A LABORATORY STUDY OF CLAY SWELLING PROBLEM IN CO2 EOR BY CARBONIC ACID INJECTION IN CLAY SANDSTONE

sugeng riyono; Aditya Pramada Wicaksono; Lutfi Andhika; Iqbal Fauzi; Billal Maydika Aslam; Rafael Purba; Handita Reksi; Hasian P. Septoratno Siregar

doi:10.29017/SCOG.40.3.52

A LABORATORY STUDY OF CLAY SWELLING PROBLEM IN CO2 EOR BY CARBONIC ACID INJECTION IN CLAY SANDSTONE

sugeng riyono, Aditya Pramada Wicaksono, Lutfi Andhika, Iqbal Fauzi, Billal Maydika Aslam, Rafael Purba, Handita Reksi, Hasian P. Septoratno Siregar

Abstract

Signifi cant portion of CO2 is dissolved in reservoir brine during CO2-Enhanced Oil Recovery. Dissolved CO2 forms an acidic environment which could modify rock-fluid interaction. One of the phenomena that could happen due to this interaction is clay swelling which may affect enhanced oil recovery performance. Several experiments were conducted in a number of sandstone core samples, i.e. Imbibition test, Core flood test, Conductivity test, and pH measurement. Imbibition test was conducted to evaluate CO2-saturated brine (approached with carbonic acid) performance toward oil recovery during five days measurement compared with brine imbibition performance. Moreover, core flood experiment was run to determine the effect of dissolved CO2 in brine on injection in sandstone. This is simulated by injecting brine (base case) followed by carbonic acid under 68.3OC. Thus, conductivity and pH of the imbibed fluids (before & after running imbibition test) were measured to justify occurrence of cation exchange. Interpretation of imbibition test indicated that imbibing carbonic acid, at pH value of about four, resulted in loss of oil recovery about 15% compared with brine due to formation damage, caused by clay swelling as sandstone contains clay. The existence of this phenomenon was confirmed by flow resistance at low pH in core sample which was higher than that in brine. This apparent plugging was expected due to severe clay swelling. Meanwhile, the existence of such phenomenon was also clarified with conductivity and pH measurement as there was a great amount of cation exchange. It can be inferred from this study that the rock-fluid interaction from CO2-saturated brine can result in adverse effect, such as injectivity problem and loss of recovery. This finding must be considered in planning CO2 EOR operations, especially when facing condition of watered out oil zone.

Keywords

CO2-saturated brine; acidic environment; clay swelling; injectivity issue

Full Text:

PDF

References

Bando S, Takemura F, Nishito M, Hikara E, Akai M. Solubility of CO2 in aqueous solution of NaCl at (30 to 60) OC and (10 to 20) MPa. Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data 2003; 48:576-579.

Civan, Faruk. 2000. Reservoir Formation Damage (Fundamentals, Modelling, Assessment, and Mitigation). Houston, Texas: Gulf Publishing Company.

Duan, Zhenhao, Rui Sun, Chen Zhu, and I-Ming Chou. 2005. An Improved Model for The Calculation of CO2 Solubility in Aqueous Solutions Containing Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl-, and SO4 2-. ELSEVIER.

Gangopadhyay S. 2013. Engineering Geology. Oxford University Press India.

Grim, R.E. 1953. Clay Mineralogy. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co.

Grim, R.E. 1968. Clay Mineralogy. International Series in the Earth and Platenary Science. F. Press, ed. New York: McGraw Hill Book.

Green, D.W. and Willhite, G.W.. 1998. Enhanced Oil Recovery. Texas: Henry L. Doherty Memorial Fund of AIME, Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Hendrick S.B., Jefferson, M.E. 1938. Structure of Kaolin and Talc Pyrophyllite Hydrate Sand their Bearing on Water Sorption of The Clay. Am. Mineral. 23,863 875.

Iglauer, S. et al. 2014. Permeability Evolution in Sandstone due to Injection of CO2-saturated Brine or Supercritical CO2 at Reservoir Condition. Australia, Curtin University: Australia.

Karpinski B, M Szkodo. 2015. Clay Minerals Mineralogy and Phenomenon of Clay Swelling in Oil & Gas Industry. Poland: Gdansk University of Technology.

Nasralla, Ramez A, Mohammed B Alotaibi, Hisham A, Nasr-El Din, Texas A&M University, all SPE Members. 2011. Effi ciency of Oil Recovery by Low Salinity Water Flooding in Sandstine Reservoir. This paper was presented at the SPE Western North American Regional Meeting, in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 7 11 May 2011. Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Otaibi, Al, Fawaz M, Al Khaidi, Mohammed H, Funk, Jim J, Shen, Shouwen X, Saudi Aramco. 2012. New Insights into Clay Swelling: Supercritical CO2 Interaction with Montmorillonite. This paper was presented at the Eighteenth SPE Improved Oil recovery Symposium held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, 14 18 April 2012. Society Petroleum Engineers.

Schaeff HT, McGrail BP. Direct Measurement of pH in H2O CO2 brine mixtures to supercritical conditions. Proceedings of the 7th International Conferrence on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-7), Vancouver, Canada, 2004.

Sigfusson B, Gislason SR, Matter JM, Stute M, Gunnlaugsson E, Gunnarsson I, Aradottir ES, Sigurdadottir H, Mesfi n K, Alfredsson HA, Wolf-Boenisch D, Arnarson MT, Oelkelrs EH. 2015. Solving the carbon-dioxide buoyancy challenge; The design and fi eld testing of a dissolved CO2 injection system. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, in press.

Tombacz, Etelka and Marta Szekenes. 2006. Surface Charge Heterogeneity of Kaolinite in Aqueous Suspension in Comparison with Montmorillonite. Hungary: ELSEVIER.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.29017/SCOG.40.3.52