Abstract:
Hybrid thermal-chemical recovery process is a typical follow-up technology applied in the later stage of steam recovery process in heavy oil reservoirs. During the hydrocarbon development process, the displacement and flow of the hybrid thermal system in porous media involve complex physical and chemical mechanisms, generally exhibiting highly non-isothermal and nonlinear laws, which is difficult to be characterized. Based on comprehensively considering the effect of the hybrid thermal system on reservoir rock and fluid properties, the paper establishes a non-isothermal phase field-controlled mathematical model for hybrid thermal-chemical recovery process in heavy oil reservoirs. Moreover, a regular porous media model and a porous media model reflecting the pore-throat characteristics of real rock samples have been constructed to simulate the displacement and flow characteristics of three different systems in porous media. The simulation results were validated against the results from microfluidic chip experiments. Focusing on the hybrid thermal recovery by CO
2-chemical agent as a representative case, it was finally clarified the effects of injected fluid temperature, rock wettability, interfacial tension, and gas-liquid ratio on the displacement and flow laws during hybrid thermal-chemical recovery process. Results show that the oil-water emulsification effect is the most typical mechanism for hybrid thermal-chemical recovery process, which has a significant influence on displacement and flow characteristics in porous media. Compared to the thermal injection recovery, hybrid thermal-chemical recovery process can effectively activate oil films on pore walls and expand the swept area . Specifically, the total swept area for the hybrid thermal recovery using CO
2-chemical agent is increased by approximately 12.5 % , and the average reservoir temperature is increased by nearly 15 ℃. The sweep efficiency of the hybrid thermal system can be significantly enhanced by increasing the injection temperature and gas-liquid ratio of the system while reducing contact angle and interfacial tension, among which the contact angle and interfacial tension have more significant effects.