Study on the Law of Enhancing CO2 Displacement Effect and Reducing Oil-Gas Miscible Pressure by Surfactant
摘要
Carbon dioxide drive technology is seen as one of the most promising strategies for enhancing oil recovery from unconventional reservoirs. However, achieving the miscible process of CO2 under typical reservoir conditions faces major challenges. In highly porous formations, oil-gas contact usually leads to a limitation of the interaction, resulting in minimal solubility of carbon dioxide in the crude oil. This solubility limitation hampers the potential benefits of CO2, especially in terms of its contribution to volume expansion and viscosity generation. In addition, the failure to extract lighter hydrocarbons in a timely manner has also become a problem. Therefore, the formation of effective displacement front is particularly critical, and premature breakthrough will result in the ultimate recovery rate failing to reach the expected goal. To solve these problems, researchers have proposed the use of surfactants as materials to reduce the interfacial tension between different media. This paper focuses on the generation of miscible pressure between carbon dioxide and crude oil, and evaluates the interfacial tension between crude oil and surfactant solution by rotating drop method. The experimental design included measurements of interfacial tension at 70 ℃ and atmospheric pressure, as well as high temperature and high pressure microfluidic experiments in the pressure range of 100 ℃ and 20 to 50 MPa. The experimental results show that the interfacial tension of oil and gas can be effectively reduced by adding 0.3% surfactants to crude oil. In addition, the increase of injection pressure can enhance the solubility of carbon dioxide in crude oil, thus promoting the formation of miscible phase, further conducive to the extraction of more light hydrocarbons, and ultimately improve the oil displacement efficiency. This dual interaction reduces the polarity difference between crude oil and carbon dioxide, resulting in a reduction in interfacial tension. On a macro level, the mixing of oil, gas and surfactants formed a miscible oil displacement front, significantly accelerated the diffusion rate of carbon dioxide, and improved the mass transfer kinetics and extraction rate at the oil-gas interface. In addition, this method significantly reduces the miscible pressure of carbon dioxide in the crude oil, which significantly improves the utilization rate of the crude oil.