CO2 flooding, a promising technique of enhanced oil recovery, is widely used for its capability of boosting oil recovery, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this study, the oil displacement performance of supercritical CO2 is tested in laboratory under immiscible flooding. The results show that: Supercritical CO2 improves oil recovery, by virtue of its low viscosity, high diffusivity, and easy dissolution. With the same pore volume (PV), supercritical CO2 flooding significantly boosted the oil recovery factor. The factor reached the maximum, when almost 1.5PV of CO2 was injected. As CO2 moved from the gas phase to the supercritical state, the oil displacement efficiency increased by 10%. To obtain the same oil recovery factor, non-supercritical flooding needed to inject more CO2 than supercritical flooding. Light hydrocarbon components (C1-7) in crude oil were gradually extracted before CO2 breakthrough, while heavy hydrocarbon components (C7+) were extracted mainly after CO2 breakthrough. In addition, supercritical CO2 flooding extracted more intermediate hydrocarbons than critical CO2 flooding. To sum up, supercritical flooding outperforms non-supercritical flooding in injection performance, oil displacement efficiency, and oil exchange rate.
Affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and low oil prices, OPEC members were forced to curtail production. The H oilfield in Iraq commenced production curtailment in early March 2020 and then oil production gradually decreased. By the end of 2020, production was less than one-third of the rate before curtailment. There are multiple sets of oil-bearing formations in the H Oilfield vertically. The developed oil reservoirs have a total of more than three hundreds development wells. The reservoir types are diverse, the relationship among multiphase fluids is complex, and the development methods are different. The reduction of the daily production will inevitably require a comprehensive strategy adjustment to cope with the new situation. Any intentional or unintentional shut-in has a price. Therefore, the key is how to reasonably control the production in many oil reservoirs and re-adjust the oil reservoir development plan at the minimum cost while meeting the overall changing production restriction target for each oil reservoir. In this study, the author established a simple and fast process for judging open and closed wells through years of experience in reservoir dynamic analysis and field management. Step 1: Wells are classified according to production characteristics. For pre-selected wells, some wells with unique functions that need to be opened and those that need to be closed for objective reasons should be excluded. Step 2: Conduct single well cost analysis with reference to production status. Respectively evaluate the performance of the production well under the state of opening and closing. Step 3: Establish the model with economic indicators as the objective function. According to different goals, the model established is slightly different. Step 4: Optimize the best solution based on actual needs. Solve the optimal solution under the target and optimize the number of reasonably configured wells in each reservoir. Through this process, combined with historical and current actual production conditions, different types of oil wells in all reservoirs are classified. Their priorities of reopening are evaluated to meet the needs of other production restriction targets and ensure the smooth transition of oilfield development.
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