Insights Into Non-Thermal Recovery of Heavy Oil
Many heavy oil reservoirs in the world contain oil that has limited mobility under reservoir conditions. In these reservoirs, a small fraction of the oil in place can be recovered using the internal reservoir energy through heavy oil solution gas drive (primary production). An integral part of this process is the so-called foamy oil mechanism, where oil is produced as a gas-in-oil dispersion. At the end of primary production, the bulk of the oil is still in place, while the natural energy of the reservoir has been depleted. In this work we present experimental results of foamy oil depletion at two different length scales, and varying depletion rates. At the conclusion of primary recovery, the potential for further non-thermal exploitation of these reservoirs is explored. Results for waterflooding and chemical flooding are presented, demonstrating the viability of these techniques for heavy oil EOR. There are several displacement mechanisms identified through the secondary and tertiary processes that contribute to significant (although slow) incremental recovery of heavy oil.
A. MAI J. BRYAN N. GOODARZI A. KANTZAS
University of Calgary, Schulich School of Engineering TIPM Laboratory Department of Chemical and Pet Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Formerly with University of Calgary and TIPM Labora
国际会议
首届世界重油大会(The Technical Sessions of the First World Heavy Oil Conference)
北京
英文
264-276
2006-11-12（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）