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Numerical simulation and laboratory evaluation of alkali–surfactant–polymer and foam flooding

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Abstract

Tertiary recovery techniques such as alkali–surfactant–polymer flooding (henceforth ASP) and foam flooding have been widely administered in production operations of oil reservoirs which have led to the higher value of oil recovery factor, especially in heavy-oil reservoirs. The objective of this extensive study is to provide a comparative study between numerical simulation which was used by the commercial software implicit pressure and explicit composition (henceforth IMPEC) and experimental investigation for different injectivity scenarios of foaming agent and ASP solution after water and gas flooding on the oil recovery enhancement. To do this, simulation parameters for each scenario were considered in the simulator to investigate the results of each scenario on the oil recovery enhancement. Due to the presence of a gas phase in the realistic performances, the experiments were performed in the presence of three-phase fluids to match the results with the operational circumstances. Moreover, regarding the lack of information about the considerable influence of in situ gas which is in the trapped and continuous phase, the dissolved gas is taken into the evaluation. To validate the simulation analysis, an experimental investigation was performed for different scenarios and selected the optimum injectivity scenario. Consequently, regarding the presence of gas phase, ASP flooding after gas and water flooding had the maximum oil recovery factor and was considered as the optimum technique to produce initial oil in place. The reason for this phenomenon is elaborated to the more feasibility of gas phase which had led to the more mobilization of the oleic phase in the porous medium.

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Abbreviations

ASP:

Alkali–surfactant–polymer

cP:

Centipoise

ppm:

Parts per million

PV:

Pore volume

EOR:

Enhanced oil recovery

BT:

Breakthrough time

NaCl:

Sodium chloride

K:

Potassium

Cl:

Chloride

\({\text{SO}}_{4}^{{2 - }}\) :

Sulfate

\({\text{HCO}}_{3}\) :

Bicarbonate

TDS:

Total dissolved solids

\(S_{\text{wi}}\) :

Initial water saturation

\(S_{\text{orw}}\) :

Remaining oil saturation to water

\(S_{\text{wc}}\) :

Connate water saturation

\(K_{\text{rw}}\) :

Water relative permeability

\(K_{\text{row}}\) :

Oil relative permeability at water saturation

\(n_{\text{w}}\) :

Corey power for water phase

\(n_{\text{o}}\) :

Corey power for oil phase

\(S_{\text{orc}}\) :

Remaining oil saturation to chemicals

\(S_{\text{wcc}}\) :

Connate water saturation to chemicals

\(K_{\text{rwc}}\) :

Connate water relative permeability

\(K_{\text{roc}}\) :

Oil relative permeability at chemicals saturation

\(n_{\text{wc}}\) :

Corey power for water–chemicals phase

\(n_{\text{oc}}\) :

Corey power for oil–chemicals phase

\(S_{\text{gc}}\) :

Connate gas saturation

\(S_{\text{org}}\) :

Remaining oil saturation to gas

\(n_{\text{g}}\) :

Corey power for gas phase

\(n_{\text{og}}\) :

Corey power for oil–gas phase

\(S_{\text{gcc}}\) :

Connate gas saturation to chemicals

\(S_{\text{ASP}}\) :

Alkali–surfactant–polymer saturation

\(R_{i\alpha }\) :

Mass generation

\(r_{{{\text{m}}i\alpha }}\) :

Mass transfer coefficient

\(\rho_{\alpha }\) :

Intrinsic mass density for the α phase

\(q_{i\alpha }\) :

Physical sources

\(\emptyset_{\alpha }\) :

Constraint porosity

\(S_{\alpha }\) :

Saturation for each component

\(J_{{{\text{D}}i\alpha }}\) :

Constituent diffusive flux

\(K_{i\alpha }\) :

Coefficient of reaction rate

\(c_{i\alpha }\) :

The concentration of each component

\(\hat{c}_{i}\) :

Averaged adsorption concentration for each component

\(\rho_{iR}\) :

Mass density for each component

\(n_{\text{c}}\) :

Chemical parts

\(n_{\text{p}}\) :

Fluid phases

\(\rho_{i\alpha }\) :

Mass density

\(u_{i\alpha }\) :

Velocity

\(\emptyset_{\alpha }\) :

Volume fraction

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my advisor Mr. Afshin Hosseini Hemat for his guidance and support throughout this research.

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Correspondence to A. Davarpanah.

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Editorial responsibility: Fatih ŞEN.

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Davarpanah, A., Mirshekari, B. Numerical simulation and laboratory evaluation of alkali–surfactant–polymer and foam flooding. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 17, 1123–1136 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-019-02438-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-019-02438-9

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