Dynamic Behaviors and Mechanisms of Air-Foam Flooding at High Pressure and Reservoir Temperature via Microfluidic Experiments

Air injection has been proven to be an effective improved oil recovery technique for deep and light oil reservoirs with low permeability and poor water injectivity. But the efficiency of air injection in highly heterogeneous reservoirs is low due to poor gas sweeping that may lead to early oxygen breakthrough caused by gas channeling and viscous fingering. Foam can be used to assist air injection to overcome the obstacles of early gas breakthrough and to increase the displacement and sweeping efficiency. In this paper, laser-etched visual microscopic pore models were used as microfluidic devices to study the air-foam flooding process in porous media at reservoir temperature and high pressure. The dynamic behaviors and relevant mechanisms of air-foam flooding were investigated. Typical mechanisms of foam generation in porous media are achieved in different parts of the micromodel, which can be listed as follows: lamella leave-behind, lamella division, and snap off. Analysis on flow states of air foam showed that foams migrate in porous media by bursting and regenerating during the flooding process. It can be observed that the flow mode of foam in porous media is the separate flow of gas and liquid through microscopic displacement experiments, suggesting that foam should not be treated as a homogeneous phase in heterogeneous porous media. The pressing, occupying, and selective blocking effects of foam in porous media exhibited different oil displacement performances with the presence of various pore geometries and networks. Tiny foams also showed stripping and carrying effects on larger oil droplets benefiting from the lipophilicity of foam. Through comprehensive analysis on overall and local oil displacement mechanisms, air-foam injection could enhance the microscopic sweep volume and improve the oil displacement efficiency.