A computational fluid dynamics study of flared gas for enhanced oil recovery using a micromodel

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dc.contributor.authorWere, Stephanie
dc.contributor.authorNnabuife, Somtochukwu Godfrey
dc.contributor.authorKuang, Boyu
dc.date.accessioned2023-01-09T12:48:06Z
dc.date.available2023-01-09T12:48:06Z
dc.date.issued2022-12-19
dc.description.abstractThe current handling of gas associated with oil production poses an environmental risk. This gas is being flared off due to the technical and economic attractiveness of this option. As flared gases are mainly composed of methane, they have harmful greenhouse effects when released into the atmosphere. This work discusses the effectiveness of using this gas for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) purposes as an alternative to flaring. In this study, a micromodel was designed with properties similar to a sandstone rock with a porosity of 0.4, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques were applied to design an EOR system. Temperature effects were not considered in the study, and the simulation was run at atmospheric pressure. Five case studies were carried out with different interfacial tensions between the oil and gas (0.005 N/m, 0.017 N/m, and 0.034 N/m) and different injection rates for the gas (1 × 10−3 m/s, 1 × 10−4 m/s, and 1 × 10−6 m/s). The model was compared with a laboratory experiment measuring immiscible gas flooding. Factors affecting oil recoveries, such as the interfacial tension between oil and gas, the viscosity, and the pressure, were studied in detail. The results showed that the surface tension between the oil and gas interphase was a limiting factor for maximum oil recovery. The lower surface tension recovered 33% of the original oil in place. The capillary pressure was higher than the pressure in the micromodel, which lowered the amount of oil that was displaced. The study showed the importance of pressure maintenance to increase oil recovery for immiscible gas floods. It is recommended that a wider set of interfacial tensions between oil and gas be tested to obtain a range at which oil recovery is maximum for EOR with flared gas.en_UK
dc.identifier.citationWere S, Nnabuife SG, Kuang B. (2022) A computational fluid dynamics study of flared gas for enhanced oil recovery using a micromodel, AppliedMath, Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2022, pp. 738-757en_UK
dc.identifier.issn2673-9909
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.3390/appliedmath2040044
dc.identifier.urihttps://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/18909
dc.language.isoenen_UK
dc.publisherMDPIen_UK
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectimmiscible gas floodingen_UK
dc.subjectenhanced oil recovery (EOR)en_UK
dc.subjectflared gasen_UK
dc.subjectAPGen_UK
dc.subjectoil and gas interfacial tensionen_UK
dc.subjectcomputational fluid dynamics (CFD)en_UK
dc.subjectmicromodelen_UK
dc.titleA computational fluid dynamics study of flared gas for enhanced oil recovery using a micromodelen_UK
dc.typeArticleen_UK

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