Application of CO2-Soluble Polymer-Based Blowing Agent to Improve Supercritical CO2 Replacement in Low-Permeability Fractured Reservoirs

• Published in: Polymers Vol. 16; no. 15; p. 2191
• Main Authors: Liu, Mingxi, Song, Kaoping, Wang, Longxin, Fu, Hong, Zhu, Jiayi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.08.2024
• Subjects: blocking rate; Blowing agents; Blowing rate; Blowing time; Carbon dioxide; CO2-soluble blowing agent; Crude oil; Emissions; enhanced recovery; Experiments; Foaming agents; fractured core; Fractured reservoirs; Gas flow; Injection molding; Microfracture; Moisture content; Permeability; Polymers; Pressure drop; Recovery; Reservoirs; static foaming performance evaluation; supercritical CO2; Surfactants; Water
• DOI: 10.3390/polym16152191
• ISSN: 2073-4360

Since reservoirs with permeability less than 10 mD are characterized by high injection difficulty, high-pressure drop loss, and low pore throat mobilization during the water drive process, CO2 is often used for development in actual production to reduce the injection difficulty and carbon emission simultaneously. However, microfractures are usually developed in low-permeability reservoirs, which further reduces the injection difficulty of the driving medium. At the same time, this makes the injected gas flow very fast, while the gas utilization rate is low, resulting in a low degree of recovery. This paper conducted a series of studies on the displacement effect of CO2-soluble foaming systems in low-permeability fractured reservoirs (the permeability of the core matrix is about 0.25 mD). For the two CO2-soluble blowing agents CG-1 and CG-2, the effects of the CO2 phase state, water content, and oil content on static foaming performance were first investigated; then, a more effective blowing agent was preferred for the replacement experiments according to the foaming results; and finally, the effects of the blowing agents on sealing and improving the recovery degree of a fully open fractured core were investigated at different injection rates and concentrations, and the injection parameters were optimized. The results show that CG-1 still has good foaming performance under low water volume and various oil contents and can be used in subsequent fractured core replacement experiments. After selecting the injection rate and concentration, the blowing agent can be used in subsequent fractured cores under injection conditions of 0.6 mL/min and 2.80%. In injection conditions, the foaming agent can achieve an 83.7% blocking rate and improve the extraction degree by 12.02%. The research content of this paper can provide data support for the application effect of a CO2-soluble blowing agent in a fractured core.