An Experimental and Modeling Study of Solvent-Bitumen Phase Behavior at Elevated Temperatures Using Cold Lake Bitumen

Abstract

Abstract Co-injection of CO2 or light hydrocarbons with steam in SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) process may enhance bitumen mobility and reduce Steam Oil Ratio (SOR). Understanding and modeling the phase behavior of solvent-bitumen system are essential for the development of in-situ processes for bitumen recovery. In this paper, an experimental and modeling study is undertaken to characterize the phase behavior of bitumen-CO2 and bitumen-C4 systems. Produced and dewatered oil from the Cenovus Osprey Pilot is used for the experiments. The Osprey Pilot produces oil from the Clearwater formation. Constant composition expansion (CCE) experiments are conducted for characterizing Clearwater bitumen, CO2-bitumen mixture, and C4-bitumen mixture. The Peng-Robinson equation of state (PR-EOS) is calibrated based on the measured data and used for PVT modeling. Multiphase equilibrium calculations are performed to predict the solubility of CO2 and C4 in the temperature range of 120 °C to180 °C. Further to that, dead oil viscosity measurements are conducted at similar temperature intervals to estimate oleic phase viscosity. According to the CCE tests and multiphase equilibrium calculations, C4 has much higher solubility in bitumen than CO2 at reservoir pressure of 580 psia (4,000 kpa) and temperature range of 120 °C to 180 °C. During the CCE tests, co-existence of three equilibrium phases is observed for the C4-bitumen system with 84 wt.% C4. The three phases consist of a solvent-lean (bitumen-rich) oleic phase (L1), gaseous phase (V) and a solvent-rich (bitumen-lean) oleic phase (L2). Compositional analysis of the samples from L1 and L2 phases shows that C4 can extract light hydrocarbon components from bitumen into L2 phase and preserve the heavy components in L1 phase. It is observed that the color of L2 phase becomes lighter by decreasing the pressure which may suggest extraction of lighter hydrocarbon components at lower pressures. Similar tests on the CO2-bitumen system only shows two effective phases over a similar temperature range. The two phases consist of a solvent-lean (bitumen-rich) oleic phase (L1) and a gaseous phase (V). By using the regressed EOS model, phase equilibrium regions are predicted in the compositional space for the solvent-bitumen system. EOS predictions indicate two types of two-phase regions in composition space for C4-bitumen system (i.e., L1-L2 in temperature range of 120 °C to 148 °C and L1-V in temperature range of 148 °C to180 °C). However, only one type of two-phase region (i.e., L1-V) exists in the similar temperature range for CO2-bitumen system. The EOS predictions show that 1.7 wt.% CO2 can reduce bitumen viscosity by up to 4 times, and 8.7 wt.% C4 can reduce bitumen viscosity by up to 32 times in temperature range of 120 °C to 180 °C.