Numerical Simulation Analysis of Heating Effect of Downhole Methane Catalytic Combustion Heater under High Pressure

Yiwei Wang, Yuan Wang, Sunhua Deng, Qiang Li, Jingjing Gu, Haoche Shui and Wei Guo
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Yiwei Wang: State Key Laboratory of Shale Oil and Gas Enrichment Mechanism and Effective Development, Beijing 100083, China
Yuan Wang: College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China
Sunhua Deng: College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China
Qiang Li: College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China
Jingjing Gu: College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China
Haoche Shui: College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China
Wei Guo: College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-23

Abstract: The hot exhaust gas generated by a downhole combustion heater directly heats the formation, which can avoid the heat loss caused by the injection of high-temperature fluid on the ground. However, if the temperature of the exhaust gas is too high, it may lead to the carbonization of organic matter in the formation, which is not conducive to oil production. This paper proposes the use of low-temperature catalytic combustion of a mixture of methane and air to produce a suitable exhaust gas temperature. The simulation studies the influence of different parameters on the catalytic combustion characteristics of methane and the influence of downhole high-pressure conditions. The results show that under high-pressure conditions, using a smaller concentration of methane (4%) for catalytic combustion can obtain a higher conversion efficiency (88.75%), and the exhaust temperature is 1097 K. It is found that the high-pressure conditions in the well can promote the catalytic combustion process of the heater, which proves the feasibility of the downhole combustion heater for in situ heating of unconventional oil and gas reservoirs.

Keywords: unconventional oil and gas resources; oil shale; in situ conversion; downhole heating technology (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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