Experimental Investigations of Forward and Reverse Combustion for Increasing Oil Recovery of a Real Oil Field

Aysylu Askarova, Evgeny Popov, Matthew Ursenbach, Gordon Moore, Sudarshan Mehta and Alexey Cheremisin
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Aysylu Askarova: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery, Sikorsky Street 11, 121205 Moscow, Russia
Evgeny Popov: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery, Sikorsky Street 11, 121205 Moscow, Russia
Matthew Ursenbach: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Gordon Moore: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Sudarshan Mehta: Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Alexey Cheremisin: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Center for Hydrocarbon Recovery, Sikorsky Street 11, 121205 Moscow, Russia

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 17, 1-16

Abstract: The work presented herein is devoted to a unique set of forward and reverse combustion tube (CT) experiments to access the suitability and potential of the in situ combustion (ISC) method for the light oil carbonate reservoir. One forward and one reverse combustion tube tests were carried out using the high-pressure combustion tube (HPCT) experimental setup. However, during reverse combustion, the front moved in the opposite direction to the airflow. The results obtained from experiments such as fuel/air requirements, H/C ratio, and recovery efficiency are crucial for further validation of the numerical model. A quantitative assessment of the potential for the combustion was carried out. The oil recovery of forward combustion was as high as 91.4% of the initial oil in place, while that for the reverse combustion test demonstrated a 43% recovery. In the given conditions, forward combustion demonstrated significantly higher efficiency. However, the stabilized combustion front propagation and produced gases of reverse combustion prove its possible applicability. Currently, there is a limited amount of available studies on reverse combustion and a lack of publications within the last decades despite advances in technologies. However, reverse combustion might have advantages over forward combustion for heavy oil reservoirs with lower permeability or might serve as a reservoir preheating technique. These experiments give the opportunity to build and validate the numerical models of forward and reverse combustion conducted at reservoir conditions and test their field application using different scenarios.

Keywords: enhanced oil recovery; forward combustion; reverse combustion; high-pressure combustion tube; carbonate reservoir (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: 2020
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