Tuning Foam Parameters for Mobility Control using CO2 Foam: Field Application to Maximize Oil Recovery from a High Temperature High Salinity Layered Carbonate Reservoir

Abstract

This paper investigates the reduction in gas mobility during the EOR (enhanced oil recovery) process of gas injection due to the presence of foam, thereby increasing sweep efficiency. The presented work is focused on developing a systematic approach to tune the CO2 foam parameters based on two separate core flooding experiments, the former conducted at variable foam qualities while the latter at a fixed foam quality. The paper discusses the experimental data required for the modeling of mobility control using CO2-foam for a high temperature, high salinity layered carbonate reservoir. An empirical foam model is used for parametric matching of laboratory data, and foam parameters are calculated and tuned. The key objective of the model is not only to match the measured apparent foam viscosity for varying foam qualities but also be able to capture the pressure drop measured for various experimental runs. The tuned foam model can be applied to field scale and design the injection strategy to maximize the oil ...