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

重油开发在21世纪加拿大能源中开始发挥重要作用。稠油（粘度高达100,000 mPa）5)加拿大西部的矿床意义重大；然而，初级生产后的原位开采工艺的发展充满挑战。长期以来，水驱一直是一次采油后最具成本效益的采油技术。扩大其在稠油油藏中的应用遇到了困难，例如加拿大西部稠油油藏的水驱波及效率都很差。常规油注水理论无法预测稠油注水的现场动态。因此，对稠油多相流开采机理进行基础性研究，对稠油原位开采工艺的开发具有重要意义。在本次研究中，我将研究稠油油藏水驱过程中多相流的主导机理，包括水的指进和油的圈闭、分散体（水包油、水包油乳剂和泡沫油）在油砂中的流动、油砂中卤水-重油气流动的相对渗透率以及采用非热方法对稠油进行强化水驱。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中，以设计油田注水并预测其性能，并提高稠油采收率。我建议通过系统的实验来了解稠油在多孔介质中的复杂驱替过程，并对稠油开发进行数值模拟。在加拿大，大多数稠油油藏正迅速接近其经济生产极限。一般来说，一次驱和水驱方法最多只能采出8 - 10%的稠油。本研究对稠油开发具有重要的现实意义。研究结果也适用于环境工程中土壤和地下水中油类污染物的回收。

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.