Asphaltene Flow Assurance Pre-Risk Evaluation Case Study to Establish Guidelines for CCUS in Arabian Gulf Carbonate Oil Field

Carbon dioxide capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) has been recognized as a key technology to reduce CO2 emission. Among various CCUS technologies, CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been widely implemented at an industrial scale in the E&P sector. However, it is well-known that CO2-mixed oil would cause asphaltene precipitation resulting in flow assurance troubles. Therefore, more advanced asphaltene-risk-managing technology can be an enabler to improve robustness of CCUS projects. This paper presents a case study for a comprehensive series of asphaltene flow assurance pre-risk evaluation in Arabian Gulf Carbonate Oil Field at where the CO2 EOR is recognized as one of the highest potential technologies for full-field implementation. At first, sampling location was carefully selected considering the target reservoir's feature because the reliability of asphaltene study highly depends on sample representativeness. After the QA/QC of collected sample, asphaltene onset pressures (AOP) were measured at multiple temperatures under the CO2 mixing conditions in a straightforward experimental-design optimizing manner so that not only the evaluation accuracy could be improved but also the experimental cost could be minimized. The AOP measurements showed clear potential risks associated with CO2 injection. Subsequently, the numerical model analysis was conducted with Cubic-Plus-Association (CPA) EoS model to identify the risk area during CO2 injection. The analysis suggested that a risk would be caused at not only near-wellbore region at the sampling location but also tubing section / surface facility, furthermore, more seriously at the deeper location of target reservoir. Finally, CO2-induced asphaltene formation damage risk was investigated from the viewpoints of precipitated asphaltene particle size and pore throat size in the porous media. As a result, the clogging risks by CO2-induced asphaltene were estimated high in the target reservoir. By virtue of the above comprehensive series of pre-risk evaluation, the asphaltene flow assurance risk associated with CO2 injection was identified field-widely. The evaluation findings suggested moving on to future actions such as more detailed formation damage risk evaluation and mitigation plan development. The phased approach for evaluating asphaltene flow assurance risk and the reverse engineering of sampling operational design from the experimental design made a worthy demonstration to reduce unnecessary cost and time while obtaining the key information to drive the project. The procedure in this work can contribute to establish a subsurface part of guideline for CCUS from viewpoints of asphaltene flow assurance risk evaluation.