Increasing Oil Recovery from Heavy Oil Waterfloods

Brice, B. W.; Renouf, G.

doi:10.2118/117327-ms

Cited by 26 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…However, the adverse mobility ratio between heavy oil and water greatly hinders the sweep efficiency of water flooding . In the process of water flooding, water fingers through the less mobile heavy oil, establishes high-velocity preferential flow paths, and bypasses a significant portion of the reservoir. ,− Therefore, the oil recoveries of heavy-oil water-flooding projects are generally low, and most of them even less than 20% of the OOIP . In the past decades, a lot of research has been performed to decrease the adverse mobility ratio of heavy oil and water and to constrain the viscous fingering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergistic Collaboration between a Viscosity Reducer and a Surfactant for in Situ Emulsion Formation to Enhance Heavy-Oil Recovery

et al. 2019

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In situ emulsion formation is an effective nonthermal method to improve conventional heavy-oil recovery. In this paper, a newly designed viscosity reducer (TPVR7) and a high-performance surfactant (dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, DSS) for enhanced conventional heavy-oil recovery have been introduced and evaluated. A dewatering rate test, emulsion droplet size measurement, multiple-light scattering, and interfacial tension measurement are carried out to evaluate the synergistic effect of the viscosity reducer and the surfactant on the emulsion stability and efficiency in enhancing heavy-oil recovery. The results show that adding a surfactant can significantly increase the emulsion stability by decreasing the size of the emulsion droplet and forming a tighter interfacial film. The optimum viscosity reducer−surfactant system is formulated as TPVR7-0.5% + DSS-0.5%. With the optimum system, the viscosity of heavy oil decreased from 350 to 9 mPa•s. The equilibrium interfacial tension of the oil/TPVR7-0.5% + DSS-0.5% solution is ∼0.092 mN/m, much lower than that of the oil/TPVR7 solution. The mechanisms of synergistic collaboration between the viscosity reducer and the surfactant include enhanced emulsion stability, viscosity reduction, and interfacial tension reduction. The sand-pack flooding experiments show that a viscosity reducer and surfactant could improve heavy-oil recovery by 21.89% after water flooding at the optimum concentration, which indicates that viscosity reducer and surfactant flooding has great potential to enhance heavy-oil recovery.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergistic Collaboration between a Viscosity Reducer and a Surfactant for in Situ Emulsion Formation to Enhance Heavy-Oil Recovery

et al. 2019

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“…Thus, the interlayer contradictions become prominent and the oilfield development is seriously affected. Many cases on the developmental laws of waterflooding performance via commingling production in multilayer reservoirs have been recorded in different oilfields in the U.S. [1][2][3], China [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], Canada [12,13] and Australia [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Vertical Producing Degree of Commingled Production via Waterflooding for Multilayer Offshore Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Shen

Cheng

Sun³

et al. 2018

Energies

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Recently, commingling production has been widely used for the development of offshore heavy oil reservoirs with multilayers. However, the differences between layers in terms of reservoir physical properties, oil properties and pressure have always resulted in interlayer interference, which makes it more difficult to evaluate the producing degree of commingled production. Based on the Buckley–Leverett theory, this paper presents two theoretical models, a one-dimensional linear flow model and a planar radial flow model, for water-flooded multilayer reservoirs. Through the models, this paper establishes a dynamic method to evaluate seepage resistance, sweep efficiency and recovery percent and then conducts an analysis with field data. The result indicates the following: (1) the dynamic difference in seepage resistance is an important form of interlayer interference during the commingled production of an offshore multilayer reservoir; (2) the difference between commingled production and separated production is small within a certain range of permeability ratio or viscosity ratio, but separated production should be adopted when the ratio exceeds a certain value.

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“…In other work, analysis of production data from numerous Canadian waterfloods shows a correlation between a reduced voidage replacement ratio (VRR) and increased oil recovery (Brice and Renouf 2008). VRR measures the ratio of injected to produced fluids at reservoir conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The examiners of the Canadian waterfloods concluded that performing primary depletion until recovery of a certain fraction of oil followed by a waterflood is optimal for heavy-oil reservoirs (Brice and Renouf 2008). They also concluded periods of reduced VRR are beneficial.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal Voidage Replacement Ratio for Viscous and Heavy Oil Reservoirs

2013

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Historically a voidage replacement ratio (VRR) of 1 is assumed to be optimal for oil recovery regardless of whether recovery occurs from an unconventional heavy oil reservoir or a conventional oil reservoir. That is, it is assumed that of all scenarios, the most oil recovery occurs when the amount of fluids injected into the subsurface equals the amount produced. Recent work publications have analyzed both field and core-scale data to conclude that a VRR of 1 is suboptimal for certain viscous and heavy-oil reservoirs. In this work, we use numerical simulation to seek an understanding of the conditions under which a VRR of 1 is suboptimal. Models are core-size to enable better interpretation of mechanisms. We tested the sensitivity of the optimal VRR to the curvature of our relative permeability relationships (i.e., Corey exponent), the critical gas saturation, the three-phase flow model, potential chemistry of the oil, the statistics of permeability values, the connectivity of low and high permeability regions, and the reference scale at which results are compared. Realistic relative permeability curves based off rock and fluid interactions observed in the literature were developed and used in the majority of our simulations. We find that gas mobility is an influential parameter in determining the optimal VRR at core scale. As the gas mobility decreases relative to oil and water and/or the reservoir heterogeneity increases, a VRR below 1 becomes more favorable. The heterogeneity and its connectivity also influenced the optimal VRR to a lesser extent.

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Increasing Oil Recovery from Heavy Oil Waterfloods

Cited by 26 publications

References 15 publications

Synergistic Collaboration between a Viscosity Reducer and a Surfactant for in Situ Emulsion Formation to Enhance Heavy-Oil Recovery

Synergistic Collaboration between a Viscosity Reducer and a Surfactant for in Situ Emulsion Formation to Enhance Heavy-Oil Recovery

Evaluation of the Vertical Producing Degree of Commingled Production via Waterflooding for Multilayer Offshore Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Optimal Voidage Replacement Ratio for Viscous and Heavy Oil Reservoirs

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