Study of the Feasibility of the Carbon Dioxide Injection in a North Sea Petroleum Reservoir

Abstract

Carbon dioxide injection has recently been considered as a promising method for enhanced oil recovery. The supercritical carbon dioxide is often miscible or nearly miscible with the oil under reservoir conditions, which facilitates high recovery. Underground injection of carbon dioxide is also of a significant ecological advantage, and utilization of CO2 results in a noticeable reduction of the taxation of the petroleum companies. On the other hand, application of carbon dioxide under conditions of the North Sea petroleum reservoirs for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is hindered by multiple practical problems: availability of the CO2 sources, logistics of the delivery offshore, corrosion resistivity of the installations, and other. Previous studies of CO2 EOR for the reservoirs of the North Sea region, including core-flooding experiments and reservoir simulations, indicate that the deployment of CO2-EOR can significantly enhance the recovery of hydrocarbons. However, CO2 must be generated from anthropogenic sources, which affects the feasibility of the projects. The current study evaluates the potential of a CO2-EOR project under the conditions of a specific petroleum reservoir of the Danish sector North Sea. Geological characteristics of the reservoir and the detailed oil properties lie in the ground of the study. The minimum miscibility pressures between CO2 and the reservoir oil are evaluated with the help of the in-house software (SPECS 5.70) and the commercial reservoir simulator (ECLIPSE 300). The results are verified in the slimtube simulations. The effect of the different oil characterizations and its lumping into the different numbers of components is investigated. The oil is found to be miscible with the carbon dioxide under reservoir conditions. Several injection scenarios have been tested on the 2-D and 3-D reservoir models. Waterflooding was compared to injection of carbon dioxide, as well as water-alternate gas injection. An optimal scenario with regard to water-gas ratio under WAG was selected for further studies. Finally, a cash flow model by Monte Carlo simulations and a sensitivity analysis on the impact of oil and CO2 price and discount rate, certify the feasibility and attractiveness of a CO2-EOR project in the West Flank of the Dan field.