ECLIPSE Chemical EOR Modelling

2009.1

SIS Abingdon, UK
 ECLIPSE - EORs
• Black-oil (ECLIPSE 100)
– Polymer – new functionalities (2008.2 and 2009.1)
– Surfactant – new functionalities (micro-emulsion delayed )
– Foam – new functionalities (2008.1)
– Solvent
– Alkaline – 2009.1
– Low salinity – 2009.1

• Compositional (ECLIPSE 300)

– CO2 Injection (CO2SOL)

•UDA for Chemical EOR – 2009.1

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 ECLIPSE 100 - Polymer
Main Objective
Control the water mobility to reduce viscous fingering and improve the sweep of the
reservoir (oil mobility unaffected). Water is the polymer carrier
→ Target very heterogeneous reservoir

Capabilities
Viscosities model (modified Todd-Longstaff)
Polymer Adsorption – 2009.1: new generic analytical model
Permeability reduction – (new model to be added 2010.1 – UTChem like)
Dead pore volume – (2008.2: New model)
Shear thinning – 2008.1: Herschel-Bulkley model

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 Non-Newtonian behaviour
σ
µ =
γ&
Bingham plastic Herschel-Bulkley

Apparent viscosity
Bingham plastic
Pseudo plastic
Shear stress

(shear thinning) Shear thickening

Newtonian H-B

Shear thinning
µ
Dilatant Newtonian
(shear thickening)

Shear rate
Shear rate

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 Log K - layer from SPE10

Polymer shear thinning (2008.1)

(illustrative example)

standard polymer Shear thinning

n =1 to 0.6

Injection of polymer solution slugs

alternate with water injection.

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 Dead Pore Volume

New Model:
Chromatographic
effect more apparent

Pre-2008.2 model

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 ECLIPSE 100 – Surfactant
Main Objective
Reduce oil-water surface tension and change wettability towards more water-wet to
improve oil mobility. Water is the surfactant carrier (mainly Type II- )

Capabilities
Surface tension is a function of surfactant concentration
Miscible displacement: relative permeability going from immiscible to miscible as a
function of capillary number and surfactant concentration
Wettability change on kr (towards more water-wet as a function of adsorbed surfactant)
Partitioned tracer (allowing surfactant to dissolve in the oil using K-values)
Adsorption/desorption isotherms – 2009.1 new analytical model

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 ECLIPSE 100 – Solvent
Main Objective
To model mechanisms where injected fluids are miscible with the hydro-carbons in the
reservoir (e.g. high pressure gas, LPG slug, alcohol slug , CO2)

Capabilities
4-phase (water, oil, gas and solvent) or 3-phase (solvent fully mixed with oil or gas)
Immiscible to miscible transition handling (via user specified miscibility function)
Screening of high water saturation (in miscible gas drive residual oil is higher with
higher Sw)
Viscosities and densities mixing (Todd and Longstaff and 1/4th power mixing rule)
PVT, kr and cap pressure as functions of the miscibility pressure (user specified)
Needs more development to work with polymer and Gi Pseudo-Compositional (Gas
condensate and Volatile Oil).

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 ECLIPSE 100 – Foam
Main Objective:
To control gas mobility and slow down the breakthrough of injected gas or gas production.
Foam can now be transported in either gas or water phase (2008.1)

Capabilities
Foam adsorption: isotherm as a function of foam concentration (similar to surfactant)
Foam decay (function of oil and water saturations)
Gas mobility reduction
Shear effect (similar to polymer)
2008.1: New functional model

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 ECLIPSE 300 – CO2 (CO2SOL)
CO2 as an EOR agent
Reduce crude oil viscosity and increase in water viscosity
Swelling of crude oil and reduction of oil density
Acid effect on carbonate and shell rocks
Miscibility

Main Objective
To model the chemical reactivity between CO2 (as a critical fluid) and the liquid phases
(solubility of CO2 in the aqueous phase)

Capabilities
Modelling of the phase equilibrium between CO2 and the aqueous phase
Solubility of CO2 in the aqueous phase (viscosity and density in particular)
2008.1: Can be used with Asphaltene for precipitation modelling
2009.1: Flue Gas injection

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 ECLIPSE 100 Chemical EOR: New in 2009.1
Alkaline
Model 1: High pH Alkaline model for ASP: IFT, surf. and polym. adsorption, alkaline
adsorption (consumption)
Low Salinity flooding
Allowing w/o relative permeabilities to depend on salinity (SPE 102239)
UDA for smarter control injection
Allow to do ActionX based on what is happening in the reservoir (monitoring)
Keywords: WALKALIN,WPOLYMER,WSURFACT,WSOLVENT,WFOAM,WTRACER,WSALT,WAPI

Effective salinities for Polymer and Surfactant

Based on Ions exchange

Multi-Component brine
Allow the injection of different salt (hardness)

Generic Analytical Adsorption model

Linear/Langmuir/Freundlich and more … depends on rock permeability and salinity as
well if required.

Coupled solution for tracers

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 High pH Alkaline for ASP and UDAs Log K (layer 3 of SPE10)

(Illustrative example)

Alkaline

Surfactant conc. limit

Surfactant

Alkaline conc. limit

Polymer

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 Low salinity

Saturation end- S or = FS orL + (1 − F ) S orH

points scaling Scw = FScw
L
+ (1 − F ) Scw
H

k rw = Fk rw
L
+ (1 − F ) k rw
H
Relative perm.
Cap. pressure k ro = Fk roL + (1 − F )k roH
interp.
Pcow = F2 Pcow
L
+ (1 − F2 ) Pcow
H

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 Low salinity (Illustrative example)
Standard Brine

Low Salt

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Multi-Component Brine for EOR (1)
• Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer Flooding:
• Salt sensitive properties:
– Surfactant phase behavior
– Polymer/surfactant adsorption
– Phase densities and viscosities
• Properties depend on both brine salinity and hardness
• Current brine option assumes single salt
• We need a multi-component brine option
Multi-Component Brine for EOR (2)
Salts: e.g. NaCl + CaCl2
• Transport of multiple salts
• Cation exchange reactions with -
rock and surfactant Na Ca -
Ion exchange -
• Effective salinity for polymer Ca Na -
and surfactant properties
– Polymer/surfactant adsorption
– Surfactant-water-oil phase Effective salinity S

behavior
1-phase

3-phase
W O
Adsorption Phase behavior
Multi-Component Brine for EOR (3)
Ion Exchange Example Effective salinity

• Two salts: NaCl, CaCl2

• High salinity injection into low
salinity reservoir:
– Initial brine: [Na+]/[Ca++] = 0.2 Ca++ concentration

– Injection brine: [Na+]/[Ca++] = 50

Na+ conc.
Rock
associated Rock associated Ca++ concentration
Ca++ conc.
Ca++
conc.
Generic Adsorption Functions (1)
a ⋅ Cm
• Generalized analytic adsorption Cads = ,
1+ b ⋅ C
isotherm n
 K ref 
• Can be specialized to Linear, ( )
a = a1 + a2 ⋅ CSE ⋅  
 K 
Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms
• Dependence on concentration, brine
salinity and rock permeability
• Applicable to adsorption of
– Polymer
– Surfactant
– Foam
– Alkaline
– Environmental Tracers
Generic Adsorption Functions (2)
Surfactant Adsorption Example
Without Salinity Effect With Salinity Effect
(low adsorption) (high adsorption)

Effective
salinity

Surfactant
adsorption

Surfactant
concentration
Coupled Tracer Solution
• Standard approach:
– Tracers solved at end of time
step after primary equation set
– Explicit treatment of tracer
dependent properties
– Conditional stability with
respect to time step size
Example: Oil Sat.
Surfactant
effect on
residual oil Surfactant
Conc.
Coupled approach:
– Tracers solved in each Newton
iteration for the primary equations
– Tracer dependent properties
updated in each iteration
– Reduces time lag in tracer props.
– Unconditionally stable
Blue = standard
Red = coupled
∆t = 50 days
 EOR: X-Matrix
Low Salt Salt Polymer Polymer + Surfactan High pH Foam Solvent
(Brine) Brine t Alkaline
Low Salt √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

Salt (Brine) √ √ √ √ √ √ √

Polymer √ √ √ √ √ X

Polymer+ √ √ √ √ X
Brine
Surfactant √ √ √ √

High pH √ √ X
Alkaline
Foam √ √

Solvent √

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 EOR: H-Matrix
DPDK DPDK+LGR Flux
DPDK LGR Parallel X-Flow/MSW
+LGR +Parallel boundary

ok although
Polymer ok ok ok ok
case dependent
In progress Not implemented

ok although
Surfactant ok ok ok ok case dependent In progress In progress

ok ok ok ok ok although In progress In progress

Brine case dependent

ok although
Foam ok ok ok ok
case dependent
In progress In progress

ok although
Solvent ok ok ok ok case dependent In progress In progress

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