A Numerical Study on the Effect of Flue Gas Composition on Oil Recovery in Low-Permeability Formations


Tavakkoli Osgouei Y., Doğan M. O., Sinayuç Ç.

21st International Petroleum and Natural Gas Congress and Exibition of Türkiye, Ankara, Turkey, 27 - 29 September 2023, pp.325-328

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Full Text
  • City: Ankara
  • Country: Turkey
  • Page Numbers: pp.325-328
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The production of heavy oil is challenging because of its higher viscosity and lower mobility. Although thermal-based methods are useful to cope with these problems through heat injection, the application of thermal recovery method are expensive and not always effective methods. Therefore, different alternatives were considered with respect to conditions of heavy oil reservoirs. Non-condensate gases like flue gas injection are widely used in heavy oil recovery. The flue gas includes approximately 80% N2 and 20% CO2. The flue gas injection is an effective method for improving not only heavy oil recovery, but also environmental issues. The flue gas injection was simulated as a dual porosity- single permeability model with Eclipse compositional (e300) software. Numerical study was carried out to investigate the effect of flue gas compositions on oil production performance. The numerical results showed that high percentage of N2 in gas stream improves oil production cumulative, maintaining reservoir pressure. These can be attributed to foam oil formation by N2 because of good expansibility of N2 compared to CO2 in low-permeability oil reservoirs at the same conditions. The flue gas injection into oil reservoirs not only enhances oil production performance, but also reduces CO2 emission by different industries