Quantifying Enhanced Oil Recovery in Synthetic Media with MicroCT

S. Paciornik , K. Scheffer , M. Carvalho , Yves Méheust (1)

1 GR - Géosciences Rennes

Enhanced oil recovery methods are tested and optimized in synthetic media, emulating porosity and permeability of real oil-bearing rocks. Such a medium was produced with sintered bi-disperse glass beads and microCT images (4 µm resolution) were acquired at different stages of fluid motion through the medium. Synthetic seawater with or without oil/ water emulsion was used to recover oil previously saturating the medium´s pores. The water was doped with KI to fine tune X-ray absorption. Thus, 3D images showing the beads, doped water and residual oil presented a 3-modal histogram. After denoising with a non-local means filter, the images were segmented and the distribution of residual oil ganglia was visualized and quantified. Probability density functions of volumes (~10^4 ganglia spanning 8 orders of magnitude) show well defined exponential behaviors for the displacement of oil by water, while the use of emulsions provides better recovery efficiency with larger numbers of larger ganglia

Domains: Fluid Dynamics [physics.flu-dyn]

S. Paciornik, K. Scheffer, M. Carvalho, Yves Méheust. Quantifying Enhanced Oil Recovery in Synthetic Media with MicroCT. 4th International Congress on 3D Materials Science (3DMS 2018), 10-13 juin 2018, Jun 2018, Helsingør, Denmark. pp.22. ⟨insu-02078887⟩