Date of Award

1990

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Petroleum Engineering

First Advisor

Zaki Bassiouni

Abstract

Cyclic CO$\sb2$ injection, more commonly referred to as the CO$\sb2$ huff 'n' puff process, is an enhanced oil recovery method which targets remaining oil. Initially used for heavy oil recovery, it has been applied recently to the enhanced recovery of light oil with promising results. The CO$\sb2$ huff 'n' puff process is physically simulated in laboratory experiments using Berea sandstone consolidated cores with live and dead oil systems. Corefloods provide extensive and systematic data at controlled conditions allowing selected process parameters to be investigated. This research used corefloods to examine the effect of an initial gas saturation and an impure CO$\sb2$ source on the process. However, physical restraints such as time taken to perform experiments, and the fixed physical properties of the core, preclude corefloods under a wider range of conditions. Coreflood data can be used for tuning a compositional reservoir simulator. A well calibrated numerical model can in turn to used to predict the results of the CO$\sb2$ huff 'n' puff process for diverse reservoir and operating conditions difficult to duplicate in the laboratory. This approach is used to calibrate a commercially available composition model. The calibrated model is then used to predict the effects of soak duration, remaining oil saturation, CO$\sb2$ slug size and CO$\sb2$ injection rate on ultimate recovery.

Pages

176

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.5100

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