Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is an important method for heavy oil production, and solvent vapor extraction (VAPEX) process is also an economically feasible, technically reliable, and environmentally friendly in-situ heavy oil recovery methods. In the past 20 years, many researchers have studied the chamber difference and production effect between SAGD and VAPEX. However, the flooding mechanism and residual oil distribution of the two methods are still unclear.In this paper, a microscopic visual flooding device was used, and the heavy oil sample from the MacKay River reservoir in Canada was selected to carry out seven groups of visual flooding experiments including hot water, steam, liquid solvent and vapor solvent under different temperatures. During the displacement process, the influence of hot water, steam, liquid solvent and vapor solvent on the formation and distribution of residual oil were compared, and the sweep efficiency, displacement efficiency and final recovery factor of each experiment were analyzed.The results shows that the sweep efficiency and displacement efficiency of hot water, steam and solvent increase with the rising of temperature, and the sweep efficiency of hot water is higher than that of steam and liquid solvent. Vapor solvent has the greatest sweep range, reaching about 90%, due to its strong diffusion capability, and well dissolution in crude oil. Meanwhile, the flooding efficiency of the solvent is much higher than that of steam and hot water, and is greater than 85%. In addition, it can be directly observed that the residual oil in the hot water swept area is general "strip" distribution, the residual oil after steam flooding is general "cluster" distribution, the residual oil after liquid solvent flooding is "thin film" distribution, while there is only a little "solitary dot" residual oil distribution after vapor solvent flooding. The final recovery factor of vapor solvent is 88.7%, which is better than that of liquid solvent, steam and hot water. It shows that the future research of solvent extraction technology should be more inclined to thermal VAPEX.Overall, this study reveals the formation and distribution of residual oil under visual flooding experiments between SAGD and VAPEX, and hints the future development trend of solvent injection. The experimental results support the foundation of more general application pertaining to sustainable productions in unconventional petroleum resources.

Visual Flooding Experiment of Hot Water, Steam and Solvent Under Sagd and Vapex Conditions

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/OMAE/OMAE2021/volume/85116

OMAE 2021

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