Mechanistic Modeling of Foam-Assisted EOR Simulations: Comparing Two Key Foam Generation Mechanisms

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Abstract

Surfactant/foam enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) processes have long been regarded as a practical means of overcoming subsurface heterogeneity and gravity segregation, leading to higher sweep efficiency and more cumulative oil recovery. In order to understand the outcome of such processes, modeling and simulating how foam propagates and behaves with the help of mechanistic foam models is crucial. There are largely two different versions of mechanistic foam models available in the literature, but no studies have been conducted to compare and contrast the two models within the context of the numerical calculation itself. To clarify, the two versions of foam models are based on different types of pore-scale lamella-creation events, both taking advantage of bubble population balance simulations. The first is established on the mobilization-and-division mechanism, implementing the mobilization pressure gradient (∇Po) in the model to produce a large population of bubbles in porous media. On the other hand, the second is formed on the Roof-type snap-off mechanism, incorporating convection-dependent bubble creation at the germination sites into the model. Therefore, this study investigates similarities and differences of the two different foam models and understand the pros and cons of each foam model. In line with that, this study is performed with the following tasks: (i) identify and borrow representative mechanistic foam models from the literature, (ii) make a fit to coreflood experimental data and determine foam model parameters for each model, and (iii) find the characteristics of the two models and their implications. The laboratory data for supercritical CO2 foam from Yin (2007) and Liu et al. (2010) is chosen to match (i) the pressure responses of no-foam/weak-foam state and strong-foam state and (ii) the steady-state pressure gradients (or drops) of strong foam state at various gas and liquid velocities. The models from Kovscek (1994) and Afsharpoor et al. (2010) are applied to perform the tasks. The results show that both models can reproduce experimental data equally nicely, but depending on how field operations are performed (rate-controlled vs. pressure-controlled) some additional sophisticated steps might be needed to make them equivalent in EOR simulations.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Proceedings of the Annual Offshore Technology Conference

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