Three-Dimensional Visualization of Oil Displacement by Foam in Porous Media

Abstract

Foam Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has been employed as an improved recovery method due to its best sweep efficiency and best mobility control over the other injection method such as gas flooding, water flooding and other EOR methods. Foam which has high viscosity illustrates great potential for displacing liquid. The relative immobility of foam in porous media seems to be able to suppress the formation of fingers during oil displacement leading a more stable displacement. However, there are still various parameters that may influence the efficiency of foam assisted oil displacement such as oil properties, permeability of reservoir rock, physical and chemical properties of foam, and other parameters. Also, the interaction and displacement patterns of foam inside the porous media are remained unknown. Thus, in this study, we investigated the three-dimensional (3D) characteristics of oil recovery with gases, water, surfactant, and foam injection in a porous media set-up. By using CT scanning machine, the fluid displacement patterns were captured and analyzed. Moreover, the effect of oil viscosity on foam displacement patterns is studied. The study provides a qualitative and quantitative experimental visualization of 3D displacement structure, oil recovery with gases, liquid and foam injection. As a result, the comparison of fluid displacement patterns between gases, water, surfactant and foam injection show that foam has the good ability in sweeping and forms stable displacement front. The combination of surfactant, liquid and gas, which makes up foam resulted in a synergistic effect in oil displacement. On the other hand, viscous fingering, gravity segregation, trapped oil phenomena are shown in gas flooding and liquid flooding experiments. Thus, foam which displaced stably across the permeable bed resulted in the highest oil recovery factor. The mechanism of foam flow in porous media was understood in this study. Foam, as a series of bubble, burst and become free moving liquid and gas particles when in contact with oil and porous media. Therefore, two displacement fronts could be found from the foam injection experiment, in which the front layer moving ahead in contacting with oil bank is the discontinuous gas/liquid layer and followed by stably foam bank at the back. Due to the stable displacement of foam bank, the effect of oil viscosity on foam displacement is suppressed and showed no distinction in terms of displacement patterns. The flow regimes are found to be the same despite different viscosity of displaced oil. There has been no linear correlation proved between the oil viscosity and oil recovery factor.