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Collaborating Authors
Chemical flooding methods
In Situ Carbon Dioxide Generation for Improved Recovery: Part II. Concentrated Urea Solutions
Wang, Shuoshi (University of Oklahoma) | Yuan, Qingwang (University of Regina) | Kadhum, Mohannad (Cargill, Incorporated) | Chen, Changlong (University of Oklahoma) | Yuan, Na (University of Oklahoma) | Shiau, Bor-Jier (University of Oklahoma) | Harwell, Jeffrey H. (University of Oklahoma)
Abstract While injection of CO2 has great potential for increasing oil production, this potential is limited by site conditions and operational constraints such as lack of proper infrastructure, limited cheap CO2 sources, viscous fingering, gravity override at the targeted zones, and so forth. To mitigate some of these common limitations, we explore alternative methodologies which can successfully deliver CO2 through gas generation in situ, with superior IOR performance, while offering reasonable chemical cost. While dissolved easily in reservoir brine, urea is thermally hydrolyzed to CO2 and NH3 after equilibration under reservoir conditions. Therefore, given its exceptional compatibility with reservoir fluids, its CO2 producing capacity and reasonable cost benefit, urea appears to be a promising candidate for delivering CO2 to increase oil recovery. The in-situ gas generation requires single chemical slug, which can minimize the complexity of the injection system. One-dimensional sand pack tests and core flooding experiments were operated at pre-set conditions: different API gravity oils were used, varying from 27 to 57.3. In addition, the reaction rates of the urea hydrolysis and urea solution PVT property were tested separately under reservoir conditions. Most importantly, results of injecting urea solution (as low as 10 % solution) showed superior tertiary recovery performance (as high as 37.97%) are realized as compared to the most recent efforts at our group (29.5%) as well as similar in situ CO2 generation EOR (2.4% to 18.8%) approaches proposed by others. The economic feasibility and operational advantages of this newly developed method were demonstrated in this work. In brief, results of this work served further as a proof of concept for designing in situ CO2 generation formulations for tertiary oil recovery at both onshore and offshore fields under proper conditions.
- Europe (0.69)
- Asia (0.68)
- North America > United States > Oklahoma (0.29)
- Geology > Petroleum Play Type > Unconventional Play > Heavy Oil Play (0.68)
- Geology > Geological Subdiscipline (0.46)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock (0.46)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (0.46)
- North America > Canada (0.99)
- North America > United States > Washington > Sultan Basin (0.93)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Improved and Enhanced Recovery > Chemical flooding methods (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Fluid Characterization > Phase behavior and PVT measurements (1.00)
- Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainability > Environment > Climate change (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Storage Reservoir Engineering > CO2 capture and sequestration (0.94)
Predicting Microemulsion Phase Behavior for Surfactant Flooding
Jin, Luchao (University of Oklahoma) | Budhathoki, Mahesh (University of Oklahoma) | Jamili, Ahmad (University of Oklahoma) | Li, Zhitao (The University of Texas at Austin) | Luo, Haishan (The University of Texas at Austin) | Delshad, Mojdeh (The University of Texas at Austin) | Shiau, Ben (University of Oklahoma) | Harwell, Jeffrey H. (University of Oklahoma)
Abstract The surfactant screening process to develop an optimum formulation under reservoir conditions is typically time consuming and expensive. Theories and correlations like HLB, R-ratio and packing parameters have been developed. But none of them can quantitatively consider both the effect of oil type, salinity, hardness and temperature, and model microemulsion phase behavior. This paper uses the physics based Hydrophilic Lipophilic Difference (HLD) Net Average Curvature (NAC) model, and comprehensively demonstrated its capabilities in predicting the optimum formulation and microemulsion phase behavior based on the ambient conditions and surfactant structures. By using HLD equation and quantitatively characterized parameters, four optimum surfactant formulations are designed for target reservoir with high accuracy compared to experimental results. The microemulsion phase behavior is further predicted, and well matched the measured equilibrium interfacial tension. Its predictability is then reinforced by comparing to the empirical Hand's rule phase behavior model. Surfactant flooding sandpack laboratory tests are also interpreted by UTCHEM chemical flooding simulator coupled with the HLD-NAC phase behavior model. The results indicate the significance of HLD-NAC equation of state in not only shorten the surfactant screening processes for formulators, but also predicting microemulsion phase behavior based on surfactant structure. A compositional reservoir simulator with such an equation of state will increase its predictability and hence help with the design of surfactant formulation.
- Materials > Chemicals > Commodity Chemicals > Petrochemicals (1.00)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Improved and Enhanced Recovery > Waterflooding (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Improved and Enhanced Recovery > Chemical flooding methods (1.00)
- Reservoir Description and Dynamics > Fluid Characterization > Phase behavior and PVT measurements (1.00)