Low-salinity carbonated water injection in sandstone reservoirs: interplay between oil recovery improvement, salinity and fines migration
Ehsan Yazdani Sadati A D , Arman Siahvashi B and Suzanne Hurter CA Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM), Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia.
B Fluid Science & Resources, Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
C Centre for Natural Gas, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia.
D Corresponding author. Email: eyazdanisadati@deakin.edu.au
The APPEA Journal 61(2) 575-578 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ20079
Accepted: 18 April 2021 Published: 2 July 2021
Abstract
Carbonated water injection (CWI) is described as a chemical-enhanced oil recovery method in which CO2-enriched water is injected into oil reservoirs as a displacing fluid. Although confirmed by many that a considerable amount of recovery improvement is attainable through CWI in both lab and field scales, the interaction of salinity on the performance of CWI and its potential fines migration is not very well understood. This study examines the efficiency of oil recovery improvement during low-salinity carbonated water injection (LSCWI) in a sandstone reservoir, while total dissolved salt concentration varies. To this end, a series of coreflooding experiments were performed on homogeneous sandstone cores at 80°C and 2000 psi, and the amount of oil recovery was measured. From the experiments, it was observed that CWI could extract more crude oil than conventional water flooding in all salinities. In particular, the highest oil recovery was observed in the lowest salinity (61.2% in CWI and 42% during water flooding), indicating that by carbonating low-salinity water, oil recovery is enhanced by 20%. Moreover, the influence of salinity reduction on recovery enhancement was such that 9% of recovery improvement observed during conventional water flooding when salinity decreased from 40 000 to 1000 ppm. At the same time, this improvement was around 15% for CWI, suggesting that salinity reduction can be more effective in CWI rather than water flooding in recovery improvement. It was also found out that while recovery improvement and fines migration are both highly affected by water salinity, there is a synergy between the efficiency of CWI and onset of fines migration, which is one of the underlying mechanisms in oil recovery improvement during LSCWI into clay-containing sandstone reservoirs.
Keywords: EOR (enhanced oil recovery), LSCWI (low-salinity carbonated water injection), total dissolved salt, energy recovery.
As a PhD candidate at Deakin University, Ehsan (Ethan) Yazdani Sadati is currently working on an ARC Linkage Project with Toyota Japan, seeking to develop new solid-state batteries for next-generation electric vehicles. Ethan’s project has excellent prospects to contribute to future automotive technology and reduced vehicle emissions with its strong connection to the industry. He came to Australia to pursue his career in 2019 after a few years of collaborating in enhanced oil recovery and CO2 sequestration projects in the oil and gas industry in his country, Iran. |
Arman Siahvashi is currently working as a research fellow at Australian Centre for LNG Futures at the University of Western Australia. His research area is mainly focused on avoiding solid cryogenic formation in LNG production, which has applications in the LNG industry to avoid blockages in the LNG Heat Exchanger and Distillation (Scrub) Columns. Prior to joining UWA, Arman worked for Origin Energy for 2 years as a Process and Control Engineer, where he had opportunities to learn about the cutting-edge technologies and processes involved from upstream gas production to LNG production. |
Professor Suzanne Hurter is the Energi Simulation Industrial Chair in (Unconventional) Onshore Gas Reservoir Modelling. Based at the University of Queensland Centre for Coal Seam Gas (UQ-CCSG), Professor Hurter leads a landmark geoscience and reservoir modelling research program focused on the unconventional onshore gas industry. Professor Hurter joined UQ-CCSG after a distinguished career in the oil and gas industry in various roles in Shell (the Netherlands), Schlumberger (the Netherlands and Australia), QGC (BG‐Group) and Arrow Energy (Shell‐PetroChina). Previously she had worked in academia in Germany (Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam and the Leibnitz Institute of Applied Geophysics in Hannover) and Brazil (University of Sao Paulo). She joined UQ in 2015 and was appointed as the Energi Simulation Industrial Research Chair in (Unconventional) Onshore Gas Reservoir Modelling in 2017. Professor Hurter’s research interests include hydrocarbon maturation and thermal evolution of sedimentary basins, carbon sequestration, coupled modelling of flow, heat in porous and fractured media and using numerical modelling to evaluate and improve onshore gas production. |
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