Effects of Compositional Variations on CO2 Foam Under Miscible Conditions

Siavash Kahrobaei, K Li, Sebastien Vincent-Bonnieu, Rouhi Farajzadeh

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientific

Abstract

Foam can potentially solve the associated problems with gas injection by reducing the mobility of the injected gas leading to a more stable displacement front. It is known that under immiscible conditions, the presence of oil can be detrimental for foam stability through several mechanisms. Under miscible conditions, there is no separate oil or gas phase; instead, CO2 and oil mix in different proportions forming a phase with varying composition at the proximity of the displacement front. There are then two fundamental questions, which arise from addition of surfactant to the system: (1) what is the nature of the “mixed phase” in the presence of the surfactant, and (2) how do the properties of this mixture change with compositional variations? This study reports the results of core-flood experiments conducted using CO2 and decane (nC10) as the model oil under miscible conditions. Surfactant and a mixture of CO2-decane were co-injected with variations of CO2 molar fractions, mixture volume fractions and total flow rates. We found that separate injection of CO2 or oil with the surfactant solution into the cores creates in-situ fluids that exhibit both low-quality (increasing viscosity with decreasing fraction of surfactant) and high-quality (decreasing viscosity with decreasing fraction of surfactant) regimes. However, upon simultaneous injection of CO2 and oil with the surfactant solution and depending on the molar fraction of CO2 in CO2- decane mixture (xCO2), three distinct regimes were observed. In Regime 1 (xCO2>0.8) the apparent viscosity of the in-situ fluid was the highest and increased with increasing xCO2. In Regime 2 (xCO2<2) the apparent viscosity increased with decreasing xCO2. In Regime 3 (0.2< xCO2<0.8) the apparent viscosity of the fluid remained relatively low and insensitive to the value of xCO2. Shear-thinning rheology was observed in all three regimes: supercritical CO2 foam (xCO2 =1), decane emulsion (xCO2 = 0), as well as CO2-decane-surfactant floods. Moreover, in Regime 1 and Regime 2, there is a transition at shear rates from 10 s-1 to 100 s-1, where the apparent viscosity increases by one order of magnitude. In Regime 3, however, this transition is not observed. Finally, we found that the current implicit-texture foam model cannot simulate our experimental data.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationIOR NORWAY 2017
Subtitle of host publication19th European Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, 24-27 April 2017, Stavanger, Norway
Number of pages12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Event19th European Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery - Stavanger, Norway
Duration: 24 Apr 201727 Apr 2017
Conference number: 19
https://events.eage.org/en/2017/19th-european-symposium-on-improved-oil-recovery

Conference

Conference19th European Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery
Abbreviated titleIOR 2017
Country/TerritoryNorway
CityStavanger
Period24/04/1727/04/17
Internet address

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