• Energy Research

AbstractWe measure the trapped non-wetting phase saturation as a function of the initial saturation in sand packs. The application of the work is for carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in aquifers where capillary trapping is a rapid and effective mechanism to render injected CO2 immobile. We used analogue fluids at ambient conditions. The trapped saturation initially rises linearly with initial saturation to a value of 0.11 for oil/water systems and 0.14 for gas/water systems. There then follows a region where the residual saturation is constant with further increases in initial saturation.

Abstract During CO2 storage in depleted oil fields, under immiscible conditions, CO2 can be trapped in the pore space by capillary forces, providing safe storage over geological times - a phenomenon named capillary trapping. Synchrotron X-ray imaging was used to obtain dynamic three-dimensional images of the flow of the three phases involved in this process - brine, oil and gas (nitrogen) - at high pressure and temperature, inside the pore space of Ketton limestone. First, using continuous imaging of the porous medium during gas injection, performed after waterflooding, we observed chains of multiple displacements between the three phases, caused by the connectivity of the pore space. Then, brine was re-injected and double capillary trapping - gas trapping by oil and oil trapping by brine - was the dominant double displacement event. We computed pore occupancy, saturations, interfacial area, mean curvature and Euler characteristic to elucidate these double capillary trapping phenomena, which lead to a high residual gas saturation. Pore occupancy and saturation results show an enhancement of gas trapping in the presence of both oil and brine, which potentially makes CO2 storage in depleted oil reservoirs attractive, combining safe storage with enhanced oil recovery through immiscible gas injection. Mean curvature measurements were used to assess the capillary pressures between fluid pairs during double displacements and these confirmed the stability of the spreading oil layers observed, which facilitated double capillary trapping. Interfacial area and Euler characteristic increased, indicating lower oil and gas connectivity, due to the capillary trapping events.

Enhanced Oil Recovery provides a promising technique to maximise fossil fuel recovery from existing resources, and when used in conjunction with Carbon Capture and Storage/Utilisation provides a way to support a transition to alternative cleaner fuels. A hybrid Enhanced Oil Recovery method by a combination of electrical heating and nanofluid flooding was applied to oil-wet carbonate reservoirs and assessed in terms of the oil production, zeta potential, contact angle, pellet compaction, interfacial tension, and pH values. The hybrid technique consisted of a combination of direct current (up to 30 V) and iron oxide (Fe2O3) or magnesium oxide (MgO) nanofluids. Both nanofluids were injected into oil-wet Austin chalk – our laboratory model of an oil-wet carbonate reservoir – and then electrical heating was started, or vice versa. Introducing electrical heating first increased oil recovery by up to 27% in seawater compared to 16% in deionised water. When Fe2O3 nanofluid was injected, oil recovery further increased to 32% in seawater and 24% in deionised water. The contact angle and zeta potential decreased from 124o to 36o and from -24.4 to -23.7 mV, respectively, when nanofluid was injected in seawater, leading to better nanofluid stability and penetration into the carbonate rock as shown by increased pellet porosity from 6.6% to 14.8%. Moreover, it was found that the interfacial tension was reduced from 72 to 32.7 mN/m in the pre-magnetised samples with Fe2O3 NPs injection compared to 33.2 mN/m in the samples with MgO injection. It was found from our experiments that the effect of the generated electricity on the surface charge was of a temporary nature as the zeta potential of the rock returned to its original value as soon as the power was disconnected. The mechanism underlying the hybrid Enhanced Oil Recovery EOR technique from the laboratory findings was found to be based on electrowetting and nanofluid adsorption. Results indicate that the technique is promising for further improving oil recovery and securing energy supply during the transition to net zero.

AbstractTwo carbonate rocks were studied experimentally at reservoir conditions at two flow rates using dynamic X-ray tomography. Cores of both homogeneous (Ketton) and heterogeneous (Portland) carbonates, were injected with CO2-saturated at 10MPa and 50oC. Images were taken at between 30-second and 40- minute time-resolutions during injection. Reaction-induced changes in porosity, permeability, and structure were obtained by segmenting the images and extracting a pore/throat network. Differences in dissolution type and magnitude were found for each rock and flow rate. At the highest flow rates, Ketton displayed uniform dissolution. Conversely, Portland formed wormholes at high and compact dissolution at low flow rates.

Abstract During tertiary miscible gas injection direct contact between gas and oil can be prevented by water surrounding residual oil. The principal aim of our study is to assess the importance of this waterblocking phenomenon in multicomponent gas injection. We study this process using a multicomponent pore-scale model. Light components in the gas dissolve in the water and diffuse through the water to reach the oil. This causes the oil to swell. Eventually the oil swells sufficiently to contact the gas directly. However, components in the oil can diffuse into the gas, causing the oil to shrink and preventing the contact. We apply our model to a variety of first-contact and multiple-contact miscible gas/oil systems from published field studies. Due to the low solubility of hydrocarbons in water, oil swelling and shrinkage can prevent direct contact for many days to years. We show that increasing the miscibility of injected gas, by, for instance, moving from a multi-contact miscible to a first-contact miscible displacement increases the time taken to achieve direct gas/oil contact. This leads to an extended two-phase region in the reservoir, even for a thermodynamically miscible gas flood.

Abstract Streamline-based simulation is extended to simulate non-isothermal two-phase flow of hot water injection in three-dimensional (3D) realistic field-scale reservoirs containing heavy oil. First the pressure equation is solved on the 3D Eulerian grid for a global time-step and the total velocity is calculated at cell faces. Then the streamlines are traced from injector wells to producers, implementing a semi-analytical method and the time-of-flight (TOF) is computed over the streamlines. The mass and energy transport equations are mapped onto streamlines using the TOF as the distance variable. The advective part of the transport equations are solved along the streamlines. The saturation and temperature are calculated in the TOF domain until the end of the global time-step and then mapped back to the 3D grid. The effects of gravity and heat conduction are included by an operator splitting technique, at the end of each global time-step. A 2D petroleum reservoir model without gravity is tested to show the feasibility of the method. To further test the approach, a 3D heterogeneous model with a fine grid and multiple wells is simulated, and the results are compared with those of a commercial grid-based thermal simulator. The predicted saturation distribution, temperature and oil production at the wells are in good agreement with the commercial code; furthermore the streamline technique is significantly faster while generating results similar to those obtained using a conventional method that has a finer grid. We conclude that the streamline method can simulate non-isothermal two-phase flow of water–oil in heterogeneous porous media accurately with lower cost and better performance than grid-based approaches.

AbstractWe demonstrate experimentally, that the spatial distribution of fluids in the pore space is the primary control on CO2 relative permeability, and that the importance of spatial heterogeneity in rock properties such as capillarity, porosity and permeability on fluid distributions is controlled by viscous forces. The importance of viscous forces during drainage core floods is evaluated using fluid viscosity as the varying parameter in CO2-brine core floods, and flow rate in N2-water core floods. A transition from a heterogeneous to a homogeneous displacement is observed with increasing viscous force applied to the core. During capillary dominated core flooding the relative permeability is sensitive to flow rate and viscosity. Homogeneous displacements have an invariant relative permeability and as such are a measure of the true relative permeability of the rock.