Using Phase surfaces to Describe Condensing-Gas-Drive Experiments

Abstract

Stalkup, Fred I., Junior Member AIME, The Atlantic Refining Co., Dallas, Tex. Abstract Vapor-liquid phase equilibrium experiments have been conducted in a static equilibrium cell on mixtures of a light, 450 API stock-tank gravity reservoir fluid and a rich hydrocarbon gas containing approximately 55 mole per cent of intermediate hydrocarbons. Both a pressure-vs-composition study of the gas and a simulated reservoir fluid, and a multiple-batch contact simulation of the condensing-gas-drive oil recovery process were performed. In the latter experiments equilibrium gas and liquid compositions were analyzed. Also, conventional, "condensing-gas-drive", long-tube displacement experiments of the reservoir fluid and gases of various richness were performed. The results of these experiments could not be satisfactorily interpreted by the conventional pseudo-ternary-diagram representation of multicomponent phase behavior. The results seem to be explained better by considering a bubble-point surface and a dew-point surface joined in a plait-point locus. Portions of the plait-point locus cannot be "seen" directly by the rich hydrocarbon gas because of curvature of the dew-point surface. In such a system, continuous injection of the rich gas over stationary reservoir fluid might form a zone of contiguously miscible compositions from pure rich gas to pure reservoir fluid by:saturating the reservoir fluid with injected gas to the bubble-point surface;creating by mass transfer with fresh injected gas a path of contiguously miscible compositions along the bubble-point surface to the plait-point locus; andcreating by mass transfer with additional injected gas a path of gas compositions along the dew-point surface up to the point where direct miscibility results between dew-point fluid and the injected rich gas. Introduction The use of the pseudo-ternary-phase diagram to illustrate miscible displacement phase behavior has been discussed by several authors. Such a representation of phase behavior is not rigorous, but the ternary diagram nevertheless gives a qualitative picture of what actually occurs in a miscible displacement process. Fig. 1 is a typical illustration of miscible displacement phase behavior by a ternary diagram. The multicomponent hydrocarbon system is divided into three pseudo-components: a light fraction containing methane and nitrogen, an intermediate fraction containing ethane through hexanes plus carbon dioxide, and a heavy fraction containing heptane and heavier components. A two-phase region is bounded by a dew-point curve and a bubble-point curve, which are joined at the critical point. The concept deduced from such a representation for miscible displacement by a condensing-gas-drive process is as follows: a rich gas G, which lies to the right of the limiting tie line through the critical point C, is injected into the reservoir and contacts reservoir fluid L, saturating the reservoir fluid to give bubble-point fluid L1 and equilibrium dew-point gas G1. Continued injection of rich gas changes the composition of the saturated liquid L1 through a series of liquid compositions lying along the bubble-point curve, until the critical composition C is reached, at which point direct miscibility with the rich gas is achieved. Some equilibrium gas with compositions lying along the dew-point curve from G1 to C is also formed in this process. SPEJ P. 184ˆ