Pore-to-Core EOR Upscaling for CO2 Foam for CCUS

Abstract

Summary This paper presents an ongoing CO2–foam upscaling research project that aims to advance CO2–foam technology for accelerating and increasing oil recovery, while reducing operational costs and lessening the carbon footprint left during CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Laboratory CO2–foam behavior was upscaled to pilot scale in an onshore carbonate reservoir in Texas, USA. Important CO2–foam properties, such as local foam generation, bubble texture, apparent viscosity, and shear–thinning behavior with a nonionic surfactant, were evaluated using pore–to–core upscaling to develop accurate numerical tools for a field–pilot prediction of increased sweep efficiency and CO2 utilization. At pore–scale, high–pressure silicon–wafer micromodels showed in–situ foam generation and stable liquid films over time during no–flow conditions. Intrapore foam bubbles corroborated high apparent foam viscosities measured at core scale. CO2–foam apparent viscosity was measured at different rates (foam–rate scans) and different gas fractions (foam–quality scans) at core scale. The highest mobility reduction (foam apparent viscosity) was observed between 0.60 and 0.70 gas fractions. The maximum foam apparent viscosity was 44.3 (±0.5) mPa·s, 600 times higher than that of pure CO2, compared with the baseline viscosity (reference case, without surfactant), which was 1.7 (±0.6) mPa·s, measured at identical conditions. The CO2–foam showed shear–thinning behavior with approximately 50% reduction in apparent viscosity when the superficial velocity was increased from 1 to 8 ft/D. Strong foam was generated in EOR corefloods at a gas fraction of 0.70, resulting in an apparent viscosity of 39.1 mPa·s. Foam parameters derived from core–scale foam floods were used for numerical upscaling and field–pilot performance assessment.

Unsteady-State CO2 Foam Generation and Propagation: Laboratory and Field Insights

“…Figure 5 shows the model fit to a foam quality and rate scan conducted on a reservoir core at 2500 psi and 104F. The complete experimental procedure for foam quality and rate scans is given in [30]. The surfactant selected for the pilot had very low adsorption on the reservoir rock.…”

“…The base case SAG was identical to the baseline WAG but included a surfactant component to model foam transport. Base foam model parameters were derived foam quality and rate scans conducted on reservoir core at reservoir temperature and pressure [30].…”

Pore-scale Bubble Population Dynamics of CO2-Foam at Reservoir Pressure

“…Direct visual observation using microscopy during flow of fluids through porous media can be obtained using two-dimensional flow cells termed micromodels. Micromodels allow observation and characterization of individual fluid bubbles or ganglion and are particularly useful for foam studies for a range of important foam phenomena including generation (Géraud et al, 2017;Kovscek et al, 2007), coarsening (Jones et al, 2018a;Marchalot et al, 2008), texture (Rognmo et al, 2019;Rangel-German and Kovscek, 2006), gas trapping (Lv et al, 2018;Jones et al, 2018b), flow (Géraud et al, 2016) System dependent scaling constant α (Khoshkalam et al, 2019;Gauteplass et al, 2015). Most microfluidic studies investigated decoupled foam phenomena in a limited field of view (FoV), whereas a complete assessment of foam in porous media requires combined observations of foam generation, coarsening, and texture.…”

Techno-economic analysis of intermediate hydrocarbon injection on coupled CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery

“…Hasan et al (2015) designed a CO 2 utilization through CO 2 EOR considering economic parameters, not considering fluid flow mechanisms and the operating cost for miscibility while the process. Rognmo et al (2019) provided an experimental approach to test and upscale a CO 2 foam injection as one of injection schemes for CCS-EOR without the economic analysis. Nunez-Lopez et al (2019) performed reservoir simulation studies with various CO 2 injection scenarios for CCS-EOR.…”