Reservoir Modelling of Nanoparticle-Assisted Foam to Optimize Gas Injection in an Unconsolidated Heavy Oilfield

Abstract

Foam can be used as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique because it can reduce gas channeling and gravity override during gas EOR operations by lowering gas mobility, which will bring about an increase in oil recovery factor. An integrated method for numerically simulating foam assisted by nanoparticles for EOR in a heavy oilfield is presented in this paper. The extent to which the gas EOR optimization techniques can lower gas breakthrough while boosting oil recovery was investigated through a series of numerical simulations. The aim of this study is to model foam flooding with nanofoams as an EOR technique that combines the oil recovery mechanism of foam flooding with that of nanoparticles. The interfacial properties contributed to the injection fluid served as a representation of the modeling of nanoparticles in the foam liquid. Our findings demonstrated that the recovery factor is higher during the injection of nanofoams than in water and gas flooding. In fact, for both nitrogen and CO2, the recovery factor of foam enhanced by nanoparticles was nearly twice as high as that of gas injection. Foam injection is more effective and productive than WAG and gas injection, which shows that it is the best EOR technique for the model utilized in this study. The simulation of the optimization techniques carried out will aid in the development of future development processes in this field.