TY - JOUR
T1 - Visualized study of thermochemistry assisted steam flooding to improve oil recovery in heavy oil reservoir with glass micromodels
AU - Lyu, Xiaocong
AU - Liu, Huiqing
AU - Pang, Zhanxi
AU - Sun, Zhixue
PY - 2018/4/15
Y1 - 2018/4/15
N2 - Steam channeling, one serious problem in the process of steam flooding in heavy oil reservoir, decreases the sweep efficiency of steam to cause a lower oil recovery. Viscosity reducer and nitrogen foam, two effective methods to improve oil recovery with different mechanism, present a satisfactory result after steam flooding. In this article, a 2D visualized device was introduced to investigate the synergistic development effect of two different chemical additives and intuitively study their flowing characteristic in porous media, as well as macroscopic and microscopic mechanism of improving heavy oil recovery by chemical additives after steam flooding. The results showed that the fingering phenomenon was generated obviously in the process of steam flooding, which restricted the swept area of steam. Due to decreasing oil-water interface tension, O/W emulsion with lower viscosity was formed to enhance the oil flow capacity and polish up the displacement efficiency of steam after injecting viscosity reducer. And the synergistic effect of viscosity reducer & foaming agent was more conductive to improve displacement efficiency of steam, with 4.3% of oil recovery higher than purely viscosity reducer assisting steam flooding in this process. Microscopic results indicated that thermal foams can be trapped in the porous media to improve injection profile effectively and displace the residual oil caused by steam flooding. The ultimate oil recovery of synergistic development is 65.6%, 11.0% higher than one additive (viscosity reducer). This article can provide reference for the study of thermochemistry assisted steam flooding in heavy oil reservoir.
AB - Steam channeling, one serious problem in the process of steam flooding in heavy oil reservoir, decreases the sweep efficiency of steam to cause a lower oil recovery. Viscosity reducer and nitrogen foam, two effective methods to improve oil recovery with different mechanism, present a satisfactory result after steam flooding. In this article, a 2D visualized device was introduced to investigate the synergistic development effect of two different chemical additives and intuitively study their flowing characteristic in porous media, as well as macroscopic and microscopic mechanism of improving heavy oil recovery by chemical additives after steam flooding. The results showed that the fingering phenomenon was generated obviously in the process of steam flooding, which restricted the swept area of steam. Due to decreasing oil-water interface tension, O/W emulsion with lower viscosity was formed to enhance the oil flow capacity and polish up the displacement efficiency of steam after injecting viscosity reducer. And the synergistic effect of viscosity reducer & foaming agent was more conductive to improve displacement efficiency of steam, with 4.3% of oil recovery higher than purely viscosity reducer assisting steam flooding in this process. Microscopic results indicated that thermal foams can be trapped in the porous media to improve injection profile effectively and displace the residual oil caused by steam flooding. The ultimate oil recovery of synergistic development is 65.6%, 11.0% higher than one additive (viscosity reducer). This article can provide reference for the study of thermochemistry assisted steam flooding in heavy oil reservoir.
KW - 2D visualized physical model
KW - Microscopic mechanism analysis
KW - Physical simulation
KW - Steam flooding
KW - Synergistic development
KW - Thermochemistry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041398447&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7af4bfb6-ed83-4ff0-bcb0-b0820c479347
U2 - 10.1016/j.fuel.2018.01.007
DO - 10.1016/j.fuel.2018.01.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85041398447
SN - 0016-2361
VL - 218
SP - 118
EP - 126
JO - Fuel: the science and technology of fuel and energy
JF - Fuel: the science and technology of fuel and energy
ER -