Abstract

BUENO, Nicolás; MEJIA, Juan M.  and  MARTINEZ, Julián J.. Flue gas and nitrogen co-injection during cyclic steam stimulation in heavy oil reservoirs: a numerical evaluation. Dyna rev.fac.nac.minas [online]. 2021, vol.88, n.218, pp.127-135.  Epub Mar 25, 2022. ISSN 0012-7353.  https://doi.org/10.15446/dyna.v88n218.90341.

In this study, steam co-injection with flue gas or N2 was numerically reproduced to determine the best gas composition to be deployed in a Colombian heavy crude oil, using a commercial reservoir simulation software. The oil mixture was characterized via EoS parameters, with tuning average errors of 5%. Injection conditions were evaluated with thermal simulations to analyze the response in oil production, allowing to find a deployment strategy having the highest recovery with the lowest gas injection volume. Results agree with experimental observations regarding the starting times for co-injection and help to narrow the uncertainty range where gas and steam co-injection is a suitable recovery technique in heavy oil reservoirs. The study showed that the incremental oil recovery factor can be enhanced, at least, in 40% when optimizing the deployment of steam and flue gas co-injection for the well studied here.

Keywords : non-condensable gases; numerical modeling; heavy oil; thermal recovery; optimization.

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