New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery

Direct gas thickening is a conventional mobility control method to improve volumetric sweep efficiency for miscible gas injection (MGI) projects. However, the viability of this approach with technically feasible thickeners has not been verified at the field-scale due to a combination of high costs a...

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Main Authors: Al Hinai, N., Saeedi, Ali, Wood, C., Myers, M., Valdez, R., Xie, Sam, Jin, F.
Format: Journal Article
Published: American Chemical Society 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/72668
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author Al Hinai, N.
Saeedi, Ali
Wood, C.
Myers, M.
Valdez, R.
Xie, Sam
Jin, F.
author_facet Al Hinai, N.
Saeedi, Ali
Wood, C.
Myers, M.
Valdez, R.
Xie, Sam
Jin, F.
author_sort Al Hinai, N.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Direct gas thickening is a conventional mobility control method to improve volumetric sweep efficiency for miscible gas injection (MGI) projects. However, the viability of this approach with technically feasible thickeners has not been verified at the field-scale due to a combination of high costs and/or environmental issues. One approach to make this technique economically more attractive is the implementation of an alternating injection scheme (similar to water-alternating-gas (WAG)) that would require less of the thickened gas compared with a continuous injection scheme. In this study, the effectiveness of this approach where a miscible alternating injection of thickened associated gas (TAG) or thickened CO2 (TCO2) with unthickened AG is explored in both nonfractured and fractured composite carbonate cores. Twelve core-flooding experiments were conducted using different injection schemes (i.e., continuous unthickened, continuous thickened, and alternating thickened-unthickened). These tests demonstrate that overall the experimental results indicate that the alternating injection of TAG or TCO2 with unthickened AG mixture as an enhanced recovery technique may produce results similar to those with continuous thickened gas injection. This reduces the consumption of thickening agents noticeably resulting in reduced operational costs and improved economic viability for this method.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-726682019-02-11T00:35:05Z New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery Al Hinai, N. Saeedi, Ali Wood, C. Myers, M. Valdez, R. Xie, Sam Jin, F. Direct gas thickening is a conventional mobility control method to improve volumetric sweep efficiency for miscible gas injection (MGI) projects. However, the viability of this approach with technically feasible thickeners has not been verified at the field-scale due to a combination of high costs and/or environmental issues. One approach to make this technique economically more attractive is the implementation of an alternating injection scheme (similar to water-alternating-gas (WAG)) that would require less of the thickened gas compared with a continuous injection scheme. In this study, the effectiveness of this approach where a miscible alternating injection of thickened associated gas (TAG) or thickened CO2 (TCO2) with unthickened AG is explored in both nonfractured and fractured composite carbonate cores. Twelve core-flooding experiments were conducted using different injection schemes (i.e., continuous unthickened, continuous thickened, and alternating thickened-unthickened). These tests demonstrate that overall the experimental results indicate that the alternating injection of TAG or TCO2 with unthickened AG mixture as an enhanced recovery technique may produce results similar to those with continuous thickened gas injection. This reduces the consumption of thickening agents noticeably resulting in reduced operational costs and improved economic viability for this method. 2018 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/72668 10.1021/acs.iecr.8b02928 American Chemical Society restricted
spellingShingle Al Hinai, N.
Saeedi, Ali
Wood, C.
Myers, M.
Valdez, R.
Xie, Sam
Jin, F.
New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery
title New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery
title_full New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery
title_fullStr New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery
title_full_unstemmed New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery
title_short New Approach to Alternating Thickened-Unthickened Gas Flooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery
title_sort new approach to alternating thickened-unthickened gas flooding for enhanced oil recovery
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/72668