Minimum miscibility pressure of CO2 and crude oil during CO2 injection in the reservoir

Abstract

Recently, carbon dioxide (CO2) flooding into depleted reservoirs regardless of miscible or immiscible displacement is widely investigated not only to improve oil recovery but also to reduce the greenhouse effect of this gas produced by numbers of industries in the globe. In the light of this fact, in the first stage of this investigation, the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) of CO2 and light crude oil (API°=35) with low asphaltene content was determined at temperatures of 30, 50 and 80°C using vanishing interfacial tension (VIT) method. The obtained results demonstrated that the MMP of the studied system is almost linear function of temperature with slope of 0.15MPa/K. The interesting point is that the results revealed a reduction in slope as the composition of light components of crude oil increases.