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Multi-dimensional Experimental Study of Hydrocarbon Gas-Assisted Gravity Drainage

  • Research Article-Petroleum Engineering
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Abstract

High dip angles can hinder oil flow to production wells, causing uneven sweep efficiency and high permeability thick reservoirs can lead to unfavorable oil–water mobility ratios, challenging traditional water flooding methods. Gas-assisted Gravity Drainage (GAGD) is an important technology for enhanced oil recovery in high dip angle or high permeability thick reservoirs. N2 and CO2 are commonly injected in GAGD applications, and hydrocarbon gas is rarely tested in GAGD process due to its safety issues. A series of one-dimensional (1-D) and two-dimensional (2-D) hydrocarbon gas flooding experiments were carried out according to the reservoir condition of the Lamadian oil field. The minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) between oil and methane measured by the slim tube experiment is above 111.27 MPa, which is much greater than the formation pressure. The long core experiments comprehensively evaluate the influence of injection location, velocity, and dip angle on gravity-stabilized flooding. Besides one-dimensional experimental devices, this work developed an innovative large 2D scaled physical reservoir model with accurate quantitative oil/gas/water saturation measurement ability. To our best knowledge, this model has the largest area (3000 cm2), the highest operation pressure (70MPa), and the highest operation temperature (150℃) in the literature. This model's novel non-intrusive saturation detection system design does not interfere with the artificial porous medium. High dip angle, low injection velocity, and low permeability yield good oil recovery in our studied oil field. The maximum recovery of immiscible methane flooding is 26.12% (long core experiment). Direct gravity stabilized methane flooding recovery is low, while water flooding efficiency is high. In large 2D scaled physical model experiments, GAGD-induced stable flooding front could be observed at a stable injection rate. However, the stability of the flooding front has little influence on the recovery factor since the microscopic displacement efficiency for immiscible methane flooding is low in this reservoir.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Exploration and Development Research Institute of Daqing Oilfield Co. Fund number DQYT 1201002-2020-JS-149.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Continental Shale Oil, Daqing, 163712, China

    Yong Liu

  2. Exploration and Development Research Institute of Daqing Oilfield Co. Ltd, Daqing, 163712, China

    Yong Liu, Jiang Zhang & Zhenqiang Bai

  3. Heilongjiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Reservoir Physics & Fluid Mechanics in Porous Medium, Daqing, 163712, China

    Yong Liu & Jiang Zhang

  4. National Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Shuoshi Wang, Wenhua Zhao, Huarong Yan, Ping Guo, Zhouhua Wang & Luxing Ou

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  1. Yong Liu
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Correspondence to Shuoshi Wang or Ping Guo.

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Liu, Y., Wang, S., Zhao, W. et al. Multi-dimensional Experimental Study of Hydrocarbon Gas-Assisted Gravity Drainage. Arab J Sci Eng 48, 17031–17048 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-023-08333-3

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