Capillary and viscous forces during CO2 flooding in tight reservoirs

Chuanbao Zhang, Qingfu Zhang, Wendong Wang, Qiuheng Xie, Yuliang Su, Atif Zafar

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Abstract


In this study, the multiphase multicomponent Shan-Chen lattice Boltzmann method is employed to analyze the impact of capillary force on oil-CO2-water  fluid flow and enhanced oil recovery. Various sizes of the single throat are designed to  simulate the interaction between displacing and displaced phases as well as their mechanical  equilibrium. Several sensitivities are taken into account, such as wettability, miscibility,  interfacial tension, and pore aperture. Based on the objective reservoir conditions,  supercritical CO2 as an injection fluid is adopted to study the influence of different displacement  patterns on the mechanical equilibrium in both homogenous and heterogeneous porous media, in  which enhanced oil recovery is also quantitatively estimated. The results show that the  water-alternating-gas injection pattern reduces the moving speed of the leading edge by  increasing the swept area of the residual oil, and inhibits the breakthrough effect of the  gas, making it the optimal displacement method in terms of the degree of oil production. Compared with the results of different displacement patterns, the enhanced oil recovery  of water-alternatinggas injection is the highest, followed by supercritical CO2 flooding after  water flooding, and lastly, continuous supercritical CO2 flooding.

Cited as: Zhang, C., Zhang, Q., Wang, W., Xie, Q., Su, Y., Zafar, A. Capillary and viscous forces during CO2 flooding in tight reservoirs. Capillarity, 2022, 5(6): 105-114. https://doi.org/10.46690/capi.2022.06.01


Keywords


Supercritical CO2, displacement pattern, tight reservoirs, lattice Boltzmann method, enhanced oil recovery

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References


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