Air Foam Injection for EOR in Light Oil Reservoirs with High Heterogeneity

In this paper, we research the blocking effect of air foam, oxidation of oil-air foam and air foam enhanced recovery by experiments. The results show the more injected air foam, the stronger the sealing capacity, but increment trend changes slow. Beside, high-pressure, low-temperature can enhance the sealing capacity of the air foam. Temperature is the principal factor which can influence crude oil-air-foam oxidizing reaction. The reaction rate increases with increase of temperature. What is more, the rise of pressure can accelerate the oxidation response in a certain extent. The air-foam has the good oil displacement efficiency. In the heterogeneous reservoir, air foam injection can seal of high permeable zones, enhances sweep efficiency and is propitious to achieve the low temperature oxidation.