BibTex format
@inproceedings{Al-Hadhrami:2013,
author = {Al-Hadhrami, M and Alkindi, A and Muggeridge, AH},
title = {Experimental investigations into the effect of heterogeneities on the recovery of heavy oil by VAPEX},
year = {2013}
}
Publications
Citation
RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)
TY - CPAPER
AB - We report a series of laboratory experiments investigating oil drainage rates using VAPour Extraction (VAPEX) in both homogenous and heterogeneous systems (including layered and single discontinuous shales). All experiments were performed in well-characterized glass bead packs using glycerol and ethanol as analogues of heavy oil and solvent respectively. All the porous medium and fluid properties (including permeability, porosity, viscosity, density, diffusion and dispersion) were measured independently. The experimentally measured rates were compared to the estimates derived from the Butler and Mokrys analytical model. In addition, numerical simulations were performed to validate whether the physical diffusion boundaries were captured correctly. The Butler and Mokrys analytical model substantially underestimated the drainage rates in all cases, even when the effects of convective dispersion and end point density difference were factored in. The observed oil drainage rates from the layered packs were between the rates observed in homogeneous packs formed from high permeability beads (the upper bound) and from packs with low permeability beads ( the lower bound). A single discontinuous shale significantly reduced the oil drainage rates. The numerical simulations under-predicted the oil drainage rates, although the pattem of solvent-oil distribution was correctly captured. The performance of the layered system could be predicted from the homogenous models by using the arithmetic average of the various layers' permeability. Overall, we suggest that these types of heterogeneity have little impact on VAPEX performance except through their influence on the effective permeability of the reservoir.
AU - Al-Hadhrami,M
AU - Alkindi,A
AU - Muggeridge,AH
PY - 2013///
TI - Experimental investigations into the effect of heterogeneities on the recovery of heavy oil by VAPEX
ER -