A Laboratory Study of an Improved Water-Driven LPG Slug Process
Authors: Thompson James L. 
Published: December 2007

There are two basic forms of the LPG-slug process: the gas driven and the water driven. The pressure required for miscibility between gas and LPG prohibits the use of the gas-driven LPG process in shallow reservoirs. The water-driven LPG slug process normally exhibits good sweep efficiency. However, displacement of the LPG by water is poor. An improvement in this process appears possible by injecting a slug of carbon dioxide between the LPG slug and the water drive.

Laboratory experiments were conducted in homogeneous linear systems to determine the effect of pressure on the various displacement zones. In the carbon dioxide-LPG displacement zone, the effect of pressure on the displacement efficiency is negligible above the miscibility pressure. However, the displacement efficiency decreases linearly with decreasing pressure below the miscibility pressure. With water displacing carbon dioxide, it was found that the recovery of carbon dioxide after water breakthrough can be predicted from its solubility in water. A displacement test was conducted with LPG and carbon dioxide slugs large enough to avoid interference between the oil- LPG, LPG - carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide - water displacement zones. Under these conditions, essentially complete oil and LPG recovery was obtained. However, a substantial amount of carbon dioxide was left in the core at water breakthrough.

INTRODUCTION

It has been shown in homogeneous linear systems that essentially complete oil recovery can be obtained by displacement with a miscible fluid such as LPG. Economic considerations dictate that the valuable LPG also be recovered. Methods proposed for recovering the LPG includedisplacement with natural gas at a pressure high enough to make the two fluids miscible1 (the disadvantage of this method is that the required pressure of about 1,500 psi is too high for shallow reservoirs) anddisplacement of the LPG with water2 (principal disadvantage is that a large amount of LPG remains in the formation because of poor displacement efficiency).

This paper treats an improvement in the waterdriven LPG slug process3,4 where carbon dioxide is injected between the LPG and water. Carbon dioxide is completely or at least partially miscible with propane and soluble in water; thus, displacement efficiency is improved at both ends of the carbon dioxide slug. To minimize effects of other variables, all experiments were conducted in linear core systems.

GENERAL PROCESS DESCRIPTION

The displacements of propane by carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide by water are considered separately, assuming enough of each is injected to prevent mutual interference. Displacement descriptions are confined only to the part of the pore volume containing mobile fluids unless otherwise specified. The schematic representation is given in Fig. 1.

Starting at the producing well, a zone containing only oil is followed by a zone containing a single - phase mixture of propane and oil. The concentration of propane increases in the direction of the injection well and ultimately grades to -pure propane. Then follows a zone containing a mixture of propane and carbon dioxide in continuously varying proportions until 100 percent carbon dioxide is reached. In this zone, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the immobile water phase also varies from zero to full saturation.