The effect of pressure and porous media structural parameters coupling on gas apparent viscosity.

Abunumah, Ofasa; Ogunlude, Priscilla; Gobina, Edward

Abstract

Crude oil production is still considered a significant contributor to global energy security. To improve oil production, gases such as CH4, N2, Air and CO2 are injected into oil reservoirs in a process called gas Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Authors have used several engineering, geological and geometrical quantities to characterise oil reservoirs and evaluate immiscible gas EOR processes. Viscosity is one of such critical engineering quantities. However, the relationships between viscosity and structural parameters, such as porosity, pore size, and aspect ratio, have not been directly investigated in the literature. This paper investigated the coupling effect of pressure and structural parameters on the apparent viscosity of EOR gases in reservoir pore matrix through rigorous data mining and experimental approaches. The data mining analyses demonstrated that EOR reservoirs are characterized by viscosity and porosity. The experimental investigation indicated that the viscosity of injected EOR gases increases with pressure and pore size, decreases with porosity, and initially decreases before increasing with aspect ratio. The study concluded that CO2 is the most influenced by porosity, and CH4 is the least. Furthermore, N2 is the most responsive to pore size and aspect ratio, while CH4 is the least responsive.

Citation

ABUNUMAH, O., OGUNLUDE, P. and GOBINA, E. 2021. The effect of pressure and porous media structural parameters coupling on gas apparent viscosity. In Proceedings of the ICANM 2021: 8th International conference and exhibition on advanced and nanomaterials 2021 (ICANM 2021), 9-11 August 2021, [virtual conference]. Ontario: ICANM, pages 42-46.

• Conference Name: 8th International conference and exhibition on advanced and nanomaterials 2021 (ICANM 2021)
• Conference Location: [virtual conference]
• Start Date: Aug 9, 2021
• End Date: Aug 11, 2021
• Acceptance Date: Jul 14, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Aug 11, 2021
• Publication Date: Aug 11, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 13, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2021
• Publisher: International Academy of Energy, Minerals and Materials (IAEMM)
• Pages: 42-46
• Book Title: Proceedings of the ICANM 2021: 8th International conference and exhibition on advanced and nanomaterials 2021 (ICANM2021)
• Keywords: Viscosity; Reservoir characterisation; Porosity; Pore size; EOR gases
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1427964