TY - GEN
T1 - Limitations of Commercial Software in Estimating Trapped Gas Saturation and Hysteresis in Relative Permeability
AU - Aghabozorgi, Shokoufeh
AU - Sohrabi, Mehran
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was conducted at the 'Centre for Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2Solutions' at Heriot-Watt University as part of the joint industrial project (JIP) called Characterization of Three-Phase flow and WAG. At the time of conducting this study, the project was equally sponsored by: ADCO, BG Group, Galp Energia, Maersk Oil, Petrobras, Premier Oil, Schlumberger and Total E&P which are gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to Dr. Mobeen Fatemi for performing the core-flood experiment during his PhD studies at HWU.
Funding Information:
This research was conducted at the ‘Centre for Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2 Solutions' at Heriot-Watt University as part of the joint industrial project (JIP) called Characterization of Three-Phase flow and WAG. At the time of conducting this study, the project was equally sponsored by: ADCO, BG Group, Galp Energia, Maersk Oil, Petrobras, Premier Oil, Schlumberger and Total E&P which are gratefully acknowledged. The authors would also like to express their gratitude to Dr. Mobeen Fatemi for performing the core-flood experiment during his PhD studies at HWU.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Society of Petroleum Engineers.
PY - 2022/6/6
Y1 - 2022/6/6
N2 - Permanent storage of carbon dioxide requires accurate estimation of trapped gas saturation and reservoir storage capacity. Hydrogen and gas storage in subsurface reservoirs involves injection and withdrawal cycles, which necessitates the accurate estimation of hysteresis in relative permeability (kr) and capillary pressure (Pc) data. Cyclic injections in the form of Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection is an effective Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method for improving volumetric sweep efficiency in the reservoirs. When simulating all these processes, subsurface reservoir engineers rely on commercial software to estimate trapped gas saturation and cyclic hysteresis in kr and Pc data. However, few researchers have investigated the reliability of the available hysteresis models implemented in commercial software for this purpose. To this aim, a thorough sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the performance of three-phase hysteresis models available in the literature for simulating the measured data of cyclic experiments. The Water Alternating Gas (WAG) experiment used in this study was performed at near-miscible conditions on a mixed-wet sandstone sample, and the cyclic injection was started with drainage. The results show that when simulating WAG experiments performed at low injection rates, using a hysteresis model developed by Aghabozorgi and Sohrabi (2019) provides the most accurate results for pressure drop, fluid saturations, and gradual oil production. However, the model developed by Larsen and Skauge (1998) can be only used for experiments reaching maximum gas saturation in their first three-phase imbibition cycle, mostly representing the limited grid blocks near the wellbore. Even in this scenario, the dependence of the model on Land's initial-residual relationship and trapping coefficient is questionable. This study highlights the possible pitfalls of using commercial software for estimating trapped saturation and hysteresis in relative permeability and capillary pressure. It also provides useful suggestions for improving the accuracy of performed simulations. The presented results are vital for the oil and gas experts as they can demand improvements in current approaches and promote constant growth and development of commercial software.
AB - Permanent storage of carbon dioxide requires accurate estimation of trapped gas saturation and reservoir storage capacity. Hydrogen and gas storage in subsurface reservoirs involves injection and withdrawal cycles, which necessitates the accurate estimation of hysteresis in relative permeability (kr) and capillary pressure (Pc) data. Cyclic injections in the form of Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection is an effective Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method for improving volumetric sweep efficiency in the reservoirs. When simulating all these processes, subsurface reservoir engineers rely on commercial software to estimate trapped gas saturation and cyclic hysteresis in kr and Pc data. However, few researchers have investigated the reliability of the available hysteresis models implemented in commercial software for this purpose. To this aim, a thorough sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the performance of three-phase hysteresis models available in the literature for simulating the measured data of cyclic experiments. The Water Alternating Gas (WAG) experiment used in this study was performed at near-miscible conditions on a mixed-wet sandstone sample, and the cyclic injection was started with drainage. The results show that when simulating WAG experiments performed at low injection rates, using a hysteresis model developed by Aghabozorgi and Sohrabi (2019) provides the most accurate results for pressure drop, fluid saturations, and gradual oil production. However, the model developed by Larsen and Skauge (1998) can be only used for experiments reaching maximum gas saturation in their first three-phase imbibition cycle, mostly representing the limited grid blocks near the wellbore. Even in this scenario, the dependence of the model on Land's initial-residual relationship and trapping coefficient is questionable. This study highlights the possible pitfalls of using commercial software for estimating trapped saturation and hysteresis in relative permeability and capillary pressure. It also provides useful suggestions for improving the accuracy of performed simulations. The presented results are vital for the oil and gas experts as they can demand improvements in current approaches and promote constant growth and development of commercial software.
KW - Gas Storage
KW - Hysteresis Quantification
KW - Numerical Simulation
KW - Relative Permeability
KW - Trapped Gas Saturation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133387395&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2118/209642-MS
DO - 10.2118/209642-MS
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85133387395
BT - SPE Europe Energy Conference featured at the 83rd EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition 2022
PB - Society of Petroleum Engineers
T2 - SPE Europe Energy Conference featured at the 83rd EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition 2022
Y2 - 6 June 2022 through 9 June 2022
ER -