Core floods

The WAG process has been used extensively in the field, particularly in supercritical CO2 injection, with considerable success (22,157,158). However, a method to further reduce the viscosity of injected gas or supercritical fluid is desired. One means of increasing the viscosity of CO2 is through the use of supercritical C02-soluble polymers and other additives (159). The use of surfactants to form low mobihty foams or supercritical CO2 dispersions within the formation has received more attention (160—162). Foam has also been used to reduce mobihty of hydrocarbon gases and nitrogen. The behavior of foam in porous media has been the subject of extensive study (4). X-ray computerized tomographic analysis of core floods indicate that addition of 500 ppm of an alcohol ethoxyglycerylsulfonate increased volumetric sweep efficiency substantially over that obtained in a WAG process (156). 

Remove core decay heat High pressure injection system Low pressure injection system High pressure recirculation system Core flood tanks Auxiliary feedwater system Power conversion system Remove core decay heat Auxiliary feedwal stem Power conversion m High pressure inj( i system pow. peiuicd relief valves... 

Tables 5-1 to 5-3 summarize some biocides proposed for bacteria control. Core flood experiments were used to evaluate the efficacy of periodic formaldehyde injection for the control of in situ biogenic reservoir souring. Formaldehyde treatments were demonstrated to control souring in both...

Several surfactants were studied in ambient-pressure foam tests, including alcohol ethoxylates, alcohol ethoxysulfates, alcohol ethoxyethylsulfonates, and alcohol ethoxyglycerylsuUbnates [210]. Surfactants that performed well in the 1-atm foaming experiment were also good foaming agents in site cell and core flood experiments performed in the presence of CO2 and reservoir fluids under realistic reservoir temperature and pressure conditions. 

Most suitable for the examination of the surface is x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, whereas the wettability determination can be established by a detailed interpretation of core flooding experiments and wettability index measurements. The results of such studies show that the organic carbon content in the surface is well correlated with the wetting behavior of the material characterized by petrophysical measurements [1467,1468]. 

In general, chelating agents possess some unique chemical characteristics. The most significant attribute of these chemicals is the high solubility of the free acids in aqueous solutions. Linear core flood tests were used to study the formation of wormholes. Both hydroxyethylethylene diaminetriacetic acid and hydroxyethyliminodiacetic acid produced wormholes in limestone cores when tested at 150° F. However, the efficiency and capacities differ. Because these chemicals have high solubility in the acidic pH range, it was possible to test acidic (pH less than 3.5) formulations [644]. 

Wettability is defined as "the tendency of one fluid to spread on or adhere to a solid surface in the presence of other immiscible fluids" (145). Rock wettability can strongly affect its relative permeability to water and oil (145,172). Wettability can affect the initial distribution of fluids in a formation and their subsequent flow behavior. When rock is water-wet, water occupies most of the small flow channels and is in contact with most of the rock surfaces. The converse is true in oil-wet rock. When the rock surface does not have a strong preference for either water or oil, it is termed to be of intermediate or neutral wettability. Inadvertent alteration of rock wettability can strong alter its behavior in laboratory core floods (172). 

Core floods were performed to determine if treatment polymers would prevent permeability damage caused by fines migration within consolidated rock and whether the adsorbed polymers would themselves reduce core permeability. The tests were performed using Hassler sleeve chambers. With the exception of the polymer... 

Berea core flood test results (Table VIII) suggested that the presence of DMAEMA improved the permeability damage characteristics of 80% NVP copolymers. The kerosene flow rate... 

The core - flood apparatus is illustrated in Figure 1. The system consists of two positive displacement pumps with their respective metering controls which are connected through 1/8 inch stainless steel tubing to a cross joint and subsequently to the inlet end of a coreholder 35 cm. long and 4 cm. in diameter. Online filters of 7 im size were used to filter the polymer and brine solutions. A bypass line was used to inject a slug of surfactant solution. Two Validyne pressure transducers with appropriate capacity diaphragms are connected to the system. One of these measured differential pressure between the two pressure taps located about one centimeter from either end of the coreholder, and the other recorded the total pressure drop across the core and was directly connected to the inlet line. A two - channel linear strip chart recorder provided a continuous trace of the pressures. An automatic fraction collector was used to collect the effluent fluids. 

As part of the studies undertaken in our laboratory it was necessary to be able to determine quantitatively the surfactant present in large numbers of samples (> 100 per week) arising, for example, from core flooding experiments. The chosen method needed to be rapid to reduce analysis time, and to require little manipulation of the sample to reduce errors. In this paper we report the development of a method for the determination of anionic surfactants based upon autotitration and comment on the physico-chemical basis of the technique. 

Apparatus. A constant rate displacement pump charged with mercury was used to displace the fluid of interest from steel cylinders to the core. A pressure transducer connected to the chart recorder provided the pressure history of each core flood. An automatic sampler with... 

Procedure. Core floods were carried out in horizontally mounted Berea sandstone cores of length 61 cm and diameter 5 cm. Porosity varied from 18 to 25% and brine permeability from 100 to 800 Jim2. The cores were coated with a thin layer of epoxy and cast in stainless steel core holders using molten Cerrobend alloy (melting point 70°C). The ends of the cores were machined flush with the core holder and flanges were bolted on. Pore volume was determined by vacuum followed by imbibition of brine. Absolute permeability and porosity were determined. The cores were initially saturated with brine (2% NaCl). An oil flood was then started at a rate of lOm/day until an irreducible water saturation (26-38%) was established. 

Accuracy. All fluids properties measured were within 1%. The volumes injected and produced were in agreement within 0.1%. The reproducibility of the core floods was between 0.002-8%. 

Oil droplet size is thought to be quite important to the effectiveness of crude oils at destabilizing foams, with smaller droplets being the more effective [44,114,330,342]. A number of microvisual and core-flood studies suggest that the emulsification/ imbibition of oil into foam can be a very important factor [44,114,328,330,339,342]. 

Future production of surfactin from potato process effluents will be used in core floods to characterize further its potential application as an agent for enhanced oil recovery. 

The almost-total oil recovery obtained in slim tube experiments is an unrealistic measure of the oil recovery that can be obtained from oil reservoirs or even from laboratory floods of parallel cores that have different permeabilities. Roughly, a parallel-core flood might recover half of the fraction of oil obtained from a slim tube experiment, and a field flood might do well to recover half of the fraction of oil obtained in parallel-core floods (6). 

Simulators and Core Floods for Dispersion-Based Sweep Control... 

Core Floods. At present the strong coupling between droplet size and flow has major experimental consequences (1) flow experiments must be performed under steady-state conditions (since otherwise the results may be controlled by long-lived, uninterpretable transients) (2) in situ droplet sizes cannot be obtained from measurements on an injected or produced dispersion (because these can change at core faces and inside the core) and (3) care must be taken that pressure drops measured across porous media are not dominated by end effects. Likewise, since abrupt droplet size changes can occur inside a porous medium, if the flow appears to be independent of the injected droplet-size distribution, it is likely that a new distribution is quickly forming inside the medium (38). 

Core floods and high pressure sight cell studies are unsuitable for evaluating large numbers of surfactants as mobility control agents because of the long duration of properly designed... 

Macroscopic experiments such as core flooding have been used to obtain relative permeabilities, dispersion coefficients, and other variables relevant to reservoir flow. However, they cannot reveal details of how immiscible phases interact on the pore level. Instead visual experiments have been used to elucidate microscopic flow mechanisms. The latter approach is taken here with experiments using a novel flow cell and state-of-the-art video equipment. The pore level phenomena observed provide a basis for the proper modeling of two-phase flow through porous media at high capillary numbers. 

Extensive mobility control applications of foams are limited by inadequate knowledge of foam displacement in porous media, plus uncertainties in the control of foam injection. Because of the importance of in situ foam texture (bubble size, bubble size distribution, bubble train length, etc.), conventional fractional flow approaches where the phase mobilities are represented in terms of phase saturations are not sufficient. As yet, an adequate description of foam displacement mechanisms and behavior is lacking, as well as a basis for understanding the various, often contradictory, macroscopic core flood observations. 

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