Laboratory investigation of thermally-assisted gasoil gravity

drainage for secondary and tertiary oil recovery in fractured models

M. Nabipour
a
, M. Escrochi
a
, S. Ayatollahi
a,b,

, F. Boukadi
c
,
M. Wadhahi
b
, R. Maamari
b
, A. Bemani
b
a
College of petroleum and Chemical Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
b
Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Al-Khod, Oman
c
The Petroleum Institute, P.O. Box 2533 Abu-Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Received 18 April 2005; accepted 18 April 2006
Abstract
Heavy oil in Middle East fractured carbonate reservoirs account for 2530% of the total oil in place in the region. Production of
heavy oil from such reservoirs is thought to play an important role in the future of the ever-growing world's energy consumption.
Besides, having very active water drives, some of these reservoirs are already depleted resulted in high residual oil in place. To
enhance the oil recovery efficiency, the mechanism of thermally-assisted gasoil gravity drainage for secondary and tertiary oil
recovery was investigated on a fractured laboratory model. Very high recovery efficiencies were achieved due to oil viscosity
reduction as well as gravity stability of the gasoil contact in both oil-wet and water-wet fractured porous media. It was also noted
that a combination of waterflooding and thermal recovery is very effective to enhance heavy oil recovery from fractured water-wet
and oil-wet models.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: GOGD; Fractured reservoirs; Gas injection; Thermal enhanced oil recovery
1. Introduction
Heavy oil represents abundant potential of the world's
oil reserves, the Middle East included. High oil viscosity,
which leads to poor mobility and relatively low recovery
efficiency, is by far the major hurdle facing production.
High oil prices and concerns about future oil supply are
leading to a renewed interest in heavy oil recovery using
thermal enhanced oil recovery methods by utilizing heavy
oil viscosity reduction. In fact, at a relatively high
temperature of 200 C, the viscosity of most heavy oils
reduces to as low as 1 cP and that of semi-solid bitumen
comes down to 10 cP (Farouq Ali, 2003).
1.1. GasOil Gravity Drainage (GOGD)
For many years, it has been known that injection of
either water or gas into a petroleum reservoir can improve
its production (Bradley, 1992). However, the existence of
natural fractures in heavy oil reservoirs has significant
effects on the oil recovery and production efficiencies. For
a water-wet matrix, supplying enough amount of water
would help the oil recovery from naturally fractured
reservoirs governed by capillary imbibition (Babadagli,
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

Corresponding author. On sabbatical leave from Shiraz University,

Shiraz, Iran, P.O. Box, 71345-1719, Shiraz, Iran.
E-mail address: shahab@shirazu.ac.ir (S. Ayatollahi).
0920-4105/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2006.04.013
2003a). Unfavorable conditions such as high oil viscosity,
oil-wet matrix, large matrix size, unfavorable boundary
conditions, low permeability, and high interfacial tension
(IFT) require additional efforts to enhance oil recovery.
Besides, gas injection is increasingly applied as a
secondary/tertiary oil recovery scheme, especially for
fractured carbonate reservoirs, as gravity drainage
enhances oil production in oil-wet matrix (Saidi, 1996).
The main purpose of gas injection into naturally fractured
reservoirs (NFR) is the recovery of substantial quantities
of oil trapped in the matrix by maximizing the effect of
gravitational forces due to density difference between oil
and gas within the matrix/fracture network. It has been
also stated that gas injection hinders the movement of oil
water contact (OWC) upward especially in reservoirs with
strong aquifers (Kuo and Eliot, 2001), or even forcing it
downwards leading to additional oil drainage fromthe gas
invaded zone (Ayatollahi et al., 2005a). Besides, in NFR,
the existence of gas cap would help it drain more oil with
the assistance of gravitational forces. The GOGD process
yields slower recovery rates leading to higher ultimate
recovery compared to other possible mechanisms and
should be enhanced thermally, especially for heavy oil
(Maccauly et al., 1995; Al-Shizawi et al., 1997).
1.2. Thermally-assisted gasoil gravity drainage
It has been stated that significant heavy oil reserves are
found in carbonate formations (Issever and Topkaya,
1998) and that the use of thermal gravity drainage process
is being considered recently to improve the oil recovery
efficiency from such reservoirs (Briggs et al., 1988; Reis,
1992). The combined effect of steam assisted gravity
drainage (SAGD) and cold production (CP) to heavy oil
unconsolidated sandstones reservoir have the advantages
of reasonable early oil production rates, continued long-
term production, and excellent long-term oil recovery
(Dusseault et al., 1998). Field scale thermal applications
were also reported (Sahuquet and Ferrier, 1982; Maccauly
et al., 1995). And it was also indicated that the use of the
thermal gravity drainage process may lead to more oil
recovery from naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs
(Al-Hadhrami and Blunt, 2001).
1.3. Tertiary gravity drainage
It has been reported that significant quantities of oil
remain in fractured, carbonate oil reservoirs after water-
flooding as a result of the oil/water contact moving
upward before completely sweeping the matrix. Oil-
wetness is another cause of oil trapping in fractured, oil-
wet formations. It has been postulated that if the formation
is preferentially oil-wet, the matrix will retain oil by
capillarity. For example the oil recovery efficiency for the
Omani oil field of Qarn Alam, with a naturally-fractured
Shuaiba carbonate formation and 213 million cubic
meters of heavy crude (16API and 220 cP) reserve,
was less than 2%under primary water drive depletion (Al-
Hadhrami and Blunt, 2001). Different techniques have
been investigated in the past to improve oil recovery
efficiency from such depleted reservoirs. It has been
reported from laboratory experiments (Chatzis et al.,
1988; Naylor and Frorup, 1989; Dullien et al., 1991; Oren
and Pinchewiski, 1992; Ayatollahi et al., 2005a) and field
performance analysis (King and Stile, 1970; Carlson,
1988; Eikmans and Hitchings, 1999) that remarkable
amounts of residual oil have been recovered by tertiary
gasoil gravity drainage process. Besides, high oil
recovery efficiency, during tertiary GOGD process from
water-wet media when oil has a positive spreading
coefficient, stems from the fact that a continuous oil
film establishes as the oil spreads on the water surface in
the presence of gas (Chatzis and Ayatollahi, 1993). In
addition, Bonin et al. (2002) presented the performance of
a full-field tertiary gas injection of a carbonate field in the
border between UAE and Iran, reporting significant oil
recovery efficiency.
The application of thermally-assisted gravity drain-
age process on water-wet and oil-wet fractured media
for secondary and tertiary oil recovery was rarely
mentioned in the literature. For that matter, it was
deemed necessary to investigate the capability of
thermally-assisted gravity-stable gas injection scheme
in a fractured laboratory model. The experiments were
performed on water-wet and oil-wet sands utilizing both
secondary and tertiary drainage processes.
2. Experimental work
2.1. Experimental setup
The experimental setup, shown in Fig. 1, was used to
simulate vertical gravity drainage process from a matrix
block in fractured laboratory models. The main part of
the experimental setup is a vertically-mounted core
holder with a thermal jacket that maintains a constant
temperature in the core. The core holder is equipped
with several pressure and temperature gauges to monitor
the important parameters associated with oil recovery
from the cores. A 70-cm long, 6.5-cm in diameter sand
pack was centred in the middle of a core holder with an
internal diameter of 7.36 cm; 0.86 cm larger than the
sand pack. The annular space of 0.43 cm from both sides
of the sand pack simulated vertical fracture in the
75 M. Nabipour et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
experimental model. Core samples (Table 1) were first
saturated with synthetic reservoir brine. Oil was then
pumped to establish connate water conditions. Nitrogen
was later injected into the 0.43 cm wide annulus,
simulating the fractures between the core sample and
core holder, and recovered oil was collected under
ambient temperature and pressure. Oil recovery as a
function of time was recorded. The described model has
already been used by other researchers (Schechter and
Guo, 1996; Pooladi-Darvish and Firoozabadi, 2000;
Babadagli, 2001, 2003b) to experimentally simulate
recovery from a fractured reservoir. It is also important
to note that oil recovery by gravity drainage in a
fractured model strongly depends on capillary continu-
ity between matrix blocks. This phenomenon has been
addressed by several authors reporting different results
(Labastie, 1990). The experimental results (Chatzis and
Ayatollahi, 1995) showed that the fluid distribution
during tertiary GOGD process prevented the oil from
being retained in the vicinity of horizontal discontinuity.
It is also worth mentioning that the predicted oil
saturation profile from a pure mathematical model
(Correa and Firoozabadi, 1996) in a layered medium
showed that oil tends to accumulate in the low
permeability zone. Therefore, to investigate the effects
of oil film flow during gravity drainage process and
avoiding any capillary discontinuity in the model, a long
core was used in this experiment.
Nitrogen was injected into the core holder during the
gravity drainage test using a nitrogen cylinder with
maximum pressure of 100 bars. A graduated cylinder is
used to collect the drained oil and water from the exit
valve of the core holder and the volumetric oil and water
production were monitored (Fig. 1).
2.2. Oil and brine properties
Heavy refined oil provided by Behran Jonoub
Company was used as the flooding fluid in the experi-
ments. Properties of the oil are reported in Table 2. The use
Table 1
Dimensions of the experimental model
Value Property
70 cm Core holder length
7.36 cm Core holder inside diameter
0.43 cm Fracture gap
6.5 cm Matrix diameter
Fig. 1. Experimental setup.
76 M. Nabipour et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
of refined oil allowed us to investigate the wettability
effects on the GOGD performance without altering the
wettability, under thermal process (Ayatollahi et al.,
2005b). The brine contains 5 wt.% NaCl and 3.8 wt.%
CaCl
2
. CaCl
2
was added to the brine to minimize
dissolution phenomenon. The density and viscosity of
the brine were 1.05 g/cm
3
and 1.09 cP at 20 C,
respectively. Temperature effects on oil viscosity and
density are also measured and illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3.
Although substantial oil viscosity reduction was achieved
due to heating, density measurements showed no change,
at least over the temperature range used in this study.
2.3. Sand properties and wettability alteration
Unconsolidated clean sand, with a specific size
distribution, was used in the water-wet experiments. The
use of high permeable unconsolidated sands has been
referred in thermal oil recovery processes during
laboratory investigation (Caudle and Silberberg, 1964)
and oil field study (Vasquez et al., 1999). The method of
altering the wettability was done by aging the sand in the
crude oil at elevated temperature for around 1 month.
Because of possible wax problems with the crude oil
used for aging, the temperature applied during aging
was maintained at 60 C (Eilertsen et al., 1999;
Ayatollahi et al., 2005b). Crude oil composition used
for the aging process was measured to be 1 wt.%
asphaltenes, 53 wt.% saturated hydrocarbons, 34 wt.%
aromatics and 12 wt.% nitrogensulphuroxygen con-
taining components (NSO).
The synthetic sand packs were made of pouring sand
gently into a stainless steel basket. The basket looks like
a slotted liner with a mesh size almost equal to the
smallest sand grain size. Physical properties of the used
sand packs are shown in Table 3.
2.4. Experimental procedure
The experimental procedure involved the following
steps:
(1) CO
2
was injected into the model for about 20 min,
to chase air pockets. Sand packs were then
saturated with brine.
(2) After establishing 100% water saturation, porosity
and absolute permeability of the sand matrix were
measured.
(3) To reach connate water conditions, oil was injected
fromthe topof the column. Followingthe injectionof
several pore volumes of oil, connate water (S
wc
) and
initial oil saturations were determined volumetrically.
The model was thenusedtoinvestigate the secondary
GOGD process; see item number 6-a below.
Table 2
Oil properties
Value Property
Behran Jonoub Motor Oil Brand name
SAE-50, Mono Grade Standards
950 cP Dynamic viscosity @ 20 C
450 cP Dynamic viscosity @ 30 C
250 C Flash point
9 C Pour point
21 API at 20 C
b0.2 Asphaltene content, wt.%
b0.3 Resin acid content, wt.%
0 Sulfur content, wt.%
0 Salts, wt.%
Fig. 2. Temperature effect on oil viscosity.
77 M. Nabipour et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
(4) To experimentally simulate the tertiary GOGD
process (see item 6-b below), waterflood residual
oil conditions were established by injecting
several pore volumes of water from the bottom
of the column. The wateroil interface velocity
was maintained constant and the corresponding
capillary number (V
w

w
/
ow
) was kept at values
less than 10
5
to establish conditions of maxi-
mum residual oil saturation (Morrow et al., 1988).
The volume of oil produced from the top of the
column was measured volumetrically, and the
amount of residual oil was determined.
(5) Heating strips were then used to warm the core
holder to a desired temperature; temperatures
ranged from room temperature (25 C) to 60 C.
(6) Two different mechanisms were used to investi-
gate both, secondary and tertiary oil recovery
from water- and oil-wet sand pack matrix.
a. Secondary oil recovery was performed by
applying the free fall gravity drainage process
followed by gas pressurizing and finally
heating the model to a desired temperature.
b. For the tertiary oil recovery process, the same
procedure as described above (a) was employed
at waterflood residual oil conditions (item #4
above) to achieve gas flood residual oil.
3. Experimental results
Five different sets of experiments were performed
and volumetric oil productions as a function of time
were recorded. Table 4 summarizes the incremental and
ultimate oil recovery efficiency for all the experiments.
The recovery factors versus dimensionless time were
also shown in Figs. 4 and 5; the dimensionless time is
defined as:
t
D

Dq
og
gK
l
o
u

L
t
where:
u

u1 S
org
S
cw

3.1. Secondary recovery on water-wet model without

fracture (Experiment # 1)
Among the different types of gravity drainage
processes, the ideal system would be one where oil is
produced only under free fall gravity drainage, giving
the highest possible recovery at the most efficient rate
(Dykstra, 1978). Imagine a reservoir is put into
production; oil in the highly permeable regions such
as fractures is produced rapidly but the low permeable
pores remain unswept. In the next stage of recovery, oil
in the matrix blocks, small pores, are produced by water
imbibition due to the capillary forces or gravity drainage
involving gravity forces. The former production process
is called free fall gravity drainage (Pavone, 1989). The
secondary recovery of heavy oil from the water-wet
sand pack started with a free fall gravity drainage test.
Fig. 3. Temperature effects on oil density.
Table 3
Properties of the sand packs
0.12 mm Sand-size distribution
2430% Porosity
1324 Darcy Matrix permeability
78 M. Nabipour et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
After establishing matrix connate water conditions,
production started by opening the top and bottom valves
of the column to the atmosphere. Air enters at the top and
displaces oil downwards to the production end, where
produced oil was measured volumetrically. The free fall
gravity drainage was performed at 25 C and the oil
recovery factors at different times are shown in Fig. 4.
Low oil recovery was noted during the first stage of oil
production due to the fact that most of the heavy oil was
trapped in the gas-invaded zone inside the matrix. The
model was then pressurized to 15 bars to overcome the
capillary pressure effect; estimated using the sand-size
distribution and the oilgas IFT. To monitor the effects of
pressure maintenance, a control valve was used at the
bottom of the model and the gas breakthrough was
monitored through a transparent housing from the model
to a container. The second part of the production curve in
Fig. 4 portrays the pressurization stage. The low oil
recovery achieved at this stage is due to the existence of a
short capillary transition zone caused by the sand pack
wettability. To simulate thermal GOGD, the temperature
was raised to 60 C. This could mimic a soaking period for
SAGD process while heat is going to be transferred into
the heavy oil reservoir. As a result, viscosity reduction led
to more oil recovery through the thermal recovery
mechanism, see Fig. 4. An incremental recovery of
more than 11% was noticed as a direct result of thermal
stimulation.
Table 4
Summary of experimental results
Exp.
no.
Recovery
mechanism
Wettability Fractured/
non-
fractured
Waterflooding
R.F. (%)
OOIP in
matrix
(cc)
Free fall gravity
drainage R.F.
(%)
Pressure
maintenance
R.F. (%)
Thermal
R.F.
(%)
Recovery
factor
1
(%)
Recovery
factor
2
(%)
1 Secondary
(GOGD)
Water-wet Non-
Fractured
767 44 5 11 60
2 Secondary
(GOGD)
Water-wet Fractured 615 34 4 12 50
3 Tertiary
(waterflooding+
GOGD)
Water-wet Fractured 44 602 12 4 10 70 50
4 Secondary
(GOGD)
Oil-wet Fractured 598 32 11 11 54
5 Tertiary
(waterflooding+
GOGD)
Oil-wet Fractured 11 610 40 7 8 66 58
1
Ultimate recovery factors for secondary and tertiary oil recovery are based on original oil in place (OOIP).
2
Recovery factor for tertiary oil recovery is based on waterflood residual oil.
Fig. 4. Oil recovery factor for secondary (based on OOIP) and tertiary (based on waterflood residual oil) for fractured and non-fractured water-wet
media.
79 M. Nabipour et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
3.2. Secondary recovery on water-wet model with
fracture (Experiment # 2)
The same procedure described for Experiment #1 was
utilized for the oil recovery froma sand pack matrix (Fig. 1)
as a fractured model. Results of the experiments are also
shown in Fig. 4. Compared to the non-fractured media,
lower incremental oil recovery efficiency was noticed
during the free fall gravity drainage stage. Besides, the
thermal effect on the fractured model was significant due to
the fact that low oil recovery led to a thick oil film flow in
the gas invaded zone. The film flow was accelerated as
temperature was increased from room temperature (25 C)
to 60 C. Significant increase of oil recovery efficiency for
both models, fractured and non-fractured, stems from the
fact that oil film flows on the lubricant water in the gas
invaded zone in the water-wet media.
3.3. Tertiary heavy oil recovery from water-wet
fractured model (Experiment # 3)
Tertiary GOGD mechanism was employed here to
recover heavy oil from water-wet and oil-wet fractured
media. As described in the experimental procedure,
waterflooding was performed on the oil-saturated matrix
at connate water condition. The water was injected at a
very low rate from the bottom of the model to maintain
the conditions of primary imbibition in the core. The
waterflooding of water-wet matrix indicated that almost
44% oil recovery efficiency was produced. This
mechanism, mostly affected by water imbibition into
the matrix, leads to 56% waterflood residual oil
saturation, which is in agreement with the results
reported by others (Babadagli, 2003b).
Three different methods, free fall gravity drainage
followed by pressurizing and heating were later
performed on the matrix to mimic tertiary GOGD
process. During the free fall gravity drainage process, air
enters at the top and displaces both water and residual
oil downwards. Due to the relatively high velocities at
the pore level established under free fall conditions, the
residual oil contacted by the invading gas into the matrix
spreads over water. Therefore, early bulk water followed
by simultaneous oil and water production, due to film
flow of liquids in the gas invaded matrix, characterizes
production due to free fall GOGD. By applying thermal
stimulation, 26% incremental oil was recovered increas-
ing the overall ultimate oil recovery to 70%. The high oil
recovery efficiency during free fall gravity drainage
which was noticed here was also reported by Chatzis
and Ayatollahi (1995). The results of oil recovery
efficiency, shown in Fig. 4, were based on waterflood
residual oil in place (last column of Table 4) to better
evaluate the performance of the GOGD process.
Different oil recovery rates, found during the free fall
gravity drainage for three previous experiments (shown
in Fig. 4 and Table 4), are due to the thickness of oil film
flow in the gas invaded zone. It is concluded that the low
viscosity oil film flow, due to thermal stimulation, on the
water lubricating film, characterizing the water-wet
media, plays a major role in high ultimate oil recovery
efficiency achieved in Experiment #3.
3.4. Secondary recovery on oil-wet model with fracture
(Experiment # 4)
Oil-wet matrix was prepared by aging of sands in the
crude oil, described above, to investigate the wettability
Fig. 5. Oil recovery factor for secondary (based on OOIP) and tertiary (based on waterflood residual oil) for fractured oil-wet media.
80 M. Nabipour et al. / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 55 (2007) 7482
effect on GOGD process for heavy oil recovery. The
same procedure as Experiment #2 was then utilized on
the oil-wet model and the results of the oil recovery
factor are reported in Table 4 and Fig. 5. Significant oil
recovery efficiency achieved during the two successive
stages (pressure maintenance and thermal) is due to the
presence of a continuous thick oil film on the sand
grains in the gas-invaded zone. The ultimate results
clearly indicate almost the same recovery efficiency
under gravity drainage for both water-wet and oil-wet
media. This is in agreement with the results obtained by
other researchers (Dicarlo et al., 2000; Pedrera et al.,
2002; Shahidzadeh-Bonn et al., 2003; Ayatollahi et al.,
2005a). Indeed, the ultimate oil recovery efficiency for
both water-wet and oil-wet sand packs is promising as
almost 50% of initial oil in place was recovered. The
incremental oil recovery for the oil-wet matrix is not
accountable here due to the inaccuracy of the volumetric
oil recovery measurement.
3.5. Tertiary heavy oil recovery from oil-wet fractured
model (Experiment # 5)
The effects of wettability on the tertiary GOGD
process in the fractured model were investigated here by
replacing the water-wet sand pack matrix in Experiment
# 3 with an oil-wet matrix and repeating the same
procedure. The low oil recovery achieved by water-
flooding in the first stage (see Table 4) indicates the
extents of oil wetness of the sand pack matrix due to a
very low water imbibition. This fact clearly indicates the
validity of the wettability alteration procedure used in
this investigation. The oil recovery efficiency based on
the waterflood residual oil saturation at different times is
shown in Fig. 5. The fact that more than 88% of trapped
oil (S
orw
) was left after waterflooding, resulted in a very
high oil recovery efficiency following free fall GOGD,
gas pressure maintenance and thermal recovery. To
better evaluate the performance of tertiary GOGD
process the oil recovery efficiency for this experiment
shown in Fig. 4 was calculated based on waterflood
residual oil in place. The results shown in Fig. 5 also
imply that the same rate of oil recovery for both
secondary and tertiary GOGD in oil-wet sand packs was
recorded. Based on this fact it is confirmed that tertiary
GOGD oil recovery in oil-wet media can be utilized for
higher oil recovery efficiency (Table 4).
4. Conclusions
1. Thermally-assisted gasoil gravity drainage process
was found to be very effective for heavy oil recovery
from oil- and water-wet fractured media at both
secondary and tertiary stages.
2. The tertiary oil recovery results suggest that a
combination of waterflooding followed by thermal
stimulation for water- and oil-wet fractured media is
more effective as compared to a secondary thermal
recovery process.
3. Oil production history from the oil-wet media
suggests that the same oil production rates recorded
during the secondary and tertiary recovery processes
are mainly due to the pronounced oil trapping in the
matrix following the waterflooding process.
4. Oil film flow during the secondary and tertiary oil
recovery processes is more sensitive to the thickness
of the oil film (S
org
) in the water-wet media.
5. Gas pressure maintenance to ensure gas penetration
into the oil-saturated matrix increases the oil
recovery efficiency. Oil recovery efficiency in the
oil-wet fractured model is significantly increased by
increasing gas injection pressure.
6. Viscosity reduction was found to be the main reason
for higher oil recovery efficiency during the thermal
process.
Nomenclature
g Gravity acceleration (m/sec
2
).
K Absolute permeability (Darcy).
L Length of porous medium (cm).
S
cw
Connate water saturation.
S
org
Residual oil saturation after gas flooding.
t Time (s).
V
w
Flow velocity of water during the waterflood-
ing process (cm/s).
Porosity of medium.

og
Density differences between oil and gas (kg/m
3
).

o
Viscosity of oil (cP).

w
Viscosity of water (cP).

ow
Interfacial tension between oil and water (mN/m).
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