Experimental Study of Asphaltene Adsorption in Porous Media and Its Effects on Rock-Fluid Properties and Displacement Performance of Waterflooding
Date
2015-04-29
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Abstract
Asphaltene is the heaviest fraction of crude oil with a complicated structure consisting of peri-condensed aromatic rings and aliphatic chains. Precipitation, flocculation, flow of suspended particles, mechanical plugging, entrainment and adsorption are mechanisms that may lead to significant changes in production from reservoirs. Entrapment of asphaltene reduces the permeability of porous media and imposes flow assurance problems and formation damage. Nevertheless, many uncertainties remain in asphaltene adsorption as interfacial phenomenon, and the literature suffers from lack of experimental data. Being defined as adherence of asphaltene particles on pore walls, asphaltene adsorption may affect interfacial tension, contact angle, wettability, relative permeability, displacement performance of waterflooding and recovery factor.
This work aims to investigate the dynamic adsorption of asphaltene in porous media and evaluate the consequent effects on two-phase flow in porous media. Experiments were conducted to investigate dynamic adsorption of asphaltene in sand packs at varying experimental conditions. Experimental parameters included water film salinity, presence or absence of water film, asphaltene concentration, clay content and compositional change due to solvent co-injection. The objective was to investigate their contribution on the level of adsorption in sand packs. Waterflooding was conducted prior and after the adsorption step to measure the effects on relative permeability and understand how the displacement performance and recovery are affected by asphaltene adsorption. Interfacial tension and contact angle were measured for various concentrations of asphaltene solution and brine
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salinities. Distribution analysis and reversibility of asphaltene adsorption were also addressed.
In addition, simulation models were developed and validated using the obtained experimental data and finally were employed for an analysis of asphaltene adsorption. The selected parameters from the sensitivity analysis were employed in the history matching to tune the results with the measured values, determine the optimal values of parameters and observe the behavior of asphaltene related variables.
Obtained results showed the influence of mentioned experimental parameters on level of asphaltene adsorption in porous media also their competitive roles on displacement performance of waterflooding and recovery. However, salinity of water phase proved to have the dominating effect on inhibition of asphaltene adsorption in porous media.
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Engineering--Petroleum
Citation
Hematfar, V. (2015). Experimental Study of Asphaltene Adsorption in Porous Media and Its Effects on Rock-Fluid Properties and Displacement Performance of Waterflooding (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26067