Dominant mechanisms of multi-phase flow in non-thermal processes for enhanced heavy oil recovery

加拿大世纪开始重视重油开发。加拿大西部的重油（粘度高达100，000 mPa.s）储量很大;然而，在初级生产后开发原位回收工艺具有挑战性。长期以来，注水一直是常规石油在初次生产后最具成本效益的开采技术。将其应用于粘性稠油油藏遇到了困难：例如，加拿大西部稠油油藏的水驱都表现出很差的波及系数。常规油的水驱油理论不能预测稠油水驱的矿场动态。因此，开展稠油多相流开采机理的基础研究，对开发稠油就地开采工艺具有重要意义。 在这项拟议的研究中，我将研究在稠油油藏注水开发过程中的多相流的主要机制，包括指进的水和捕获的油，分散体（油包油和油包水乳液和泡沫油）通过油砂的流动，相对渗透率的盐水-稠油-天然气流动的油砂，并通过使用非热方法提高稠油的水驱。我计划将这项研究扩展到现场应用，将开发的基础理论和模型纳入油藏模拟，用于现场注水设计和预测其动态，并提高稠油采收率。我建议进行系统的实验，以深入了解复杂的驱油过程中的多孔介质和稠油开发进行数值模拟。 在加拿大，大多数重油储层正在迅速接近其经济生产极限。初次和注水方法通常最多可以回收最初存在的重油的8%至10%。该研究对稠油开发具有重要的现实意义。本研究成果也适用于环境工程中土壤和地下水中石油污染物的回收。

Heavy oil development has started to play an important role in Canada's energy in the 21st century. The heavy oil (with viscosities up to 100,000 mPa.s) deposits in western Canada are significant; however, the development of in-situ recovery processes after primary production is challenging. Waterflooding has long been the most cost-effective recovery technique for conventional oil following primary production. Expanding its application to viscous heavy oil reservoirs has encountered difficulties: for example, waterfloods in western Canadian heavy oil reservoirs all exhibit very poor sweep efficiency. Waterflood theory for conventional oil has failed to predict the field performance of heavy oil waterfloods. Therefore, fundamental study of the mechanisms of multiphase flow in heavy oil recovery is essential to the development of in-situ heavy oil processes.      In this proposed research, I will study the dominant mechanisms of multiphase flow during waterflooding in heavy oil reservoirs, including fingering of water and trapping of oil, flow of dispersions (oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions and foamy oil) through oil sands, the relative permeabilities for brine-heavy oil-gas flow in oil sands, and enhanced waterflooding for heavy oil by using non-thermal methods. I plan to extend this research to field application by incorporating the developed fundamental theories and models into reservoir simulation for designing field waterflood and predicting their performance, and for enhancing heavy oil recovery. I propose to conduct systematic experiments to gain insight into the complex displacement processes of heavy oil in porous media and perform numerical modelling for heavy oil development.      In Canada, most of the heavy oil reservoirs are fast approaching their economic limits of production. Primary and waterflood methods may generally recover at best 8 to 10% of the heavy oil initially in place. The proposed research is of the most practical significance to heavy oil development. The results of this research are also applicable to the recovery of oil contaminants in soils and groundwater in environmental engineering.