The Experimental Investigation of Nitrogen and Carbon Dioxide Water-alternating-gas Injection in a Carbonate Reservoir

Abstract

Floods were conducted using rock–fluid systems consisting of carbonate cores from Binak reservoir, which is located in southwest of Iran, oil and brine. The coreflood protocol consisted of a series of steps including brine saturation, absolute permeability determination, flooding with oil to initial oil saturation, endpoint oil permeability determination, and, finally, nitrogen and carbon dioxide water-alternating-gas (WAG) injections. The effect of slug size on oil recovery was investigated using immiscible nitrogen (N2) WAG injection and the amount of oil recovered was compared with continuous injection of N2. Experimental results show that ultimate oil recovery is not very sensitive to changing the slug sizes for N2 WAG injection, although the slug size of 0.15 pore volume (PV) injection is better than others. As less PV is injected, a higher oil production rate is achieved. Also, N2 WAG flood appeared to be better in performance than continuous gas injection (CGI) of nitrogen. Carbon dioxide (CO2) injection was performed in three modes, including CGI, WAG injection, and hybrid WAG. Experimental results show that for optimization of oil recovery in CO2 floods, a continuous gas slug of 0.4–0.5 PV followed by 1:1 WAG needs to be injected.