Black Oil and Compositional Reservoir Simulation for Increasing the Recovery Performance of an Iranian Fractured Carbonate Reservoir

Abstract

Naturally fractured reservoirs contain a significant amount of world oil reserves. Accurate and efficient reservoir simulation of naturally fractured reservoirs is one of the most important, challenging, and computationally intensive problems in reservoir engineering. Black oil and compositional reservoir simulators have been used to determine the reservoir management and production strategies to increase the oil recovery from a low-porosity, low-permeability fractured carbonate reservoir, with an average matrix permeability of 0.8 md, average fracture permeability of 500 md, and an average matrix porosity of 10%. This reservoir is a candidate for an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process, because the reservoir production rate has been declined due to increasing the water cut as a result of rising the water oil contact. The injection techniques that have been considered in this study for black oil model include (a) gas injection, (b) water injection, and (c) simultaneous water alternating gas injection and for the compositional model include (a) dry gas injection, (b) CO₂ injection, and (c) N₂ injection. Simulation results show that CO₂ injection has the maximum oil recovery between the EOR scenarios.     

Gas Injection Into Fractured Reservoirs Above Bubble Point Pressure

Abstract

Among all enhanced oil recovery (EOR) scenarios, gas injection seems to be promising for implementation in naturally fractured reservoirs. The use of CO₂ has received considerable interest as a method of EOR but a major drawback is its availability and increasing cost. Therefore, an alternative gas like CH₄ or N₂ must be considered to meet the economic considerations. To investigate the efficiency of oil recovery by CO₂, N₂, and CH₄ injection in fractured carbonate rock, a series of experiments was designed. Both miscible and immiscible schemes for gas injection were carried out on a low-permeable outcrop carbonate rock that was surrounded by fracture, established with a novel experimental method. The experiments aimed to investigate the potential of oil recovery by secondary and tertiary gas injection under high-temperature conditions. The matrix block was saturated using a recombined mixture of Iranian live oil, and by pumping water into the annular space, the space between rubber sleeve and outer jacket, high overburden pressure was exerted to obtain the desired homogeneous saturation. Using a back-pressure regulator, the pressure was kept above the bubble point pressure. The inlet was attached to a constant pressure pump injecting gas or water above the bubble point pressure, and the overburden pressure was removed gradually and the inlet fluid inflated the rubber sleeve. The amount of produced water from the annular space was recorded to estimate the distance between the rubber sleeve and sand face. This distance creates the fracture surrounding the core. Gas was injected into the fracture at pressures above the bubble point of the oil. Oil recovery as a function of time was monitored during the experiments. Results from both secondary and tertiary gas injection experiments indicate that CO₂ injection at elevated pressure and temperature is more efficient than N₂ and CH₄ injection.     

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.     

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.     

任11裂缝性底水油藏注气提高采收率研究

对任11裂缝性底水油藏注气提高采收率的可行性进行了研究,评价了注气地质特征和水驱开采特征。同时,借鉴雁翎油田注氮气驱油试验成果,进行了注气驱油机理和流体界面运动规律的研究,提出了注气采油方案,并分析了地下储气库与提高采收率的协调关系。结果表明,任11裂缝性底水油藏的盖层具有良好的密封性,可以形成次生气顶和富集油带,具备注气提高采收率和建立地下储气库的地质条件。同时表明裂缝性潜山油藏注气与建设地下储气库相结合可以提高原油采收率。     

A laboratory study of hot WAG injection into fractured and conventional sand packs

Gas injection is the second largest enhanced oil recovery process,next only to the thermal method used in heavy oil fields.To increase the extent of the reservoir contacted by the injected gas,the gas is generally injected intermittently with water.This mode of injection is called water-alternating-gas(WAG).This study deals with a new immiscible water alternating gas(IWAG) EOR technique,"hot IWAG" which includes combination of thermal,solvent and sweep techniques.In the proposed method CO2 will be superheated above the reservoir temperature and instead of normal temperature water,hot water will be used.Hot CO2 and hot water will be alternatively injected into the sand packs.A laboratory test was conducted on the fractured and conventional sand packs.Slugs of water and CO2 with a low and constant rate were injected into the sand packs alternatively;slug size was 0.05 PV.Recovery from each sand pack was monitored and after that hot water and hot CO2 were injected alternatively under the same conditions and increased oil recovery from each sand pack and breakthrough were measured.Experimental results showed that the injection of hot WAG could significantly recover residual oil after WAG injection in conventional and fractured sand packs.     

裂缝性特低渗碳酸盐岩油藏注烃类气驱油室内实验研究

川中大安寨油田属特低孔、低渗并有裂缝的双重介质油藏,目前主要是衰竭式开发,靠自喷原油采收率只能达到3%～5%。室内实验采用人工造缝的方法模拟地层双重介质系统,在此基础上采用长岩心设备开展不同驱油方式的烃类气驱油效果对比研究,并开展注气压力敏感性试验。结果表明在裂缝性低渗油藏中,衰竭式开采原油其采收率低,无论注水还是注气均会产生水窜或气窜;单纯注水可适当提高原油采收率,但驱油效率不高;注烃气虽然不能达到混相,但注入压力越高采收率越高。大安寨油藏在目前地层压力下,注烃气比自然衰竭提高原油采收率6.21%,比注水提高3.91%,效果明显。图3表1参7(郭平摘)     

The Application of Nanofluids for Enhanced Oil Recovery: Effects on Interfacial Tension and Coreflooding Process

Most oil reservoirs around the world are experiencing their second half of life. Hence, the necessity of appropriate enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method as a more efficient technology gets further importance. Nanotechnology is an advanced technology that has proved its potential to enhance oil recovery. In this study, some selected types of nanoparticles were used, which were aluminum oxide, iron oxide, and silicon oxide treated by silane, as EOR agents during different flooding scenarios and EOR experiments under surface conditions. For the first time, the application of propanol as a dispersing agent of nanoparticles and EOR agent in the formation was investigated by this research work. In order to examine the recovery mechanisms of nanofluids, interfacial tension (IFT), and contact angle measurements between different concentrations of nanofluids and crude oil were measured. Then, several coreflood experiments were conducted to investigate their impacts directly on recoveries. The experiment results show that the nanofluids can decrease the IFT between water and oil phases and make the solid surface more neutral wet. Results indicate that aluminum oxide and silicon oxide treated by silane are good agents for enhanced oil recovery, while silicon one changes rock wettability more in addition to reduction of interfacial tension between oil and water. According to the results the future expectation is that these nanoparticles with their dispersing agent could mobilize more oil in the pore network at field scale to improve oil recovery.     

Carbon dioxide injection for enhanced gas recovery and storage (reservoir simulation)

CO₂ injection for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) had been broadly investigated both physically and economically. The concept for enhanced gas recovery (EGR) is a new area under discussion that had not been studied as comprehensively as EOR. In this paper, the “Tempest” simulation software was used to create a three-dimensional reservoir model. The simulation studies were investigated under different case scenarios by using experimental data produced by Clean Gas Technology Australia (CGTA). The main purpose of this study is to illustrate the potential of enhanced natural gas recovery and CO₂ storage by re-injecting CO₂ production from the natural gas reservoir. The simulation results outlined what factors are favourable for the CO₂-EGR and storage as a function of CO₂ breakthrough in terms of optimal timing of CO₂ injection and different injection rates. After analysing the results for each case scenario, it had been concluded that CO₂ injection can be applied to increase natural gas recovery simultaneously sequestering a large amount of the injected CO₂ for this particular gas reservoir. In addition, various CO₂ costs involved in the CO₂-EGR and storage were investigated to determine whether this technique is feasible in terms of the CO₂ content in the production as a preparation stage to achieve the economic analysis for the model.     

胜利油区水驱普通稠油油藏注蒸汽提高采收率研究与实践

胜利油区地层条件下原油黏度大于100mPa.s的普通稠油油藏水驱采收率一般低于18%,普通稠油油藏采收率低于25%的储量达到3.75亿t。稠油为非牛顿流体,渗流所需剪切应力大;压力梯度相同,油越稠渗流速度越低;常温驱油效率低,水驱波及系数小,且水驱后原油黏度增加。稠油加热后渗流速度大幅度增加,启动压力梯度减小,油水相对渗透率得到改善,驱油效率大幅增长。因此,注蒸汽热采可以改善稠油渗流特性,降低残余油饱和度,提高驱油效率、波及系数及采收率。为进一步提高水驱后普通稠油油藏的采收率,在优化注蒸汽开发技术政策的基础上,在孤岛油田开展了先导试验,明显提高了采收率。图10表3参23     

聚合物驱后凝胶与聚合物交替注入参数优化

大庆油田经过聚合物驱后已进入特高含水开发阶段,存在水驱控制程度低、层间矛盾大等问题。为进一步挖潜剩余油,提高采收率,改善大庆油田注采开发现状,在室内实验研究的基础上,针对N5试验区开展了聚合物驱后凝胶与聚合物交替注入参数优化研究。研究结果表明,聚驱后凝胶与聚合物交替注入驱油采用小段塞多轮次的段塞提高采收率效果优于大段塞少轮次的段塞;最佳组合的段塞为凝胶(0.02PV)+聚合物(0.03PV),共计注入11轮次,注入总量为0.55PV;经过凝胶与聚合物交替注入驱油后,其阶段采收率可在聚驱基础上提高10%左右,说明凝胶与聚合物交替注入驱油方法具备进一步开发聚合物驱后剩余油的潜力。     

A numerical simulation study of CO 2 injection for enhancing hydrocarbon recovery and sequestration in liquid-rich shales

Less than 10% of oil is usually recovered from liquid-rich shales and this leaves much room for improvement, while water injection into shale formation is virtually impossible because of the extremely low permeability of the formation matrix. Injecting carbon dioxide (CO₂) into oil shale formations can potentially improve oil recovery. Furthermore, the large surface area in organicrich shale could permanently store CO₂ without jeopardizing the formation integrity. This work is a mechanism study of evaluating the effectiveness of CO₂-enhanced oil shale recovery and shale formation CO₂ sequestration capacity using numerical simulation. Petrophysical and fluid properties similar to the Bakken Formation are used to set up the base model for simulation. Result shows that the CO₂ injection could increase the oil recovery factor from 7.4% to 53%. In addition, petrophysical characteristics such as in situ stress changes and presence of a natural fracture network in the shale formation are proven to have impacts on subsurface CO₂ flow. A response surface modeling approach was applied to investigate the interaction between parameters and generate a proxy model for optimizing oil recovery and CO₂ injectivity.     

不同注采方式下CO2埋存与驱油效果优化评价

工业和人类生活过程中产生的温室气体CO₂排放量日益增加,由此导致的空气污染和温室效应正在严重地威胁着人类赖以生存的环境。实行CO₂高效利用与地质埋存相结合的一体化技术思路是缓解环境污染压力、提高石油采收率的有效途径。针对这一问题,建立了目标函数,并应用商业软件对注CO₂驱的9套注采方案进行了数值模拟对比研究。结果表明：溶剂驱比纯CO₂驱的采收率更高,但减少了CO₂的埋存量;进行溶剂驱或水气交替驱到CO₂驱的转换可以使目标函数值更大;井控方法是CO₂埋存与EOR的最优方法,该方法累计产油量最大,储集的CO₂也最多。这些结论为油田三次采油提供了技术参考,也为减排CO₂提供依据。     

Exploitation of fractured shale oil resources by cyclic CO2 injection

With shale oil reservoir pressure depletion and recovery of hydrocarbons from formations, the fracture apertures and conductivity are subject to reduction due to the interaction between stress effects and proppants. Suppose most of the proppants were concentrated in dominant fractures rather than sparsely allocated in the fracture network, the fracture conductivity would be less influenced by the induced stress effect. However, the merit of uniformly distributed proppants in the fracture network is that it increases the contact area for the injection gas with the shale matrix. In this paper, we address the question whether we should exploit or confine the fracture complexity for CO₂-EOR in shale oil reservoirs. Two proppant transport scenarios were simulated in this paper: Case 1—the proppant is uniformly distributed in the complex fracture system, propagating a partially propped or un-propped fracture network; Case 2—the proppant primarily settles in simple planar fractures. A series of sensitivity studies of the fracture conductivity were performed to investigate the conductivity requirements in order to more efficiently produce from the shale reservoirs. Our simulation results in this paper show the potential of CO₂ huff-n-puff to improve oil recovery in shale oil reservoirs. Simulation results indicate that the ultra-low permeability shales require an interconnected fracture network to maximize shale oil recovery in a reasonable time period. The well productivity of a fracture network with a conductivity of 4 mD ft achieves a better performance than that of planar fractures with an infinite conductivity. However, when the conductivity of fracture networks is inadequate, the planar fracture treatment design maybe a favorable choice. The available literature provides limited information on the relationship between fracture treatment design and the applicability of CO₂ huff-n-puff in very low permeability shale formations. Very limited field test or laboratory data are available on the investigation of conductivity requirements for cyclic CO₂ injection in shale oil reservoirs. In the context of CO₂ huff-n-puff EOR, the effect of fracture complexity on well productivity was examined by simulation approaches.     

注氮气控制稠油油藏底水水锥技术

针对单家寺稠油油藏主力油层水淹严重,热采油汽比接近蒸汽吞吐经济极限的现状,对注氮气控制底水锥进及热氮混注提高热采采收率技术进行了有益探索。矿场试验结果表明,该技术有效地抑制底水锥进和蒸汽超覆,改善了吞吐井生产效果,成为“十五”期间巨厚块状底水稠油油藏多周期吞吐后控制底水锥进、提高热采采收率的有效手段之一。     

大庆油田敖南区块扶余油层致密油提高采收率潜力评价

在致密油藏中,何种提高采收率技术可以取得更好的效果尚不明确.针对此问题,文中建立了由2条半缝组成的注采单元,借此对注水与注气在驱替和吞吐2种开发方式下的提高采收率潜力进行了分析,并研究了基质渗透率、注采间距对最终采收率的影响.结果表明:由于气体的注入性较强,因此注气的开发效果优于注水;对于基质渗透率为l.00×10-3...     

Application of Grid partitioning based Fuzzy inference system method as a novel approach for prediction of interfacial tension of hydrocarbon and carbon dioxide

Nowadays the importance of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes increases because of increasing demand of energy and declination of oil reservoirs. Due to this fact the researchers attracted to study performance of EOR methods. one of the high efficient methods is carbon dioxide injection which is favorable because of low cost and environmental friendly viewpoints. One of important parameters which have straight effect on recovery of injection is interfacial tension between carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons. In the present investigation the main objective is proposing the Grid partitioning based Fuzzy inference system method as novel approach to predict interfacial tension of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon in terms of temperature, pressure, liquid and gas densities and molecular weight of alkane. The coefficients of determination for different datasets of training and testing of estimating algorithm are determined as 0.9919 and 0.9899. This results express the algorithm has potential of estimating interfacial tension of hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide.     

稠油注气二次泡沫油形成机理及数值模拟

从油气形成二次泡沫油的角度出发,研究改善稠油油藏冷采后期开发效果的新方法。首先,设计泡沫油非常规注气膨胀实验,验证注气二次泡沫油形成的可行性,揭示其提高采收率机理。在此基础上,通过填砂管实验研究天然气吞吐、连续和间歇气驱过程中二次泡沫油形成过程,并建立考虑泡沫油注气特征的油藏数值模拟模型,模拟注气二次泡沫油形成机理,评价实际油藏中不同注气方式下二次泡沫油提高采收率效果。实验研究表明,注入天然气可以形成二次泡沫油,其主要的提高采收率机理为体积膨胀、粘度降低以及轻组分含量增加。天然气吞吐较衰竭开发提高采出程度7.24%,而连续与间歇气驱导致泡沫油现象减弱或消失,进而使得采出程度低于衰竭开发实验。油藏数值模拟研究表明,由于注气二次泡沫油的形成,平台12口井8轮次天然气吞吐累积产油量较衰竭开发增加14.7%。行列连续、间歇和边部气驱气窜现象严重,无法形成二次泡沫油。     

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。     

聚合物驱组合段塞分注实验研究

萨尔图油田南二区东部140号断层以东地区葡I1-4油层,以多段多韵律和正韵律沉积为主,平均孔隙度30.0%,平均空气渗透率1 980×10-3μm2。水驱结束时该油层平均含水92%,采出程度39.5%。计划对该区块实施聚合物驱开采。以往经验认为,组合段塞调整注聚技术能够有效改善流度控制作用。然而对组合注入情况下如何进一步提高驱油效果、注入井分注时机、层段注入强度对开发效果有何影响却很少探讨。通过室内驱油实验,在聚驱的组合段塞注入不同时机(水驱空白阶段、含水下降阶段、含水稳定阶段、含水回升阶段)下调整注入强度实施分注以及在含水回升分注基础上进一步调整注入强度,同时对比不分注实验,评价各方案驱油效果。实验表明:不实施分注时聚驱采收率在水驱基础上提高了19.07个百分点,而组合段塞注入时实施分注均能够在不分注基础上进一步提高驱油效果;空白水驱时实施分注采收率提高幅度最大,为26.55个百分点;随着分注时机的滞后采收率提高幅度增加值依次递减,分注时机越早越好。