when CO₂ mole percentage increases. The results of this work can be imported to thermodynamic models that use polydisperse data of heavy organic fractions to enhance their performance at reservoir conditions. The distributions obtained by this method are good indicators of asphaltene structures at reservoir conditions.     

X油藏注气混相驱可行性实验研究

针对X底水油藏油井注水后综合含水上升过快的问题,利用HB70/300型高压物性分析仪开展了该区块原油相态特征实验、注气相态特征实验,并运用细管法开展了注CO₂最小混相压力实验。对比分析了CO₂和N₂两种性质气体注入前后原油的相态特征变化,确定了该区块原油注CO₂最小混相压力,为X油藏注气提高采收率可行性提出依据。实验结果表明,X油藏原始地层压力为46.01 MPa,原油饱和压力为11.06 MPa,注N₂后饱和压力上升迅速,在原始地层条件下难以实现混相,表现出典型的非混相特征;注CO₂后饱和压力上升较平缓,细管法测得的最小混相压力为28.03 MPa,说明利用CO₂可实现CO₂的混相驱替,而且最终的驱替效果比较理想。说明该油藏可开展注CO₂混相驱,为进一步的开发方案调整提供了依据和合理的建议。      

The extraction effect of CO2 injection on the flow properties of crude oil

During CO₂ flooding, extraction of lighter hydrocarbons from crude oil makes the remaining oil hard to be recovered. In this work, we design a new experimental method to characterize the effect of CO₂ extraction on crude oil. The experimental results show that, the volume of extracted hydrocarbons increases as system pressure increases. The hydrocarbons with wider carbon number can be extracted from crude oil at high pressures. Moreover, the wax precipitation and viscosity of the remaining oil increase with increasing pressure. This study is expected to provide the basic understanding of the mechanisms of CO₂ flooding for enhanced oil recovery.     

Influence of pressure and CO2 content on the asphaltene precipitation and oil recovery during CO2 flooding

During CO₂ flooding, the crude oil is treated with CO₂, and meanwhile it is displaced by CO₂. Based on the two processes, the influence of pressure and CO₂ content on the asphaltene precipitation and oil recovery efficiency are systematically investigated by indoor simulation experiment. With the increase of the pressure or CO₂ content during CO₂ treatment, the amount of asphaltene precipitation can be increased to a certain value. Correspondingly, the degrees of the changes of oil-water interface, the compositions of crude oil, and reservoir permeability are positively correlated with the amount of asphaltene precipitation. However, during the process, the oil recovery has an optimal value due to the combined action of asphaltene precipitation and the improvement of flow performance of the crude oil. These conclusions can provide a basis for high efficiency development of low permeability oil reservoirs by CO₂ flooding.     

Asphaltene Deposition under CO2 Injection: An Experimental Study of the Bangestan Reservoir of Ahwaz Oilfield,SW Iran

Abstract

It is essential that precipitation of asphaltenes is recognized early in the planning stage of any CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project so that appropriate testing can be performed to evaluate whether there will be a negative impact on reservoir performance. This article presents detailed evaluations of slim tube data that were obtained during CO₂ injection using a medium-gravity Iranian crude oil.

A crude oil from Bangestan reservoir of Ahwaz oilfield containing 18.2% asphaltenes with ~31.5 °API gravity was flooded by purified CO₂ (>96% CO₂) in a slim tube apparatus under 2,700 psi at 110°C. We were going to determine the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) of the sample oil under injection of CO₂ flood, but when a CO₂ slim tube test was performed for this oil at 2,700 psi, less than half of the saturated oil in the tube was recovered, which implied that the displacement process was immiscible. At this pressure, the asphaltene deposition in the slim tube apparatus was so severe that even a pressure gradient of 6,200 lb/in² was not able to displace any fluid through the capillary tube. Therefore, we abandoned MMP determination with this sample and investigated the problem.

Due to the high percentage of asphaltenes in the sample, using the slim tube MMP as an apparatus for determining minimum miscibility pressure of CO₂ and sample oil can be misleading.     

延长油田致密砂岩油藏CO2驱油机理研究

CO_2驱是提高低渗透油田产量、缓解温室效应的有效途径。针对鄂尔多斯盆地油藏压力系数低、原油轻质组分含量高的特点,通过PVT和最小混相压力等测试分析方法,揭示了低压、低孔、低渗油藏CO_2驱提高采收率主要机理。开展了CO_2注入储层与无机、有机物作用后的沉淀研究,表明CO_2在无机盐溶液中不会形成沉淀堵塞孔隙,CO_2与有机质作用后沉积点高于油藏压力,且注入压力越高,CO_2在地层原油中的溶解能力越强,目标区块CO_2注入后不易形成沥青质沉淀。物模驱替实验结果表明,均质岩心的采出程度明显高于非均质岩心,且随着岩心非均质性的增加,水驱采出程度、气驱采出程度及最终采出程度均明显下降。     

Study on the blockage in pores due to asphaltene precipitation during different CO2 flooding schemes with NMR technique

CO₂ flooding is an effective way in the tertiary oil recovery. While asphaltene often precipitates from the crude oil during the CO₂ flooding, and the mechanisms of blockage resulting from asphaltene precipitation is still unclear in different CO₂ flooding schemes. In this work, pure-CO₂ flooding, water-alternating-CO₂ flooding (WAG), and CO₂-foam flooding were applied to conduct the core-flooding experiments. Then, as for each flooding scheme, we quantitatively investigated the blockage degree in different pores due to asphaltene precipitation with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique. Tests results show that CO₂-foam flooding has a relatively higher blockage degree both in the smaller pores and the larger pores than WAG and pure-CO₂ flooding. Although pure-CO₂ flooding has the least asphaltene precipitation and blockage degree among three flooding schemes, its oil recovery degree is far less than the other two flooding schemes. Compared with pure-CO₂ flooding and CO₂-foam flooding, WAG flooding has the highest oil recovery and an acceptable asphaltene precipitation.     

Experimental and Modelling Investigations of Asphaltene Precipitation During Pressure Depletion and Gas Injection Operations

Asphaltene precipitation problems manifest themselves in different stages of oil reservoirs production. Experimental and modeling investigations are, therefore, employed as promising tools to assist in predictions of asphaltene precipitation problems and selection of proper production facilities. This study concerns experimental and modeling investigations of asphaltene precipitation during natural production and gas injection operations for a heavy Iranian crude oil at reservoir conditions. First, with design and performance of high pressure–high temperature experiments, asphaltene precipitation behavior is comprehensively investigated; the effects of pressure and temperature are fully studied during pressure depletion tests and the role of injection gas composition on precipitation is described in gas injection experiments. In the next stage, the obtained experimental results are fed into a commercial simulator to develop the asphaltene precipitation model. The results for the pressure depletion experiments indicate that the maximum amount of asphaltene precipitation takes place at fluid bubble point pressure. Increase in the temperature, as seen, causes to reduce the amount of precipitation for the entire range of pressures. For gas injection experiments, the onset of precipitation for CO₂, associated, and N₂ gases takes place at around 0.20, 0.28, and 0.50 gas to mixture mole ratios, respectively. Carbon dioxide shows the highest asphaltene precipitation values and nitrogen has the lowest amounts for the whole range of gas mole fractions. Finally, the results for modeling indicate successful asphaltene precipitation predictions for both pressure depletion and gas injection processes.     

An Investigation of Asphaltene Precipitation During Natural Production and the CO2 Injection Process

Some of Iranian oil reservoirs suffer from operational problems due to asphaltene precipitation during natural depletion, so widely investigation on asphaltene precipitation is necessary for these reservoirs. In this study, a reservoir that is candidate for CO₂ gas injection process is selected to investigate asphaltene precipitation with and without CO₂ injection. In this case, asphaltene precipitation is monitored at various pressures and reservoir temperature. Then, a series of experiments are carried out to evaluate the amount of precipitated asphaltene by injection different molar concentrations (25%, 50%, and 75%) of CO₂. The results show that during primary depletion the amount of precipitated asphaltene increases with pressure reduction until bubble point pressure. Below the bubble point the process is reversed (i.e., the amount of precipitated asphaltene at bubble point pressure is maximum). The behavior of asphaltene precipitation versus pressure for different concentrations of CO₂ is similar to primary depletion. Asphaltene precipitation increases with CO₂ concentration at each pressure step. In the modeling part, solid model and Peng-Robinson equation of state are employed which show a good match with experimental results.     

Prediction of Asphaltene Precipitation during Pressure Depletion and CO2 Injection for Heavy Crude

Abstract

In this work, a thermodynamic approach is used for modeling the phase behavior of asphaltene precipitation. The precipitated asphaltene phase is represented by an improved solid model, and the oil and gas phases are modeled with an equation of state. The Peng-Robinson equation of state (PR-EOS) was used to perform flash calculations. Then, the onset point and the amount of precipitated asphaltene were predicted. A computer code based on the solid model was developed and used for predicting asphaltene precipitation data reported in the literature as well as the experimental data obtained from high-pressure, high-temperature asphaltene precipitation experiments performed on Sarvak reservoir crude, one of Iranian heavy oil reserves, under pressure depletion and CO₂ injection conditions. The model parameters, obtained from sensitivity analysis, were applied in the thermodynamic model. It has been found that the solid model results describe the experimental data reasonably well under pressure depletion conditions. Also, a significant improvement has been observed in predicting the asphaltene precipitation data under gas injection conditions. In particular, for the maximum value of asphaltene precipitation and for the trend of the curve after the peak point, good agreement was observed, which could not be found in the available literature.     

Modeling of Asphaltene Deposition During Miscible CO2 Flooding

The authors present the results of numerical tests and simulations to investigate and analyze the likelihood of asphaltene precipitation and deposition during CO₂ flooding in a reservoir. The effects of asphaltene precipitation on oil properties such as oil viscosity and density during miscible CO₂ flooding process were elaborated by using Winprop software of Computer Modeling Group. Also oil properties change during CO₂ miscible flooding by numerical slim tube were investigated by a compositional simulator (GEM). A fluid sample of Saskatchewan Reservoir that had been flooded miscibly with CO₂ was chosen for performing the sensitivity analyses. The results showed that asphaltene precipitation reduces the oil viscosity and density that is in favor of production increasing. On the other hand asphaltene deposition causes resistance in oil production due to porosity and permeability reduction. The competition between these two effects declares the positive or negative effect of asphaltene on recovery that could be different for each reservoir. The results also show that decreasing the rate of CO₂ injection leads to an increase in asphaltene deposition near the injective well. Due to this phenomenon in higher injecting rates the increment in well bottom-hole pressure becomes less.     

模拟延长油田CO_2驱油过程原油结蜡特性研究

通过对某CO2驱油区块的不同CO2分压条件下原油结蜡倾向和原油结蜡特性评价,计算出原油的结蜡速率、结蜡率及蜡含量,分析了原油的析蜡曲线特性。结果表明,CO2分压增大时原油的结蜡速率和结蜡率提高,蜡含量降低,蜡析出更明显;经CO2处理作用后原油析蜡点向低温方向移动,其蜡含量也相应地比未处理油样的蜡含量降低。     

Asphaltene Precipitation During Different Production Operations

Asphaltene precipitation due to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods or natural depletion is a serious technical problem at petroleum industry. The authors present the result of asphaltene precipitation during associated gas injection, CO₂ injection, and natural depletion in reservoir condition. In addition, the effect of variations in operation pressure, injection gas concentration, and production rate on asphaltene precipitation and difference between slope of precipitation graph due to various method of EOR or natural depletion were investigated. The results revealed that temperature has an efficient role on result of asphaltene deposition through associated gas and CO₂ injection. By decreasing temperature, the amount of asphaltene precipitation due to associated gas injection was increased. In fact, recovery of gas injection was decreased at lower temperatures, hence; solubility has an important rule on asphaltene precipitation.     

CO2注入对储层多孔介质及赋存流体性质影响实验研究

明确CO2注入对储层多孔介质及赋存流体性质的影响规律是分析油藏条件下CO2驱油机理和确定提高采收率潜力的基础。开展了不同压力条件下CO2与岩心静态接触实验和岩心驱替实验,测试了CO2注入前后岩心物性及微观孔喉结构和地层流体主要离子含量、采出原油组分、黏度及其沥青质含量等特征参数。实验结果表明:CO2注入压力由5 MPa升至20 MPa过程中,储层多孔介质平均孔隙度增大19.16%,平均渗透率降低11.23%,直径为100~150μm的孔隙空间增加9.73%,直径小于1.5μm的喉道空间增加15.83%,岩心亲水性显著增强;随着CO2在不同压力下的逐渐注入,地层水中Ca^2+和HCO-3含量增大,采出原油中C 5~C 33组分含量呈现先增大后基本不变的规律,采出原油黏度及其沥青质含量呈现先迅速降低,后保持不变的规律。     

浅层油藏稠油热水/CO2驱油效率实验模拟研究

新疆油田九_6区齐古组浅层稠油油藏已进入蒸汽开采中后期,油藏开采经历了蒸汽吞吐、加密调整、蒸汽驱过程,采出程度为37%。现阶段单一蒸汽驱效果明显下降,地层亏空严重,蒸汽热利用效率低,吸汽不均,波及程度差异大,油水流度比大,采收率低。热水复合CO_2驱油充分利用热水热效应和发挥CO_2溶解降黏等作用,是提高原油采收率的有效方法。因此,针对九_6区稠油开展不同混合方式热水/CO_2驱油模拟实验,分别研究了纯热水驱、热水与CO_2混注、热水与CO_2段塞的驱油效率。结果表明,纯热水驱累积驱油效率为49.19%,热水/CO_2混注累积驱油效率最大为71.25%,段塞驱累积驱油效率高达85.96%。同时,分析了驱出原油及岩心残余油组分变化。     

CO2驱替过程中沥青质沉积及其对原油采收率的影响

针对CO2驱油过程中易造成沥青质等重有机质沉积,导致原油组分发生改变,影响驱油效果这一问题,考察了不同原油沥青质含量、岩心渗透率条件下沥青质的沉积量及CO2驱油效果,研究了CO2驱替过程中沥青质沉积和原油采收率的变化规律。实验结果表明,CO2驱油过程中引起的沥青质沉积与岩心渗透率、原油初始沥青质含量直接相关;相同条件下,低渗透岩心对沥青质沉积的影响更为明显;此外,随着沥青质沉积量的增加,CO2驱的采收率降低。     

Evaluation of miscible and immiscible CO2 injection in one of the Iranian oil fields

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) flooding is one of the most important methods for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) because it not only increases oil recovery efficiency but also causes a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It is a very complex system, involving phase behavior that could increase the recovery of oil by means of swelling, evaporation and decreasing viscosity of the oil. In this study, a reservoir modeling approach was used to evaluate immiscible and miscible CO₂ flooding in a fractured oil field. To reduce simulation time, we grouped fluid components into 10 pseudo-components. The 3-parameter, Peng–Robinson Equation of State (EOS) was used to match PVT experimental data by using the PVTi software. A one-dimensional slim-tube model was defined using ECLIPSE 300 software to determine the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) for injection of CO₂. We used FloGrid software for making a reservoir static model and the reservoir model was calibrated using manual and assisted history matching methods. Then various scenarios of natural depletion, immiscible and miscible CO₂ injection have been simulated by ECLIPSE 300 software and then the simulation results of scenarios have been compared. Investigation of simulation results shows that the oil recovery factor in miscible CO₂ injection scenario is more than other methods.