New Solubility and Viscosity Measurements for Methane–, Ethane–, Propane–, and Butane–Athabasca Bitumen Systems at High Temperatures up to 260 °C

Abstract

One of the important mechanisms in solvent-aided thermal recovery processes is viscosity reduction due to dissolution of solvent in the bitumen. This dissolution occurs either with the condensed solvent at the edge of the steam chamber or with direct contact of gaseous solvent and bitumen. Therefore, it is essential to determine the solubility and viscosity of solvent in bitumen for reservoir simulation of solvent-aided thermal recovery processes. We report new experimental viscosity and solubility data of methane−, ethane−, propane−, and butane−Athabasca bitumen systems at high temperatures (up to 260 °C). The experimental measurements have been conducted under liquid−vapor equilibrium conditions. Peng−Robinson Equation of State (PR-EoS) was employed to model the solubility data. The tuned PR-EoS represented the experimental solubility data of methane, ethane, propane, and n-butane in bitumen with absolute average relative deviations of 5.7, 4.1, 7.8, and 4.9%, respectively. The reported data find applications in reservoir simulation studies of the solvent-aided thermal recovery processes.

Development of Generalized Correlations for Thermophysical Properties of Light Hydrocarbon Solvents (C1–C5)/Bitumen Systems Using Genetic Programming

“…This research focuses on modeling the experimental measurements of solubility, density, and viscosity of solvent/bitumen systems. Several experimental studies have been conducted on phase behavior of solvent/bitumen mixtures. − The experimental data set used in this study conducted on four bitumen samples, Surmont, JACOS, Mackay River, and Cold Lake, which covers a wide range of the diverse Athabasca bitumen characteristics. The solvents used with each of the bitumen samples are C 1 to C 5 , which represents the most commonly used vapor solvents for typical solvent-aided thermal recovery processes.…”

Bitumen Recovery Performance of SAGD and Butane- and Hexane-Aided SAGD in the Presence of Shale Barriers

“…For ES-SAGD simulations, four components, including water, solution gas, bitumen, and solvent (C 4 or C 6 ), are used. All thermophysical properties are obtained based on the previously reported experimental data. ,, All the 240 shale realization cases are subjected to simulation for three different scenarios: the first scenario is normal SAGD, the second scenario is ES-SAGD with C6 co-injection, and the third one is ES-SAGD with C4 co-injection. Therefore, this study is based on data derived from 720 cases of reservoir simulations.…”

Measurements and Correlations of Thermophysical Properties for Multicomponent Solvent/Live Bitumen Mixtures

“…They correlated the measured density and viscosity data of the mixtures using the effective density and viscosity of butane. More recently, Haddadnia et al 17 investigated the phase behavior for the mixtures of n-alkane solvents (methane, ethane, propane, and butane) and Athabasca bitumen at very high temperatures up to 260 °C (533.15 K), and modeled the experimental phase equilibria data with PR EoS.…”