Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, Vol.41, No.2, 41-46, 2002
Coreflood studies of tertiary CO2 flood in naturally fractured midale formation in southeast Saskatchewan
The distinctive geology of the Weyburn and Midale reservoirs has important implications for the design of a CO2 injection process for these fields. They are contained within two distinct zones of the Mississippian Carbonate formation; the tight, high-porosity Marly zone sits on top of the low-porosity Vuggy zone. The latter zone has a higher permeability, and is more extensively fractured vertically, than the Marly zone. These geological features result in a relatively unswept Marly zone after waterflooding. The MarlyNuggy sequence presents an opportunity for a CO2 flood to take advantage of gravity segregation to recover the large remaining oil target in the Marly zone. A series of coreflood tests were conducted to simulate tertiary CO2 injection in the MarlyNuggy zones in the Weyburn and Midale reservoirs. Berea cores with different permeabilities were split lengthwise. The halved segments of the core were butted together to represent the Marly and Vuggy zones. Water (in waterflood mode) and CO2 (in tertiary CO2 flood mode) were injected into the bottom high-permeability section of the dual-permeability core. The coreflood results showed that, in the tertiary CO2 flood, CO2 could migrate to and recover the oil from the top low-permeability zone which was poorly swept by the waterflood. Also, the effects on tertiary oil recovery of operating pressure, injection rate, and permeability contrast could be significant.