The Supercritical Multithermal Fluid Flooding Investigation: Experiments and Numerical Simulation for Deep Offshore Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Abstract

The supercritical multithermal fluids (SCMTF) were developed for deep offshore heavy oil reservoirs. However, its EOR mechanisms are still unclear, and its numerical simulation method is deficient. In this study, a series of sandpack flooding experiments were first performed to investigate the viability of SCMTF flooding. Then, a novel numerical model for SCMTF flooding was developed based on the experimental results to characterize the flooding processes and to study the effects of injection parameters on oil recovery on a lab scale. Finally, the performance of SCMTF flooding in a practical deep offshore oil field was evaluated through simulation. The experiment results show that the SCMTF flooding gave the highest oil recovery of 80.89%, which was 29.60% higher than that of the steam flooding and 11.09% higher than that of SCW flooding. The history matching process illustrated that the average errors of 3.24% in oil recovery and of 4.33% in pressure difference confirm that the developed numerical model can precisely simulate the dynamic of SCMTF flooding. Increases in temperature, pressure, and the mole ratio of scN2 and scCO2 mixture to SCW benefit the heavy oil production. However, too much increase in temperature resulted in formation damage. In addition, an excess of scN2 and scCO2 contributed to an early SCMTF breakthrough. The field-scale simulation indicated that compared to steam flooding, the SCMTF flooding increased cumulative oil production by 27122 m3 due to higher reservoir temperature, expanded heating area, and lower oil viscosity, suggesting that the SCMTF flooding is feasible in enhancing offshore heavy oil recovery.