Experimental Observations of Miscible Displacement of Heavy Oils with 
Hydrocarbon Solvents

Salama, Dalia; Kantzas, Apostolos

doi:10.2523/97854-ms

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…They concluded that during solvent gas flooding, gravitational forces play a more important role than viscous forces and assuring a gravity-stable front is essential for the success of these type of processes. These results were in agreement with the core flooding results obtained by Salama and Kantzas (2005), which stated that vertical solvent floods were more efficient in terms of heavy oil recovery and amount of solvent required than horizontal floods even in a small (30 cm length) linear core.…”

Section: Gravity Drainagesupporting

confidence: 92%

Experimental Study of Heavy Oil Recovery Mechanisms during Cyclic Solvent Injection Processes

2020

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Summary The cyclic solvent injection (CSI) process has recently shown to be a promising method for enhanced heavy oil recovery in Canada. Laboratory testing is often run before development of field pilots to assess the effect of parameters, such as solvent choice and process conditions, on the CSI response. However, differences between laboratory results vs. field applications have been observed. CSI laboratory studies work for only two to three cycles due to low incremental oil in subsequent cycles, whereas field pilots continue for years over multiple cycles. This experimental study is intended to capture the production mechanisms responsible for heavy oil production in CSI. Primary production and CSI tests were conducted using sandpack models saturated with live heavy oil of 9530 mPa·s viscosity. The experiments were conducted in horizontal and vertical mode injection at high- and low-pressure depletion rates using two solvent mixtures of CH4 and C3H8. The sandpacks were scanned after every cycle to analyze the evolution of gas and oil saturations using computed tomography (CT). Three cores were used to study the effect of several parameters: gravity forces, pressure depletion rate, solvent composition, and initial oil saturation on the performance of CSI processes. CSI cycles run after primary production in horizontal systems produced negligible incremental oil for both slow and fast drawdown rates due to the large void space and high free gas saturation inhibiting the pressure buildup to push the solvent-diluted oil. These CSI experiments were only initially successful in dead oil systems, in which the initial oil saturation was higher and appropriate pressure gradient was generated through fast depletion rates. During the vertical alignment, CSI cycles exhibited higher incremental oil recovery per cycle. Slow depletion cycles were more efficient in terms of pressure and incremental recovery per cycle; however, faster depletion cycles performed better as a function of time. These results are more in line with the repeated recoveries measured over multiple cycles in field CSI pilot studies. More volume of diluted oil was drained out of the core when the solvent mixture with higher propane (C3H8) content was injected. These results demonstrate the importance of gravity drainage in the CSI process and its significance on successful oil recovery rates. This study illustrates the limitations of previous horizontal laboratory tests and shows an improved test configuration for modeling and prediction of the improved response observed in CSI pilots.

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Section: Gravity Drainagesupporting

confidence: 92%

Experimental Study of Heavy Oil Recovery Mechanisms during Cyclic Solvent Injection Processes

2020

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“…When Mo 1, a favorable condition is established and the displacement is little different from the case when M ¼1. However, if M 41, the mobility ratio becomes unfavorable, and instabilities on the displacement front promote the appearance of viscosity "fingers" or channeling, considerably changing the nature of the displacement phenomenon (Salama and Kantzas, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microemulsion flow in porous medium for enhanced oil recovery

Santanna

Silva

Lopes

et al. 2013

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

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Diffusion in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs - A Review

Chordia

2010

SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition

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The impetus for this work stemmed from the growing demand in the industry for Carbon Dioxide sequestration during incremental oil recovery and gas or solvent injection for heavy oil recovery from naturally fractured reservoirs. A thorough research and assimilation of available field data led us to believe that a better understanding of the diffusion coefficients and their impact on the overall recovery will go a long way in providing viable techniques in the Improved Oil Recovery sector. This knowledge will further enhance the understanding of the mass transfer process and mechanisms at a molecular scale in the reservoirs. Remarkable amount of experimental and computational work has been carried out to study the effect of diffusion and dispersion mechanisms in naturally fractured reservoirs. However, what's missing is an extensive and critical review of the efforts in this direction. The synchronization of similar efforts and recognition of all the independent studies in a common direction would not only highlight the deficiencies and limitations of present scenario in the field, it will also give meaningful insight into further developments. We have investigated methods employed by various authors to arrive at concurrent values for diffusion and dispersion coefficients. The main focus during our work was to, i) evaluate the role of diffusion and the factors that critically affect diffusion and oil recovery, ii) investigate current methods for calculation of the coefficients and iii) various methods/models to incorporate diffusion. Our work includes significant technological contributions and findings of experimental and simulation studies in the field to this day. It is our understanding that our research will bridge the gap between the fundamental understanding and application of related processes and serve as a useful reference for engineers and researchers for present applications as well as the future.

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Experimental Observations of Miscible Displacement of Heavy Oils with Hydrocarbon Solvents

Cited by 3 publications

References 8 publications

Experimental Study of Heavy Oil Recovery Mechanisms during Cyclic Solvent Injection Processes

Experimental Study of Heavy Oil Recovery Mechanisms during Cyclic Solvent Injection Processes

Microemulsion flow in porous medium for enhanced oil recovery

Diffusion in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs - A Review

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