Minimum Miscibility Pressure Studies

Minimum miscibility pressure studies

Determination of the miscibility conditions of the gas with reservoir oil under the reservoir thermobaric conditions

Minimum miscibility pressure studies

Microfluidic slim-tube technology

LABADVANCE microfluidic slim-tube technology offers a number of advantages over the traditional method for evaluating miscibility conditions with various gases. Traditional tests for measuring minimum miscibility pressure require hundreds of milliliters of oil and last more than 30 days.

Advances in microfluidic technologies can reduce the amount of fluid and the time required to determine MMP value. Although the volume of the chip is six orders of magnitude smaller, the microfluidic model retains the same proportions, which guarantees the accuracy of the tests.

Minimum miscibility pressure studies

Multicontact miscibility

The microfluidic chip is a long channel with a porous structure inside, which allows multi-contact gas-oil miscibility. To measure MMP, this approach combines both qualitative and quantitative analysis. During the experiment, at a qualitative level, it is noticeable that at a pressure below MMP value, the gas breakthrough through the porous structure occurs with a high proportion of residual oil saturation. In the case of miscible displacement, the gas front completely displaces oil from the model

Moreover, for quantitative analysis, all frames of experimental videos are processed by computer vision algorithms, which allows us to obtain graphs of the dependence of the displacement coefficient on time and build a final graph similar to a standard slim tube.

Minimum miscibility pressure studies

Technology approval

For the confirmation of the proposed technology, a pilot project was conducted jointly with Gazpromneft STC and Gazpromneft - Digital Solutions, where the convergence of the results of the traditional and microfluidic test was proved. Comparative tests were carried out on recombined oil and gas samples at a reservoir temperature of 110 °C and pressures from 35 to 45 MPa.

Advantages

A series of tests to determine the MDS takes several days;
Significant reduction in the cost of tests;
The volume of oil for one experiment is 10 ml;
Accuracy and repeatability are controlled by repeated studies under the same thermobaric conditions;
Visual control of the experiment. The duration of one test is less than one working day;
Geometry simulating the properties of a real deposit;
The emphasis is on the mechanism of interaction of liquids, which excludes other mechanisms (including the impact of the rock surface).

Minimum miscibility pressure studies

Publications

1. Pereponov D. et al. Microfluidic Studies on Minimum Miscibility Pressure for n-Decane and CO2 // Energies. – 2023. – Т. 16. – №. 13. – С. 4994. doi: 10.3390/en16134994.

2. Перепонов Д.И., Щербакова А., Казаку В.В., Гаджиев М.Э., Тархов М.А., Шилов Е.Д., Черемисин А.Н. Применение микрофлюидики для оптимизации технологий разработки нефтегазовых месторождений // Вестник нефтегазовой отрасли Казахстана. - 2023. - Т. 5. - №1. - C. 57-73. doi: 10.54859/kjogi108639.