CO 2, Water and N 2 Injection for Enhanced Oil Recovery with Spatial Arrangement of Fractures in Tight-Oil Reservoirs Using Huff-‘n-puff

Jie Bai, Huiqing Liu, Jing Wang, Genbao Qian, Yongcan Peng, Yang Gao, Lin Yan and Fulin Chen
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Jie Bai: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Engineering, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
Huiqing Liu: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Engineering, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
Jing Wang: State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Engineering, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
Genbao Qian: PetroChina Xinjiang Oilfield, Karamay 834000, China
Yongcan Peng: PetroChina Xinjiang Oilfield, Karamay 834000, China
Yang Gao: PetroChina Xinjiang Oilfield, Karamay 834000, China
Lin Yan: PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, Beijing 100083, China
Fulin Chen: PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, Beijing 100083, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-31

Abstract: Tight oil has been effectively developed thanks to artificial fracture technology. The basic mechanism of effective production through fractures lies in the contact between the fractures (both natural and artificial) and the matrix. In this paper, the natural tight cores from J field in China are used to conduct experimental studies on the different fluid huff-‘n-puff process. A new core-scale fracture lab-simulation method is proposed. Woven metallic wires were attached to the outer surface of the core to create a space between the core holder and core as a high permeable zone, an equivalent fracture. Three different injecting fluids are used, including CO 2 , N 2 and water. The equivalent core scale reservoir numerical models in depletion and huff-n-puff mode are then restored by numerical simulation with the Computer Modeling Group—Compositional & Unconventional Reservoir Simulator (CMG GEM). Simulation cases with eight different fracture patterns are used in the study to understand how fracture mechanistically impact Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in huff n puff mode for the different injected fluids. The results showed: Firstly, regardless of the arrangement of fractures, CO 2 has mostly obvious advantages over water and N 2 in tight reservoir development in huff-‘n-puff mode. Through EOR mechanism analysis, CO 2 is the only fluid that is miscible with oil (even 90% mole fraction CO 2 is dissolved in the oil phase), which results in the lowest oil phase viscosity. The CO 2 diffusion mechanism is also pronounced in the huff-‘n-puff process. Water may impact on the oil recovery through gravity and the capillary force imbibition effect. N 2 , cannot recover more crude oil only by elasticity and swelling effects. Secondly, the fracture arrangement in space has the most impact on CO 2 huff-‘n-puff, followed by water and finally N 2 . The fractures primarily supply more efficient and convenient channels and contact relationships. The spatial arrangement of fractures mainly impacts the performance of CO 2 through viscosity reduction in the contact between CO 2 and crude oil. Similarly, the contact between water in fractures and crude oil in the matrix is also the key to imbibition. In the process of N 2 huff-‘n-puff, the elasticity energy is dominant and fracture arrangement in space hardly to improve oil recovery. In addition, when considering anisotropy, water huff-‘n-puff is more sensitive to it, while N 2 and CO 2 are not. Finally, comparing the relationship between fracture contact area and oil recovery, oil production is insensitive to contact area between fracture and matrix for water and N 2 cases.

Keywords: tight reservoir; huff-‘n-puff; fracture simulation; enhanced oil recovery; CO 2 diffusion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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