Potential evaluation on CO2-EGR in tight and low-permeability reservoirs

CO2-EGR, i.e. enhanced gas recovery by injecting CO2, is to displace natural gas by injecting CO2 in the supercritical phase. It can both enhance the recovery of gas reservoirs and realize CO2 storage. Currently, this technique is still at its exploring stage. The effect of CO2-EGR is not clarified, the geologic conditions for CO2-EGR are not definite, and the rational working system for CO2-EGR is not available. In this paper, the long-core experiment was conducted to determine whether and how much the recovery of low-permeability reservoirs can be enhanced by injecting CO2. According to the experimental results, the recovery can be enhanced by 12% when CO2 content in produced gas is more than 10%. Moreover, the multi-component seepage mathematical model was built for displacing natural gas by injecting supercritical CO2, and the model accuracy was verified using laboratory data. With this mathematical model, the influence factors for displacing natural gas by injecting supercritical CO2 were analyzed in order to define the conditions for selecting favorable zones. The Well DK13 area in the Daniudi gas field, Ordos Basin, was selected for potential evaluation of CO2-EGR. As indicated by the numerical simulation results, when CO2 content of producing wells in the Well DK13 area is 10% (with a lower cost for corrosion prevention), the ratio of CO2-EGR is 8.0–9.5%, and 31.1% HCPV(hydrocarbon pores volume) of CO2 storage can be realized. It is thus concluded that the CO2-EGR technique can enhance the recovery of gas reservoirs and also store CO2 underground, contributing to the increase of both social and economic benefits.