UNDERSTANDING OF MICROBUBBLE CO2 INJECTION MECHANISM TROUGH SLIM-TUBE SIMULATION AND PHYSICAL PROPERTY CHANGES

• Main Author: PRAMANA SUWIDYA PUTRA (NIM : 12213030 ), G
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/22299
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

There are already many methods of enhanced oil recovery around the world, one of the most famous is carbon dioxide (CO2) injection. In practice, carbon dioxide (CO2) is effective to be an injector in enhance oil recovery. There are three main reasons for CO2 injection as one of the best EOR in miscible condition. The first one is oil swelling that makes oil saturation increased and also the relative permeability, make it easier to move. Second, decrease the viscosity value of oil because CO2 will be dissolved in the oil. And the last one is because CO2 could overcome the interfacial tension because the injection is in the miscibility situation. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> For a country like Indonesia, there is a big problem to use the CO2 as an injection method. Indonesia has many old fields that is operated in low pressure, it will be very hard to do EOR in miscibility situation where the injection has to be above the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP). CO2 injection in form of microbubble CO2 might be possible to be the answer. Microbubble is a very small form of CO2 molecules, this very form will make CO2 easier to be dissolved in the oil, because it doesn’t need to operate above the MMP. On the other hand, it still needs a study regarding the property of microbubble CO2 and how it will affect the property in reservoir. In this study, a commercial software will be used to make a slim-tube reservoir model. That model will be used to determine the difference of parameter, specially PVT, between normal bubble and microbubble in simulation. Defining the change of value will be referring to reference data and laboratory data, especially in mean saturation of CO2 with total injection volume. Two main parameters that will be discussed are component parachor and acentric factor. Component parachors is the parameter to adjust the effect of increase in mobility by reduce the weight but not change the molecular weight to make sure the fluid reservoir remains the same. The acentric factor will be the parameter to adjust the sweeping efficiency by very small bubble that decrease the diameter of molecule which means the molecule is more spherical. Both of the parameters adjustment will be mainly in PVT property. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> From the simulation, could be determined that changing component parachor will increase mean CO2 saturation around 3% and changing acentric factor will increase mean CO2 saturation around 7%. The result of simulation also shows that the microbubble injection is 20% slower in sweeping speed from injection point to production point than a normal bubble. Because of that, the sweeping uniformity of CO2 will be higher, like said in laboratory research before (Xue et al, 2014). <br />