HIGH RESOLUTION PREDICTION OF GAS INJECTION PROCESS PERFORMANCE FOR HETEROGENEOUS RESERVOIRS

This report outlines progress in the second 3 months of the first year of the DOE project ''High Resolution Prediction of Gas Injection Process Performance for Heterogeneous Reservoirs.'' The development of an automatic technique for analytical solution of one-dimensional gas flow problems with volume change on mixing is described. The aim of this work is to develop a set of ultra-fast compositional simulation tools that can be used to make field-scale predictions of the performance of gas injection processes. To achieve the necessary accuracy, these tools must satisfy the fundamental physics and chemistry of the displacement from the pore to the reservoir scales. Thus this project focuses on four main research areas: (1) determination of the most appropriate methods of mapping multicomponent solutions to streamlines and streamtubes in 3D; (2) development of techniques for automatic generation of analytical solutions for one-dimensional flow along a streamline; (3) experimental investigations to improve the representation of physical mechanisms that govern displacement efficiency along a streamline; and (4) theoretical and experimental investigations to establish the limitations of the streamline/streamtube approach. In this report they briefly review the status of the research effort in each area. They then give a more in depth discussion of their development of techniques for analytic solutions along a streamline including volume change on mixing for arbitrary numbers of components