Simultaneous injection of chemical agents and carbon dioxide to enhance the sweep efficiency from fractured tight core samples

Foams would play a substantial role in mobility control and are considered an efficient chemical agent to improve the oil recovery factor. Co-injection of foam and carbon dioxide (CO2) would be one of the optimum injectivity scenarios in fractured tight core samples. This paper aimed to experimentally investigate the surfactant alternating gas injection and CO2-foam injection and how to determine the optimum parameters like foam quality, flow rate, and the number of cycles. It is observed that 0.65 is the optimum foam quality for the fractured tight core samples, and by the increase of foam quality, the pressure drop has been decreased. By increasing foam quality, pressure drop increases up to a specific value (f(g) = 0.65), and after this point, pressure drop has been decreased. Moreover, by the increase of injectivity cycles, pressure drop has increased subsequently. It is observed that five cycles are the optimum number of cycles, and after that, there is no pressure drop decrease in the system. Due to the surfactant property to control the mobility ratio, CO2 breakthrough has occurred at 1.2 PV. Its oil recovery factor at breakthrough is about 48%, and the total oil recovery factor is about 65%. CO2-foam were injected into the system, and due to the presence of a foaming agent in CO2, a CO2 breakthrough occurred at 1.8 PV. The total oil recovery factor is about 83% that indicated the efficiency of this scenario. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

Foams are efficient chemical agents to enhance oil recovery factor and play a significant role in mobility control. The co-injection of foam and CO2 has been found to be an optimal scenario for fractured tight core samples. Experimental results show that the optimum foam quality is 0.65, and five injection cycles are the most effective for improving oil recovery factor. The presence of a foaming agent in CO2 enhances the efficiency of CO2-foam injection, leading to a total oil recovery factor of about 83%.