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Key Technologies of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "H1: Petroleum Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 8879

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Riyaz Kharrat

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Guest Editor

Department of Petroleum Engineering, Montanuniversität Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria
Interests: enhanced oil recovery; water flooding; fractured reservoirs; carbonated reservoirs; reservoir characterization; reservoir modeling and simulation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A significant number of reservoirs that contribute greatly to global petroleum production are fractured carbonate reservoirs. These reservoirs are complex in structure, and their rock lithology and fracture characteristics significantly influence fluid flow behavior. A good understanding of the reservoir characteristics and the capabilities of the fractures and matrix in providing the storage capacity and the fluid flow pathways can significantly improve the efficiency of the primary recovery process and the selection process for suitable secondary or enhanced oil recovery processes.

Due to the poor recovery from these multiscale heterogeneous reservoirs, fractured carbonate reservoirs are always targeted for production boosting and recovery improvement by secondary and tertiary recovery modes. The injected fluids and strategies in both recovery modes aim to improve the recovery mechanisms from the matrix blocks by diffusion, spontaneous imbibition, and/or gravity drainage.

The application of emerging technologies can enhance oil recovery efficiency and environmental friendliness to a certain extent, which is welcome in hard-to-recover areas such as highly heterogeneous fractured reservoirs.

Through research on EOR technologies, combined with advanced reservoir characterization and simulation processing schemes, multichannel EOR technologies are being developed to realize the systematic, intelligent, and cost-effective development of fractured carbonate reservoirs.

The Guest Editor is inviting submissions to a Special Issue of Energies on the subject area of “Key Technologies of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs”. Characterization and advanced EOR techniques are important for efficient recovery from fractured carbonate reservoirs. There have been many emerging techniques for improving recovery production techniques for these types of reservoirs in recent years. Moreover, fracture characterization and reservoir simulation methods are interesting topics for researchers.

This Special Issue will deal with novel technologies of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in fractured carbonate reservoirs. Topics of interest for publication include but are not limited to:

Reservoir characterization
Reservoir simulation
Water-based EOR
Chemical-based EOR
Gas-based EOR

Prof. Dr. Riyaz Kharrat
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

carbonate reservoirs
fractured reservoirs
enhanced oil recovery
reservoir characterization
reservoir simulation
computation and modeling

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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39 pages, 2440 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Review of Wettability Alteration by Spontaneous Imbibition Using Low-Salinity Water in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs

by Marzhan Karimova, Razieh Kashiri, Peyman Pourafshary and Randy Hazlett

Energies 2023, 16(5), 2373; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16052373 - 1 Mar 2023

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2675

Abstract

Analysis of fluid flow in naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs), as a highly heterogeneous and complex system, requires a detailed study of the fracture-matrix interactions. The main process of fluid movement between the fracture and matrix is spontaneous imbibition (SI), which can occur in co/countercurrent fluid flow states. In addition, most carbonate rocks are fractured and non-water-wet, which can lead to low oil recovery. Wettability greatly affects the performance of the SI process. Injection of water or chemicals can be insufficient because fluids mostly pass through highly permeable fractures and lead to early breakthrough. Therefore, the wettability alteration mechanism should be applied in NFRs, and low-salinity water (LSW) injection is considered an effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) approach. In this review, experimental and numerical studies of co/counter-imbibition are analyzed to show the importance of investigating the fracture-matrix interactions. In addition, the review shows the wettability effect on imbibition in fractured rocks. The review of experimental studies of LSW imbibition in fractured carbonates shows the possibilities for implementing an EOR method. However, the wettability alteration process during SI using LSW has not yet been studied, and no simulation models of co/countercurrent flows have yet been provided. Based on this review, more experimental studies are recommended to duplicate co/countercurrent imbibition using LSW. Advanced techniques such as CT scanning, MRI, and NTI can be used to reveal fluid distribution. Using experimental data, numerical models can be developed to characterize dynamic wettability alteration during co/countercurrent imbibition. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Key Technologies of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs)

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24 pages, 5064 KiB

Open AccessArticle

In Situ Combustion of Heavy Oil within a Vuggy Carbonate Reservoir: Part I—Feasibility Study

by Rita Fazlyeva, Matthew Ursenbach, Donald Mallory, Sudarshan (Raj) Mehta, Alexey Cheremisin, Gordon Moore and Mikhail Spasennykh

Energies 2023, 16(5), 2233; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16052233 - 25 Feb 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1383

Abstract

Worldwide, the known recoverable heavy oil and bitumen reserves make up more than 64% of the total reserves, of which more than 60% are trapped in carbonates. Air injection has immense potential for hydrocarbon recovery from various reservoirs. While most of the successful air-based techniques are performed within carbonate reservoirs containing light oil, theoretically, in situ combustion (ISC) has also shown great potential for recovering heavy oil and bitumen. Carbonates are complex in terms of geology and are often associated with fractures and vugs that affect the fluid flow, pressure propagation and progression of the ISC reactions. This paper describes the first experiment in which the triple-porosity concept was applied to simulate heterogeneity through artificially induced vugs, core matrix and fractures. This approach was used to study the feasibility of the ISC recovery technique for heavy oil (14° API) within a dolomite reservoir using a combustion tube (CT) in an experiment performed at 1740 psig. The combustion front advanced through 78% of the core length prior to the termination of air injection, producing 80% of the initial oil. To differentiate between the various sources of the CO₂ gas (a product of carbonate decomposition vs. the combustion reaction) the atomic ratios of (CO₂ + CO)/CO = 6 and (CO₂ + CO)/N₂ = 0.21 were applied. Additionally, partial upgrading of the produced heavy oil was observed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Key Technologies of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs)

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23 pages, 1447 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Workflows to Optimally Select Undersaturated Oil Viscosity Correlations for Reservoir Flow Simulations

by Sofianos Panagiotis Fotias, Andreas Georgakopoulos and Vassilis Gaganis

Energies 2022, 15(24), 9320; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15249320 - 8 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1123

Abstract

Undersaturated oil viscosity is one of the most important PVT parameters to be measured and/or predicted in a fluid sample. Since direct experimental measurements are expensive and time-costly, prediction methods are essential. In this work, viscosity data from more than five hundred fluid reports are utilized, and all correlation methods available in the literature and implemented in commercial software for reservoir and production engineering calculations, including fracked systems, are evaluated against the dataset. The results of this work are intended to set up workflows that give insight as to which method should be selected when running flow simulations, with emphasis on complex simulations such as in the case of EOR. The developed workflows provide the optimal choice of the viscosity correlation for the case of distinct viscosity ranges, as well as when overall performance is sought. A surprising result is that one of the oldest known correlations from the literature gives the best results (minimizes average absolute relative error) when tested against this large dataset. This may be attributed to the high locality that alternative correlations exhibit, which makes them generalize poorly. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Key Technologies of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs)

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Review

Jump to: Research

16 pages, 2396 KiB

Open AccessReview

A Comprehensive Review of Fracture Characterization and Its Impact on Oil Production in Naturally Fractured Reservoirs

by Riyaz Kharrat and Holger Ott

Energies 2023, 16(8), 3437; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16083437 - 13 Apr 2023

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2722

Abstract

Naturally fractured reservoirs are indescribable systems to characterize and difficult to produce and forecast. For the development of such reservoirs, the role of naturally forming fractures in the different development stages needs to be recognized, especially for the pressure maintenance and enhanced oil recovery stages. Recent development in the field of naturally carbonate fractured aimed at fracture characterization, fracture modeling, and fracture network impact of fracture networks on oil recovery were reviewed. Consequently, fracture identification and characterization played pivotal roles in understanding production mechanisms by integrating multiple geosciences sources and reservoir engineering data. In addition, a realistic fracture modeling approach, such as a hybrid, can provide a more accurate representation of the behavior of the fracture and, hence, a more realistic reservoir model for reservoir production and management. In this respect, the influence of different fracture types present in the reservoir, such as major, medium, minor, and hairline fractures networks, and their orientations were found to have different rules and impacts on oil production in the primary, secondary, and EOR stages. In addition, any simplification or homogenization of the fracture types might end in over or underestimating the oil recovery. Improved fracture network modeling requires numerous considerations, such as data collection, facture characterization, reservoir simulation, model calibration, and model updating based on newly acquired field data are essential for improved fracture network description. Hence, integrating multiple techniques and data sources is recommended for obtaining a reliable reservoir model for optimizing the primary and enhanced oil recovery methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Key Technologies of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs)

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