Detailed Modeling of the Alkali/Surfactant/Polymer (ASP) Process by Coupling a Multipurpose Reservoir Simulator to the Chemistry Package PHREEQC

Abstract

SummaryAccurate modeling of an ASP flood requires detailed representation of geochemistry and, if natural acids are present, the saponification process. Geochemistry and saponification affect the propagation of the injected chemicals and the amount of generated natural soaps. These in turn determine the chemical phase behavior and, hence, the effectiveness of the ASP process.In this paper, it is shown that by coupling a multipurpose reservoir simulator (MPRS) with PHREEQC (Parkhurst and Appelo 1999; Charlton and Parkhurst 2008), a robust and flexible tool is developed to model ASP floods. PHREEQC is used as the chemical-reaction engine, which determines the equilibrium state of the chemical processes modeled. The MPRS models the impact of the chemicals on the flow properties, solves the flow equations, and transports the chemicals.The validity of the approach is confirmed by benchmarking the results with the ASP module of the UTCHEM simulator (Delshad et al. 2000). Moreover, ASP corefloods have been matched with the new tool. The functionality of the model also has been tested on a 2D sector model. The advantages of using PHREEQC as the chemical engine include its rich database of chemical species and its flexibility in changing the chemical processes to be modeled. Therefore, the coupling procedure presented in this paper can also be extended to other chemical enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) methods.