Effect of water saturation on CO2 minimum miscibility pressure and oil displacement performance

Abstract

The CO2 miscible flooding is an effective technology for development of low permeability reservoirs due to high oil displacement efficiency. However, CO2 miscible flooding for tertiary recovery technology typically occur after water flooding. Water hindered the contact and mass transfer of CO2 and oil, produce water resistance effect. Water can block CO2 and contact and mass transfer of crude oil (ie water blocking effect). The impact of this effect on the miscibility pressure and oil displacement effect is still unclear. In this study, homogeneous artificial cores with the same permeability as the reservoir were designed according to the miscible mechanism. Subsequently, the minimum miscibility pressure(MMP) between CO2 and crude oil at different water saturation was measured by the coreflood test. Based on the MMP, CO2 miscible flooding experiments were conducted by natural cores at different water saturation. The results showed that when the water saturation was 30%, 45%, and 60%, respectively, the corresponding MMP between CO2 and crude oil was 18.56, 19.48, and 21.76 MPa. The higher the water saturation, the longer the gas breakthrough time. But the oil recovery factor did not rise with the increase of water saturation. When the water saturation was 45%, the oil recovery factor in the miscible flooding experiment was the highest. In addition, the higher the water saturation, the weaker the CO2 extraction of various components in the crude oil. And the light components below C5 were most affected by water saturation. The mechanisms underlying these results are discussed. This study contributes to the development of CO2 miscible flooding reservoir plan.