Heavy Oil Recovery: A Cold Process Using CO<sub>2</sub>-EOR Technique

Abstract

Owing to substantial improvement in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies and significant decline in discovery of light and medium crude oil fields, the heavy oil development is progressively receiving considerable attention to fill the supply gap. Cold heavy oil production (CHOP) using captured carbon dioxide (CO2)-EOR technique was investigated using the state-of-the-art Integrated Product Modelling packages of Petroleum Experts as part of the Well Engineering Research Group unconventional oil reservoir management studies being undertaken at Robert Gordon University. Beyond ascertaining the feasibility of the CHOP using CO2-EOR, the objectives of the investigation were to establish the process requirements at the onshore facilities based on series of parametric studies and to enhance the understanding of the subsea integrated injection and production systems during the injection process. The injection system consisted of an injection well connected to a 240 km subsea pipeline transporting CO2 from an onshore compression station. The production system included a topside separator connected to the production well via a 2km riser. A broad range of reservoir production history was used and the simulation results indicate that heavy oil displacement was easily achievable under miscible conditions (i.e. high reservoir pressure), but the production trend was strongly influenced by the reservoir characteristics (i.e. GOR, WC, Pressure).