Laboratory Study of Enhanced Oil Recovery Through Cyclic Solvent Injection in Low-Permeable Rocks
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Abstract
Cyclic Solvent Injection (CSI), otherwise known as “huff-n-puff solvent injection”, is an essential utility in increasing hydrocarbon production in unconventional reservoirs. Current conventional production is heavily targeted towards high-permeable sandstone reservoirs, whereas a vast amount of tight oil from shale and low-permeable rock formations are not economically viable to produce from. With increasing demand, more data from laboratory investigations of huff-n-puff experiments can help evaluate the different factors affecting recovery performance. Current laboratory experiments use a linear core holder system where the in-situ production time for large pore volumes can be tedious. By using a newly designed radial injection core holder, the amount of time to produce large volumes while using reservoir conditions can be decreased significantly. In this investigation, simultaneous radial and linear flow experiments were run in separate experimental setups comparing the effect of different cores, solvent gases, overburden pressures, water saturation, soaking times, production times, inversed/reversed flow, vertical/horizontal flow and gas injection cycles on the resulting production data. The cores used were Torrey sandstone, Scioto sandstone, and Eagle Ford shale placed inside the high-pressure vessels. The three gas solvents used throughout all the huff-n-puff experiments were CH4, CO2, and N2, comparing the recovery factors of the produced pentane oil. The experiments compared the presence of connate water saturation to full oil saturation in the cores and studied the effects of 24-, 48-, and 72-hour soaking times and 1-, 2-, and 3-hour production times. Comparisons were made injecting through the center of the radial cores and producing radially outward, and vice versa. Finally, experiments were run analyzing the effect vertical injection and production had when compared to horizontal. The results concluded increases in recovery factor due to increased overburden pressure, soaking times, production times, and number of gas cycles, consistent for both primary and huff-n-puff production in both setups. It was also concluded that recovery factor was increased from decreased permeabilities and the presence of water saturation. Finally, the effect of inversed flow paths and vertical production alignment was inconclusive when comparing recovery factors of the completed experiments. With extremely limited studies using radial injection techniques, this data can be used to help advance tight oil potential in the petroleum industry and create opportunities for more economically viable recovery costs.