MULTIPHASE MECHANISMS & FLUID DYNAMICS IN GAS INJECTION EOR PROCESSES

The work attempts to address six key questions: (i) do we continue to ‘fix the problems’ of gravity segregation in the horizontal gas floods or find an effective alternative?, (ii) is there a ‘happy-medium’ between single-slug and WAG processes that would outperform both?, (iii) what are the controlling multiphase mechanisms and fluid dynamics in gravity drainage processes?, (iv) what are the mechanistic issues relating to gravity drainage?, and (v) how can we model the novel GAGD process using traditional analytical and empirical theories and (vi) what are the roles of the classical displacement, versus drainage in the GAGD process? The primary original contributions of this work to the existing literature are: (i) proof of concept of two new gas injection processes, and (ii) preliminary mechanistic and dynamic differences between the drainage and displacement phenomenon have been identified and a new mechanism to characterize the process fluid mechanics have been proposed.