Modeling of Dimethyl Ether Enhanced Water Flooding in One of the Iranian Heavy Oil Reservoirs

فاقد چكيده فارسي

Injection of an aqueous phase containing dissolved Dimethyl Ether (DME) in brine to an oil reservoir is a novel solvent-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, which can be called DME enhanced water flooding (DEW). DME is first contact miscible with hydrocarbons, and because of its slight polarity, it is also partially soluble in water. Therefore, it can be applied for EOR applications to improve the performance of conventional water flooding. In this paper, numerical modeling of a DEW process is carried out to get an insight into this complicated EOR method. The numerical modeling scheme includes DME mass transfer from the aqueous phase into the oleic phase. Upon DME mass transfer, the volume of the oleic phase increases and its viscosity reduces. Rock and fluid properties of an Iranian heavy oil reservoir was used to perform the numerical modeling and investigate the oil recovery improvement during DEW in this reservoir. The comparison between conventional water flooding and DEW results showed that DME improved oil recovery significantly