Abstract
It is shown experimentally that in situ generation of foam is an effective method for achieving gas mobility control and diverting injected fluid to low permeability strata within heterogeneous porous media. The experimental system is composed of a 0.395 porosity, 5.35 µm2 synthetic sandstone and a 0.244 porosity, 0.686 µm2 natural sandstone. The cores are arranged in parallel and communicate through common injection and production conditions. Nitrogen is the gas phase and alpha-olefin sulfonate (AOS 1416) in brine is the foamer. Three types of experiments were conducted. First, gas alone was injected into the system after presaturation with the foamer solution. Second, gas and foamer solution were coinjected at an overall gas fraction of 90% into cores presaturated with surfactant. Each core accepted a portion of the injected gas and liquid according to the mobility within the core. Lastly, gas and foamer solution were coinjected into the individual, isolated porous media in order to establish baseline behavior. The results are striking. It is possible to achieve total diversion of gas injection to the low permeability medium in some cases. The results also confirm previous predictions that foamed gas can be more mobile in lower permeability porous media.
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Kovscek, A.R., Bertin, H.J. Foam Mobility in Heterogeneous Porous Media. Transport in Porous Media 52, 37–49 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022368228594
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022368228594