Abstract:
The world is facing a challenge of limited sources with respect to hydrocarbons. Society
has become so dependent on oil and natural gas that no one can imagine life without the
resources. Oil and gas deposits are limited and the main portion of conventional
reservoirs is at a late stage of development, hence, the market price for oil and gas is
continuously increasing. The need for development of new technology for oil recovery
from unconventional reservoirs has become a priority.
Canada owns more than 40% of the world’s heavy oil. This means traditional methods of
oil displacement, namely waterflooding or immiscible gas injection, could lead to a very
low recovery factor.
Thermal and chemical impacts on a reservoir are the main methods of increasing sweep
efficiency and recovery factor. Nevertheless, the first method is pricy and the second is
environmentally unfriendly and expensive.
Pressure Pulsing Technology (PPT) does not change the properties of the hydrocarbons
or reservoir, it changes the flow behavior and displacement mechanism. PPT has
traditionally been used during waterflooding, but due to positive results of heavy oil
displacement with CO2 and new GHGs emissions regulations, which provide GHG
credits for CO2 usage in EOR and CO2 underground storage, a decision was made to
implement PPT during carbon dioxide injection. PPT was also implemented in a group of
experiments that covered different WAG processes. In the first group of experiments, Pressure Pulsing Technology was studied during
waterflooding with different types of oil with a range of PPT parameters. Also, the
impact of PPT on CO2 injections was investigated. In this case, not only PTT properties
were the object of study but the impact of gas injection flow rate was researched.
Logically following water injection and gas injection with PPT was Water Alternative
Gas (WAG) injection with PPT. Several different experiments of the WAG process with
PPT were conducted.
The goal of the second group of experiments, where the micromodel was used, was to
visualize the displacement process in porous media, and to compare fluid flow behavior
in the model, with and without implementing PPT.
Description:
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Science in Petroleum Systems Engineering, University of Regina. xiv, 171 p.