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Australian Energy Producers Journal Australian Energy Producers Journal Society
Journal of Australian Energy Producers
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Non peer reviewed)

Experimental investigation on CO2 foam flooding enhanced by a new combined thickening formula

Xingguang Xu A , Ali Saeedi A and Keyu Liu B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Curtin University.

B Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development.

The APPEA Journal 56(2) 607-607 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ15113
Published: 2016

Abstract

A large fraction of mature offshore oil fields in WA are characterised by extremely high water cut and poor productivity, making them potential candidates for CO2 foam flooding, which gives rise to sweep volume and displacement efficiency. Nonetheless, insufficient foam strength prevents its widespread application in field scale.

In this extended abstract, a new formula—AOS/AVS/N70K-T—with well-balanced foamability and foam stability is presented, and the bulk phase behaviour and flow performance of CO2 foam enhanced by this formula is evaluated.

The foaming assessment results indicate that the foamability and foam stability of AOS/AVS/N70K-T are 46.7% and 89.6% greater than that of the widely used AOS/HPAM, respectively. The foam flow experiments demonstrate that:

  • the foam apparent viscosity under transition foam quality increased by 36.5% in high-permeability rock compared to that in low-permeability rock; and,

  • the mobility reduction factor (MRF) of AOS/AVS/N70K-T foam obtained the optimal value at the intermediate total gas/solution flow rate (with a fixed gas/liquid ratio of 3:1), while its MRF dropped as the gas flow rate increased.

It was noted that AOS/AVS/N70K-T foam displayed a pronounced advantage compared to AOS/HPAM foam during displacement experiments under the same test conditions. Finally, oil displacement experiments show overall oil recoveries of AOS/AVS/N70K-T foam flooding are higher than that of AOS/HPAM foam flooding irrespective of the foam injection mode. Accordingly, CO2 foam flooding enhanced by this formula has proved to be an effective and viable approach to maintain the oil production in WA’s mature oil fields.

Xingguang Xu is a PhD student in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Curtin University. His research interests are in the field of CO2 EOR (enhanced oil recovery). He holds a BS degree in chemical engineering from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, and a MS degree from the Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, where he studied polymer flooding since 2010.

Ali Saeedi is a senior lecturer at Curtin University; his research includes reservoir engineering, CCS, and EOR.

Keyu Liu was a professor in geology in RIPED. Presently, he is working for China University of Petroleum (Huadong).


References

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Liu, Y., Grigg, R.B. and Svec, R.K., 2005—CO2 Foam Behaviour: Influence of Temperature, Pressure, and Concentration of Surfactant. SPE Production Operations Symposium, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 16–19 April, SPE-94307.

Mast, R.F., 1972—Microscopic Behavior of Foam in Porous Media. Fall Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Dallas, Texas, 8–11 October, SPE-3997.

Patton, J.T, Holbrook, S.T., and Hsu, W. (1983). Rheology of mobility control foams Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal 23, 456–60.

Sun, Q., Li, Z, Li, S, Jiang, L, Wang, J., and Wang, P. (2014). Utilization of surfactant-stabilized foam for enhanced oil recovery by adding nanoparticles Energy Fuels 28, 2384–2394.

Xu, X., Saeedi, A., Rezaee, R. and Liu, K., 2015—Investigation on a Novel Polymer with Surface Activity for Polymer Enhanced CO2 foam flooding. SPE International Symposium on Oilfield Chemistry, The Woodlands, Texas, 13–15 April, SPE-173716.