Miscible and Immiscible Foam Injection for Mobility Control and EOR in Fractured Oil-Wet Carbonate Rocks

Abstract

Foam injection is a proven enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique for heterogeneous reservoirs, but is less studied for EOR in fractured systems. We experimentally investigated tertiary \(\text {CO}_{2}\) injections, and \(\text {N}_{2}\)- and \(\text {CO}_{2}\)-foam injections for enhanced oil recovery in fractured, oil-wet limestone core plugs. Miscible \(\text {CO}_{2}\) and \(\text {CO}_{2}\)-foam was compared with immiscible \(\text {CO}_{2}\)- and \(\text {N}_{2}\)-foam as tertiary recovery techniques, subsequent to waterfloods, in fractured rocks with different wettability preferences. At water-wet conditions waterfloods produced approximately 40 % OOIP, by spontaneous imbibition. Waterflood oil recovery at oil-wet conditions was below 20 % OOIP, due to suppressed imbibition where water predominantly flowed through the fractures, unable to mobilize the oil trapped in the matrix. Tertiary, supercritical \(\text {CO}_{2}\)-mobilized oil trapped in the matrix, particularly at weakly oil-wet conditions, by diffusion. Recovery by diffusion was high due to small core samples, high initial oil saturation and a continuous oil phase at oil-wet conditions. Both immiscible \(\text {CO}_{2}\)- and \(\text {N}_{2}\)-foams and miscible, supercritical \(\text {CO}_{2}\)-foam demonstrated high ultimate oil recoveries, but immiscible foam was less efficient (30 pore volumes injected) compared to miscible foam (2 pore volumes injected) to reach ultimate recovery. This is explained by the capillary threshold pressure preventing the injected \(\text {N}_{2}\) gas from entering the matrix, verified by computed X-ray tomography, and the mobilized oil was displaced by the aqueous surfactant in the foam. At miscible conditions, there exists no capillary entry pressure between the oil-saturated matrix and the injected \(\text {CO}_{2}\), allowing foam to invade the matrix for efficient oil recovery.