Abstract
This work focuses on evaluating the effect of the steam quality on the upgrading and recovering extra-heavy crude oil in the presence and absence of two nanofluids. The nanofluids AlNi1 and AlNi1Pd1 consist of 500 mg·L−1 of alumina doped with 1.0% in mass fraction of Ni (AlNi1) and alumina doped with 1.0% in mass fraction of Ni and Pd (AlNi1Pd1), respectively, and 1000 mg·L−1 of tween 80 surfactant. Displacement tests are done in different stages, including (i) basic characterization, (ii) waterflooding, (iii) steam injection at 0.5 quality, (iv) steam injection at 1.0 quality, (v) batch injection of nanofluids, and (vi) steam injection after nanofluid injection at 0.5 and 1.0 qualities. The steam injection is realized at 210 °C, the reservoir temperature is fixed at 80 °C, and pore and overburden pressure at 1.03 MPa (150 psi) and 5.51 MPa (800 psi), respectively. After the steam injection at 0.5 and 1.0 quality, oil recovery is increased 3.0% and 7.0%, respectively, regarding the waterflooding stage, and no significant upgrade in crude oil is observed. Then, during the steam injection with nanoparticles, the AlNi1 and AlNi1Pd1 increase the oil recovery by 20.0% and 13.0% at 0.5 steam quality. Meanwhile, when steam is injected at 1.0 quality for both nanoparticles evaluated, no incremental oil is produced. The crude oil is highly upgraded for the AlNi1Pd1 system, reducing oil viscosity 99%, increasing the American Petroleum Institute (API)° from 6.9° to 13.3°, and reducing asphaltene content 50% at 0.5 quality. It is expected that this work will eventually help understand the appropriate conditions in which nanoparticles should be injected in a steam injection process to improve its efficiency in terms of oil recovery and crude oil quality.
Highlights
The Heavy (HO) and extra-heavy oil (EHO) reservoirs are targeted by non-thermal and thermal enhanced oil recovery technologies
Steam flooding is accomplished by bringing heat into the reservoir to unlock heavy oil recovery by reducing viscosity [9]
The results indicated that high temperature (245 ◦C) and the moderate value of steam quality (X = 0.5) give the best outcome regarding oil recovery by steam flooding in an economical way
Summary
The Heavy (HO) and extra-heavy oil (EHO) reservoirs are targeted by non-thermal and thermal enhanced oil recovery technologies. Steam flooding is accomplished by bringing heat into the reservoir to unlock heavy oil recovery by reducing viscosity [9]. It is well known that the steam quality and temperature affect the oil recovery from the steam flooding process, reducing the oil production by more than 50% when X = 0.5 [14]. Kirmani et al [11] developed a study in which the integration of injection temperature and steam quality upon steam flooding on oil recovery was done. The results indicated that high temperature (245 ◦C) and the moderate value of steam quality (X = 0.5) give the best outcome regarding oil recovery by steam flooding in an economical way. Under field conditions, it is not easy to achieve steam qualities higher than 80%; the performance of the technology is not as expected [13]
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