The overall objective of this project is to increase recovery and sustain production from existing Bakken wells by implementing a novel Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology that has the potential to resolve some of the pivotal issues associated with gas containment in this field. More specifically, this project seeks to optimize the performance of foam-assisted hydrocarbon gas injection in the Middle Bakken/Three Forks by improving the current scientific understanding of the fundamental mechanisms involved in this process and demonstrating its potential through a field pilot test. An integrated and collaborative framework is proposed to implement these objectives in three different stages: Stage I. Characterization and Chemical Screening/Optimization, to perform laboratory evaluation of foam-based conformance control for injected hydrocarbon gases and customize selected chemicals, as needed, for application under Bakken conditions; Stage II. Multi-scale Core Flooding and Numerical Simulation, to understand the fundamental mechanisms involved in Foam-Assisted Gas Injection (FAGI) EOR using selected formulations and Bakken rock/fluid samples at reservoir conditions and develop/calibrate multi-scale flow models and simulators to predict field performance; and Stage III. Field Pilot Testing Program, to implement this technology in the field through a well-designed pilot test in the Bakken.
University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071
The proliferation of hydraulic fracturing and the low primary recovery rates attainable from unconventional plays provide a strong value case for EOR processes. The large surface area created by fracture networks allows injected fluids to come in contact with the matrix and increase hydrocarbon recovery in formations where more than 90% of the resource is left behind. Miscible gas injection, through continuous flooding or cyclic gas injection (huff and puff), has received a surge of interest in recent years; however, issues associated with gas containment and conformance control were reported in highly heterogeneous formations, such as the Bakken. A recent field application by Dow Chemical in a South Texas shale play overcame some of these issues and yielded significant incremental oil production above those of primary depletion and tertiary gas injection processes. Conformance control could be achieved by injection of hydrocarbon gas and aqueous surfactant solutions to generate stable foam within the fractures. By trapping pockets of gas in brine, gas mobility can be significantly reduced, leading to a substantial rise in pressure gradients across proppant-filled fractures. This establishes the entry pressure needed for gas-to-oil displacements from fracture walls into the matrix. This could become particularly successful when imbibition of surfactant solution into the matrix is suppressed. Foam can potentially enhance the macro-scale sweep efficiency by mitigating the effects of heterogeneity, gas segregation, and viscous instability associated with gas injection.
The outcome of the proposed project will allow operators to maximize the producible oil by using the previously fractured reservoir volumes and existing hydraulically fractured wells while minimizing the number of wells to be drilled, which in turn will lead to informed decisions on their capital investment, development plan, resource evaluation, and reserve replacement. Successful completion of the proposed project will deliver a methodology that allows the development of an EOR method that will be a “game changer” for EOR processes in heterogeneous unconventional oil plays, such as the Bakken.
Once proven successful in the field both technically and economically, this technology may be expanded to augment the play development. This project will greatly benefit the oil and gas industry overall as it will help boost the growth in U.S. onshore oil production and provide greater long-term energy security at lower costs. Furthermore, the success of this project will have a positive environmental impact in two main ways. Firstly, the increased production from existing wells will require fewer wells to be drilled or refractured to efficiently exploit the resource, thus reducing the local environmental impact. Secondly, it gives another economic use for produced natural gas that would have otherwise been flared, thereby reducing emissions.
A state-of-the-art reservoir conditions laboratory was designed and fabricated from scratch to perform foam evaluation tests at reservoir conditions. The facility has enormous capacity, and therefore it enables a significant number of tests in a relatively short amount of time. Foam generation and evaluation experiments are conducted on a large scale for different surfactants at HPHT conditions with different proppant packs. These tests are performed to investigate the sensitivities of the foam performance to changes in key foam parameters. Specifically, several hundred foam generation and evaluation tests have been conducted at 3,500 psi and 115 °C pressure and temperature conditions using water-wet and oil-wet proppant packs in order to optimize surfactant concentration, brine salinity, fraction of the injected gas, and other foam parameters. An ACS surfactant and QD nanoparticles have also been used in these tests. Foam strength and stability were characterized by measuring half-life and apparent viscosity, and successively the optimum conditions for foam performance are investigated.
A series of foam-gas injection simulations have been conducted to establish optimal foam-gas injection strategy for Phase-I of the field test. In the preliminary simulations, default parameters based on existing laboratory and field data for conventional reservoirs were used. The results indicate that foam treatment can be a valuable tool for increasing oil production in the planned EN-Ortloff pilot. In addition, foam gas injection helps minimize gas production, which reduces the load on the facilities and lessens the potential for flaring.
Given the COVID-19 shutdown and collapse of the oil market, Hess Corporation decided to adjust the schedule for the foam injection task of this project to the year 2022. Other activities, such as laboratory experiments and reservoir simulation and optimization, were continued as planned. It must be noted that the adjusted schedule due to COVID-19 provided the University of Wyoming team with opportunities to deepen technical understandings related to foam generation and optimization, which has already resulted in various noticeable technical advances. The team UW developed a new reservoir conditions foam evaluation laboratory facilitating simultaneous testing of various surfactants/foaming chemicals under different conditions. This laboratory will be significantly beneficial to the field pilot test as it is used to determine optimized foam parameters for the modeling and simulation task as well as the field pilot test.
Budget Period 1 – DOE Contribution: $665,063
Budget Period 2 – DOE Contribution: $1,411,665
Budget Period 3 – DOE Contribution: $1,792,464
Budget Period 4 – DOE Contribution: $4,130,808
Planned Total Funding – DOE Contribution: $8,000,000
Budget Period 1 – Performer Contribution: $500,974
Budget Period 2 – Performer Contribution: $674,933
Budget Period 3 – Performer Contribution: $463,584
Budget Period 4 – Performer Contribution: $363,796
Planned Total Funding – Performer Contribution: $2,003,287
NETL – Scott Beautz (scott.beautz@netl.doe.gov or 918-497-8766)
University of Wyoming – Mohammad Piri (mpiri@uwyo.edu or 307-766-3922)