In situ pore-scale analysis of oil recovery during three-phase near-miscible CO2 injection in a water-wet carbonate rock
File(s)Alhosani et al. 2019_AWR.pdf (1.74 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We study in situ three-phase near-miscible CO2 injection in a water-wet carbonate rock at elevated temperature and pressure using X-ray microtomography. We examine the recovery mechanisms, presence or absence of oil layers, pore occupancy and interfacial areas during a secondary gas injection process. In contrast to an equivalent immiscible system, we did not observe layers of oil sandwiched between gas in the centre of the pore space and water in the corners. At near-miscible conditions, the measured contact angle between oil and gas was approximately 73°, indicating only weak oil wettability in the presence of gas. Oil flows in the centres of large pores, rather than in layers for immiscible injection, when displaced by gas. This allows for a rapid production of oil since it is no longer confined to movement in thin layers. A significant recovery factor of 80% was obtained and the residual oil saturation existed as disconnected blobs in the corners of the pore space. At equilibrium, gas occupied the biggest pores, while oil and water occupied pores of varying sizes (small, medium and large). Again, this was different from an immiscible system, where water occupied only the smallest pores. We suggest that a double displacement mechanism, where gas displaces water that displaces oil is responsible for shuffling water into larger pores than that seen after initial oil injection. This is only possible since, in the absence of oil layers, gas can contact water directly. The gas-oil and oil-water interfacial areas are lower than in the immiscible case, since there are no oil layers and even water layers in the macro-pore space become disconnected; in contrast, there is a larger direct contact of oil to the solid. These results could serve as benchmarks for developing near-miscible pore-scale modelling tools.
Date Issued
2019-12
Date Acceptance
2019-10-01
Citation
Advances in Water Resources, 2019, 134
ISSN
0309-1708
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Journal / Book Title
Advances in Water Resources
Volume
134
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0309170819307250
Subjects
0905 Civil Engineering
0907 Environmental Engineering
0102 Applied Mathematics
Environmental Engineering
Publication Status
Published online
Article Number
103432
Date Publish Online
2019-10-08