Abstract

One of the most important tasks in Petroleum Engineering is a reservoir characterization. A good knowledge of the properties of the reservoirs is essential for reliable production forecasts and the application of special methods of secondary recovery. A very useful tool for this purpose is the numerical simulation of oil reservoirs, which through the application of numerical methods allows for the solution of complex differential equations by nature. This paper deals with the computational modeling of foam injection in oil reservoirs using the Eclipse® software. The main objective of this research is to understand what the parameters that maximize the increase of the oil recovery factor retained in the pore space after using conventional methods are. Foam is injected from the surface into a reservoir of 8.400 feet deep containing oil viscosity which is dependent on the pressure, this oil is conducted to the surface through a production well. Both wells are completed over the entire thickness of the formation of interest. Equations that express the detailed model and the foam are discretized together with the governing equations of the fluid flow. Comparisons at different foam concentration are shown for light, intermediate and heavy oils. Results show that there is a direct correlation between the concentration of the displacing fluid foam and the oil recovery factor. Note also that a critical concentration c* foam is evidenced with direct influence on the efficiency of the process.

Abstract

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to present an overview of some numerical procedures for the simulation of free surface flows within a porous structure. A particular algorithm developed by the authors for solving this type of problems is presented. A modified form of the classical Navier–Stokes equations is proposed, with the principal aim of simulating in a unified way the seepage flow inside rockfill-like porous material and the free surface flow in the clear fluid region. The problem is solved using a semi-explicit stabilized fractional step algorithm where velocity is calculated using a 4th order Runge–Kutta scheme. The numerical formulation is developed in an Eulerian framework using a level set technique to track the evolution of the free surface. An edge-based data structure is employed to allow an easy OpenMP parallelization of the resulting finite element code. The numerical model is validated against laboratory experiments on small scale rockfill dams and is compared with other existing methods for solving similar problems.

Abstract