CO₂ Miscible Flooding in Tight Reservoirs: Experimental Procedure and Application

Habib K. Menouar*, Aziz Arshad, Mohammed K. Naik, and Abdulaziz A. Al-Majed
KFUPM, Saudi Arabia
*[email protected]

The petroleum industry is increasingly concerned with carbon-dioxide emission and the resulting green-house effect. The research effort undertaken in numerous universities around the world with the support of major oil companies is resulting in an abundant literature on this subject. A whole new environmentally friendly carbon-dioxide industry is pointing to the horizon. An important part of this industry is related to the use of carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery applications. In the Middle East, where the future is closely tied to the oil industry, this new CO₂ industry can hardly be overlooked. A research program addressing the use of carbon dioxide as a miscible agent in marginal oil reservoirs has been initiated two years ago at KFUPM and is still in progress. This presentation discusses a general procedure describing the guidelines for such a program. A research work on carbon dioxide miscible flooding will be incomplete without an investigation on minimum miscibility pressure involving carbon dioxide and crude oil from the Middle East. This implies phase behavior, slim tube studies and correlation evaluation as well. Finally, the results will be meaningless without core flooding experiments performed at reservoir conditions. This presentation addresses the experimental procedure and application pertaining to miscible CO₂ flooding. Furthermore, the difficulties faced are also discussed when carbon dioxide miscible flooding is applied specifically to oil reservoirs in the Middle East. An example is also presented to illustrate some of the technical problems encountered and their solutions.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90077©2008 GEO 2008 Middle East Conference and Exhibition, Manama, Bahrain