Enhance Oil Recovery for Steam Flooding: Low-Temperature Oxidative Decomposition of Heavy Oil with Air Injection

Wang, Changjiu; Liu, Huiqing; Pang, Zhanxi; Wang, Jing; Chen, Changyong; Wang, Chunlei; Wu, Zhengbin

doi:10.1021/acs.energyfuels.5b01330

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(36 reference statements)

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“…88 Different additives have been evaluated in the laboratory and simulation to enhance steamflooding performance. Combined steam-air flooding 89,90 and steam-flue gas (composed with N 2 and CO 2 ) 91 was also evaluated, which all showed further improvement on oil recovery. The presence of a steam communication between an injector and a producer can trigger early steam breakthrough.…”

Section: ■ Css Follow-up Processes and Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Critical Review of Reservoir Simulation Applications in Key Thermal Recovery Processes: Lessons, Opportunities, and Challenges

Yang

Nie

et al. 2021

Energy Fuels

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After a cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) process achieved accidental success in recovering heavy oil resources in the 1960s, thermal recovery processes started to unlock the door of in situ recovery of heavy oil and bitumen resources. After five decades of development, many thermal recovery processes have been developed, among which CSS and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) are two main commercialized processes. With the support of laboratory and field data, reservoir simulation can help engineers and researchers to understand recovery mechanisms, optimize operations, and forecast performance of either existing or emerging processes. In this paper, we present a critical review of applications of reservoir simulation on CSS, CSS follow-ups (steamflooding, liquid addition to steam for enhancing recovery (LASER), and in situ combustion), SAGD, solvent-assisted SAGD, and SAGD noncondensable gas (NCG) coinjection processes. This review and the analyses of these processes provide not only their clarifications from thermal simulation lessons but also an extensive summary of challenges still faced by industry. Moreover, they shed light on future research directions and opportunities for thermal recovery processes.

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Section: ■ Css Follow-up Processes and Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Critical Review of Reservoir Simulation Applications in Key Thermal Recovery Processes: Lessons, Opportunities, and Challenges

Yang

Nie

et al. 2021

Energy Fuels

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“…2 The heavy oil recovery using microbial injection process though is quite small due to lack of complete understanding of the mechanisms involved in microbial injection process and the impact of each device on different reservoir conditions. 35 It may be noted that EOR projects are strongly influenced by economics and crude oil prices. Therefore, since oil prices are expected to rise substantially in the future, EOR processes would become more economical to use.…”

Section: Heavy Oil and Bitumen And Enhanced Oil Recoverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on aforementioned considerations, atmospheric air injection is an potentially viable process for heavy oil recovery because of its free availability. 34,35 As a result, the first objective of this study is to investigate the applicability of freely atmospheric air as a solvent for heavy oil recovery under moderate and non-reactive temperature and pressure conditions in a solvent-assisted gravity drainage process. The second objective of this study is to prove experimentally that oil production can be increased by suitable varying air injection temperature with time.…”

Section: Challenges and Research Objectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Control Of Atmospheric Air Injection For Enhanced Oil Recovery

Booran¹

2021

Preprint

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Gas-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes rely on the injection of gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and natural gas into heavy oil reservoirs to reduce inherent oil viscosity. Although these processes are very promising, they face the problem of limited and costly gas supply. This study investigates the conditions, specifically temperature variation, under which freely available air at low temperatures, low pressures, and non-reactive environments for heavy oil recovery. To that end, preliminary experiments are carried out to demonstrate the possibility of beneficial effects of air temperature variation with time. Furthermore, this research aims to utilize the theory of optimal control to determine optimal air temperature versus time function to maximize the heavy oil recovery. For this purpose, the conditions necessary for optimal control are derived and utilized in a computational algorithm. The preliminary experiments are executed by injecting air into a lab-scale heavy oil reservoir at different pressures (0.169-0.514 MPa absolute) and temperatures in the range of 25-90oC. Reservoirs of four different permeabilities (40-427 Darcy) are used in experiments. When air is injected with a periodic temperature variation between 90oC and 75oC that has an average of 78oC, the recovery is increased from 58.2% to 69.1% of the original-oil-in-place (OOIP) in comparison to that using constant temperature air injection at the maximum temperature of 90oC. That is a considerable improvement of oil recovery by 18.6%. Furthermore, utilizing optimal control the optimal interfacial temperature versus time (control policy) is determined between 90oC and 82oC, which registers 20.66% increase in the oil recovery in comparison to that at the constant temperature of 90oC. The accuracy of optimal control is experimentally validated. The results show that the average relative difference between the predicted heavy oil recovery and the experimental value is a low value of 1.82%.

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“…Thermal methods are widely used to develop heavy oil reservoirs, such as hot water flooding, cyclic steam stimulation, and steam flooding [7,8]. Hot water flooding is an immiscible displacement process of crude oil by hot water [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulations of Chemical-Assisted Steam Flooding in Offshore Heavy Oil Reservoirs after Water Flooding

et al. 2021

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Chemical-assisted steam flooding (CASF) is a promising method for heavy oils. However, few researches have investigated the CASF performance on offshore heavy oil reservoirs recovery after water flooding. In this study, a numerical simulation model was developed to simulate CASF processes for offshore heavy oil reservoirs after water flooding. Then, a comparison of CASF and various thermal methods was made to assess the feasibility of CASF in an offshore heavy reservoir of Bohai Bay, China. Finally, sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of the gas-liquid ratio, foaming agent concentration, surfactant concentration, the size of nitrogen foam slug, the size of surfactant slug, and the number of chemical injection round on CASF performance by the developed model. The results showed that the developed numerical method can precisely simulate the CASF processes. CASF is a potential and effective method for offshore heavy oil reservoirs after water flooding. The most suitable gas-liquid ratio was around 2 : 1 under the simulation conditions. Considering the economic benefit, it is significant to optimize the CASF parameters, such as foaming agent concentration, the size of nitrogen foam slug, and the number of chemical injection round.

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Enhance Oil Recovery for Steam Flooding: Low-Temperature Oxidative Decomposition of Heavy Oil with Air Injection

Cited by 27 publications

References 32 publications

A Critical Review of Reservoir Simulation Applications in Key Thermal Recovery Processes: Lessons, Opportunities, and Challenges

A Critical Review of Reservoir Simulation Applications in Key Thermal Recovery Processes: Lessons, Opportunities, and Challenges

Optimal Control Of Atmospheric Air Injection For Enhanced Oil Recovery

Numerical Simulations of Chemical-Assisted Steam Flooding in Offshore Heavy Oil Reservoirs after Water Flooding

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