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CO2 flooding has been recognized widely as one of the most effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies for reducing greenhouse emissions while increasing the ultimate recovery of oil reservoirs. Because of the wide variety of parameters that can influence, the outcome of CO2 storage projects reservoir simulation has gained wide popularity. In this study, a fully compositional reservoir simulation model was used to simulate various operational conditions, reservoir properties and fluid composition, and their effects on the amount of CO2 stored and oil recovered. The results can be used for selection of best reservoir candidates for carbon storage and optimization of operational... 

The effects of CO2 and salt type on the interfacial tension (IFT) between crude oil and carbonated brine (CB) have not been fully understood. This study focuses on measuring the dynamic IFT between acidic crude oil with a total acid number of 1.5 mg KOH/g and fully CO2-saturated aqueous solutions consisting of 15,000 ppm of KCl, NaCl, CaCl2 and MgCl2 at 30 °C and a wide range of pressures (500–4000 psi). The results of IFT measurements showed that solvation of CO2 into all the studied aqueous solutions led to an increase in IFT of acidic crude oil (i.e., comparison of IFT of crude oil/CB and crude oil/brine), while no significant effect was observed for pressure. In contrast, the obtained... 

CO2 sequestration in geological formations, such as aquifers, is known to be the best short-term solution to CO2 mitigation. Accurate description of CO2 solubility in brine is important for evaluating the capacity of aquifers to sequester CO2. Currently, EOS-based models are widely used in reservoir compositional simulators for this purpose. However, most of these models involve complex and iterative calculations which take too much time in case of large-scale flow simulation of geological CO2 storage. In this study, a neural network model is presented for prediction of CO2 solubility in brine which is highly accurate with less computational overhead  

An integrated model is proposed for simultaneous study of CO2-flood enhanced oil recovery and sequestration in both technical and economic points of view. Based on this model, Green Balance software is developed for quick estimation of performance and profitability of CO2-flood enhanced oil recovery and carbon capture and storage projects. This software benefits users to do sensitivity analyses in extended times, easily and quickly. Several sensitivity analyses were done and effects of reservoir parameters and economic expenditures and taxes were studied. Among all affecting parameters, the role of tax per CO2 emission is the most important one. The use of... 

Asphaltene precipitation and deposition within the reservoir formation is one of the main concerns during enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes especially during the gas injection. In the current study, different aspects of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen (N2) injection in the reservoir, was thoroughly examined. The feasibility of using these gases as the injection gas was explored using Bayesian network-based screening method. After recombination and preparation of the live crude oil, precipitation of asphaltene using vanishing interfacial tension (VIT) method and core flooding experimentation was examined. Besides, swelling test was utilized to investigate the effect of CO2 and N2... 

In this paper, a three-dimensional simulation of fully coupled multiphase fluid flow and heat transfer through deforming porous media is presented in the context of EFG mesh-less method. Spatial discretization of the system of governing equations is performed using EFG and a fully implicit finite difference scheme is employed for temporal discretization. Penalty method is used for imposition of essential boundary conditions. The developed numerical tool is employed to simulate two problems of nuclear waste disposal and CO2 sequestration in deep underground strata. The obtained results demonstrate the capability and robustness of the developed EFG code. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd  

Carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in geologic formations is an attractive means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The main processes controlling the migration of CO2 in geological formations are related to convective mixing and geochemical reactions. The effects of heterogeneity on these coupled processes have been widely discussed in the literature. Recently, special attention has been devoted to fractured geological formations that can be found in several storage reservoirs. However, existing studies on the effect of fractures on the fate of CO2 neglect the key processes of geochemical reactions. This work aims at addressing this gap. Based on numerical simulations of a hypothetical... 

In this paper, a numerical model is developed for the assessment of carbon dioxide transport through naturally fractured cap-rocks during CO2 sequestration in underground aquifers. The cap-rock contains two types of fracture with different length scales: micro-cracks (fissures) and macro-cracks (faults). The effect of micro-cracks is incorporated implicitly by modifying the intrinsic permeability tensor of porous matrix, while the macro-cracks are modeled explicitly using the extended finite element method (X-FEM). The fractured porous medium is decomposed into the porous matrix and fracture domain, which are occupied with two immiscible fluid phases, water and CO2. The flow inside the... 

Abstract: The convection–diffusion process of carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolution in a saline reservoir is investigated to shed light on the effects of the permeability heterogeneity. Using sequential Gaussian simulation method, random permeability fields in two and three-dimension (2D and 3D) structures are generated. Quantitative (average amount of the dissolved CO2 and dissolution flux) and qualitative (pattern of the dissolved CO2 and velocity streamlines) measurements are used to investigate the results. A 3D structure shows a slightly higher dissolution flux than a 2D structure in the homogeneous condition. Results in the random permeability fields in 2D indicates an increase in the...