Development of alkane solvents enhanced steam + flue gas processes for enhancing heavy oil recovery from post-CHOPS reservoirs

至于加拿大西部蕴藏的巨大稠油储量，最常见的生产工艺是带砂冷稠油开采(CHOP)，由于虫孔生成和泡沫原油流动，通常只能回收原地石油的5%-15%。因此，在这些斩波后油藏中需要有效的后续提高采油(EOR)技术，传统的基于蒸汽的热采技术和基于溶剂的非热采技术都找到了它们的局限性。在实际应用中，通常含有80-88%的氮气和12-20%的二氧化碳的烟道气，可以通过氮气提供的游离气机制和二氧化碳提供的增溶机制，作为提高稠油采收率的有效不相溶剂。这项拟议研究的总体目标不仅是调查通过*烷烃/水溶性溶剂增强的蒸汽+烟道气回收工艺在最大限度地减少环境足迹的同时提高从斩波后储油层中回收重油的适宜性和适用性，而且还评估在枯竭的地质地层中安全储存二氧化碳的可能性。*随着直接接触蒸汽产生(DCSG)工艺的成功开发，被称为浸没式燃烧汽化器(SCV)，这使得直接将未经处理的油田产出的水以高效率和低成本与清洁烟道气一起转化为高质量的蒸汽。随着烷烃/水溶性溶剂的加入，新提出的具有优化的SCV操作参数的烟道气辅助热采技术将推广到目标斩波后油藏的先导试验。拟议的研究有可能为上游石油和天然气行业提供可行的技术，通过利用烟道气和热能，同时最大限度地减少淡水使用量，并减少CH4和CO2排放，有效和有效地从CHP后的储油层中回收重油。这也将有助于加拿大成为技术资源中心，专注于烟道气的使用、稠油油藏的提高采收率技术以及二氧化碳储存。

As for the enormous heavy oil reserves deposited in Western Canada, the most common production process is the cold heavy oil production with sand (CHOPS) which can typically recover only 5-15% of original-oil-in- place due to both wormhole generation and foamy oil flow. As such, efficient follow-up enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques are required in these post-CHOPS reservoirs where both conventional steam-based thermal recovery techniques and solvent-based non-thermal recovery techniques find their limits. In practice, flue gas that typically consists of 80-88% N2 and 12-20% CO2 can be used as an efficient immiscible agent for enhancing heavy oil recovery through a free gas mechanism provided by N2 and a solubilization mechanism provided by CO2. The overall objective of this proposed research is to not only investigate the suitability and applicability for enhancing heavy oil recovery from the post-CHOPS reservoirs through the *alkane/water-soluble solvents enhanced steam + flue gas recovery processes while minimizing environmental footprint, but also evaluate the possibility of safely storing CO2 in the depleted geological formations.*With the successful development of direct contact steam generation (DCSG) processes referred to as the submerged combustion vaporizers (SCVs), this allows directly converting the untreated oilfield produced water into high-quality steam together with clean flue gas at high efficiency and low cost. With addition of *alkane/water-soluble solvents, the newly proposed flue gas-assisted thermal recovery techniques with the optimized SCV operating parameters will be extended to the pilot tests in the targeted post-CHOPS reservoirs. The proposed research has the potential of providing the upstream oil and gas industry with viable techniques for efficiently and effectively recovering heavy oil from post-CHOPS reservoirs by taking advantages of both flue gas and thermal energy while minimizing freshwater usage as well as mitigating CH4 and CO2 emissions. This will also help Canada to become a technology resource centre, focusing on the usage of flue gases, EOR techniques for heavy oil reservoirs, and CO2 storage.