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Improvement of Sweep Efficiency in Gas Flooding

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Miscible and near-miscible gasflooding has proven to be one of the few cost effective enhance oil recovery techniques in the past twenty years. The sweep efficiency of such processes is often not high because of the adverse viscosity ratio and density difference between the solvent gas and the oil as well as the reservoir heterogeneity. Water-alternating-gas processes are often used to improve sweep efficiency. Foams and direct thickeners have been developed, but not used in field routinely. Effect of new well architectures on sweep efficiency is poorly understood. As the scope of miscible flooding is being expanded to medium viscosity oils in shallow sands in Alaska and shallower reservoirs in the lower 48, there are questions about sweep efficiency in near-miscible regions. The goal of this research is to evaluate sweep efficiency of various miscible processes in a laboratory model and develop numerical tools to estimate them in fields. Continuous gasflood in the VAPEX mode at 200 psi recovers about 0.62 PV of oil in about 2 PV ethane injection. This recovery is higher than waterflood recovery (~0.48 PV) and gas injection followed by water injection recovery (~0.55 PV) in the quarter 5-spot mode. As the distance between the injectors well and producer well decreases, the oil recovery and recovery rate decreases. Gravity override is observed for gas injection simulations in vertical (X-Z) cross-sections. Breakthrough recovery efficiency increases with the viscous-to-gravity ratio in the range of 1-100. There is little gravity segregation for gravity numbers below 0.02. Above Ng of 0.5, the gravity tongue is well developed. Plans for the next six months include experimental quarter five-spot foam floods, VAPEX floods, and modeling.

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Last Updated September 29, 2016, 15:09 (LMT)
Created September 29, 2016, 15:09 (LMT)
Citation Kishore K. Mohanty ---- Roy Long, Improvement of Sweep Efficiency in Gas Flooding, 2016-09-29, https://edx.netl.doe.gov/dataset/improvement-of-sweep-efficiency-in-gas-flooding
Netl Product yes
Poc Email Roy.long@netl.doe.gov
Point Of Contact Roy Long
Program Or Project KMD
Publication Date 2007-10-1