A Study for Using CO₂ To Enhance Natural Gas Recovery from Tight Reservoirs

Abstract

A comprehensive study is presented on the interfacial behavior of all participating phases in a scenario of using carbon dioxide (CO2) to enhance the recovery of natural gas in tight sandstone reservoirs. Natural gas condensate is contacted with CO2 at an increasing pressure to determine the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) by the vanishing interfacial tension method. Close to the MMP at a higher temperature, some compounds of the mixture are extracted, leaving a heavy oil fraction that remains immiscible. As the second reservoir liquid, formation water is extracted by CO2 from a tight sandstone sample and subsequently applied as a sessile drop for assessment of the wetting behavior inside the reservoir in the presence of injected CO2. The contact angle has been observed to increase with increasing CO2 pressure. It has been further observed that the water contact angle on a gas shale increased with increasing CO2 pressure more rapidly. The results suggest that CO2 could clear the gas flow path blocked by water and gas condensate. As a consequence, the recovery of natural gas would increase. This could also create greater potential for CO2 storage in gas-depleted reservoirs.

Carbon dioxide adsorption and interaction with formation fluids of Jordanian unconventional reservoirs

“…At low to moderate pressures, the IFT course is dominated by the interaction of CO 2 with the light compounds of the crude oil, this is indicated by a steep slope that is qualitatively similar to that observed for a gas condensate/ CO 2 system as reported in (Wang et al 2019), where complete miscibility is reached at moderate pressures below 15 MPa. This can be attributed to the reduction in the intermolecular distance between CO 2 and the oil as pressure increases, thereby increasing the intermolecular forces between them (Yang et al 2015).…”

Applied techniques for residual oil recovery from source rocks: A review of current challenges and possible developments

“…The authors reported that higher nanoparticles concentrations required higher pressure for optimum formation erosion and better penetration. Wang et al [ 18 ] discussed the use of Sc‐CO 2 to determine the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) using the vanishing IFT method. The authors investigated the impact of pressure and time on Sc‐CO 2 the extraction properties and effectiveness.…”

“…[ 16,17 ] Therefore, many studies have investigated the use of Sc‐CO 2 for enhanced oil and gas recovery from unconventional resources. [ 18 ]…”

“…[16,17] Therefore, many studies have investigated the use of Sc-CO 2 for enhanced oil and gas recovery from unconventional resources. [18] Ultrasonic-assisted waves extraction, which has been investigated and applied in many reports, [19,20] provides advanced benefits such as initial and operational cost reduction, elimination of produced water and other harmful chemicals, and effective processing time compared to other extraction techniques. [21] Source rock extraction with microwave-assisted pyrolysis (MWAP) was studied as another potential method for unconventional applications.…”

A Laboratory Approach to Measure Enhanced Gas Recovery from a Tight Gas Reservoir during Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Injection

“…Utilization of underground stored natural gas would be more environmentally friendly during enhanced recovery processes [17][18][19][20][21][22][23], as it does not need to transfer gas from petrochemical industries [24][25][26]. Moreover, it is more economical, as it has removed unprecedented expenses to capture carbon dioxide [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Recently, due to the high productions of hydrocarbon, most of the conventional reservoirs are almost depleted, or it is not economical to produce the remained hydrocarbon [35][36][37][38][39][40].…”