Transport of oil/water partitioning components during water injection
Abstract
The oil/water partitioning components such as alkylphenols and aliphatic acids naturally exist in crude oil compositions at different initial concentrations of hundreds or even thousands of ppm depending on the location of the reservoir compared to the site of original rocks. During contact with sweeping injection brine, those compounds diffuse from oil phase to water phase due to oil/water partitioning behaviours. As a result, their concentration in oil contacting with water will be attenuating during water injection. Their concentration profile in water injection history contains the information related to diffusion in oil and water phase, interstitial velocity of water and oil saturation. This paper presents the research results of theoretical model and numerical model of the washed-out process of alkylphenols in the late stage of water injection. The research results have proposed approximate analytical expression for concentration of alkylphenols at the late stage of water flooding. In this regard, at the sufficient large injection volume the alkylphenol concentration attenuates exponentially and the attenuation rate depends on parameters such as partitioning coefficient, oil saturation and interstitial velocity of water and oil and diffusion coefficients. The simulation concentration results obtained from UTCHEM simulator for the 5-spot model showed a good match with analytical calculation results. The research results can be used as the basis for developing methods to assess water flooding systems as well as oil saturation. The results can also be used for study of transport of non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) in environmental contamination. Keywords: Residual oil saturation, waterflooding, tracer, partitioning organic compounds, enhanced oil recovery.
References
Marisa Ioppolo - Armanios, The occurrence and orrigins of some alkylphenols in crude oils. Curtin University of Technology, 1996.
Steve Later and Barry Bennet, “Now you see them, now you don’t, now you might see them again! A review of the systematics of alkylphenol occurrence in conventional and heavy oil petroleum systems”, 2011 CSPG/CSEG/CWLS Conference, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 9 - 11 May, 2011.
B.Bennett and S.R.Larter, “Partition behaviour of alkylphenols in crude oil/brine systems under subsurface conditions”, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 61, No. 20, pp. 4393 - 4402, 1997. DOI: 10.1016/S0016- 7037(97)88537-7.
Paul Taylor, Steve Larter, Martin Jones, Jason Dale, and Idar Horstad, “The effect of oil-water-rock partitioning on the occurrence of alkylphenols in petroleum systems”, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol. 61, No. 9, pp. 1899 - 1910, 1997.
Sandra O.Lucach, Bernard F.J.Bowler, Neil Frewin, and Steve R.Larter, “Variation in alkylphenol distributions in a homogeneous oil suite form the Dhahaban petroleum system of Oman”, Organic Geochemistry, Vol. 33, No. 5, pp. 581 - 594, 2002.
R.Sinha, K.Asakawa, G.A.Pope, and K.Sepehmoori, “Simulation of natural and partitioning interwell tracers to calculate saturation and swept volumes in oil reservoirs”, SPE/DOE Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 17 - 21 April 2004.
Nguyễn Hồng Phan, Nguyễn Hữu Quang, Tô Bá Cường, Huỳnh Thị Thu Hương, và nnk, “Phát triển mô hình mô phỏng quá trình vận động của các chất chỉ thị tự nhiên (NPIT) để đánh giá trữ lượng dầu trong khai thác”, Viện Năng lượng Nguyên tử Việt Nam.
Huynh Thi Thu Huong, Le Thanh Tai, Nguyen Huu Quang, and Le Van Son, “Determination of contribution proportion of injection wells in oil production by interwell tracer method using partitioning organic compounds from crude oil”, Petrovietnam Journal, Vol. 6, pp. 24 - 29, 2019.
To Ba Cuong, Nguyen Hong Phan, and Nguyen Huu Quang, Interwell tracer method using partitioning compounds naturally existing in crude oil for determination of residual oil saturation, Petrovietnam Journal, Vol. 10, pp. 38 - 43, 2016.
Olaf Huseby, A.Haugan, J.Sagen, Jiri Muller, Barry Bennett, S.R.Larter, Eustathios S.Kikkinides, A.K.Stubos, Faraz Yousefian, Jean-Francois Thovert, and P.M.Adler, “Transport of organic components from immobile and bypassed oil in porous media”, Applied Chemical Engineering, Vol. 49, No. 5, pp. 1085 - 1094, 2003. DOI: 10.1002/aic.690490504.
Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, University of Texas, “Reservoir engineering research program. Volume II: Technical documentation for UTCHEM - 9.0 - A three-dimensional chemical flood simulator”, 2000. [Online]. Available: http://www.xn--oy2b17l2qo85afq62g.kr/download/gms/UTCHEM_Tech_Doc.pdf.
1. The Author assigns all copyright in and to the article (the Work) to the Petrovietnam Journal, including the right to publish, republish, transmit, sell and distribute the Work in whole or in part in electronic and print editions of the Journal, in all media of expression now known or later developed.
2. By this assignment of copyright to the Petrovietnam Journal, reproduction, posting, transmission, distribution or other use of the Work in whole or in part in any medium by the Author requires a full citation to the Journal, suitable in form and content as follows: title of article, authors’ names, journal title, volume, issue, year, copyright owner as specified in the Journal, DOI number. Links to the final article published on the website of the Journal are encouraged.
