An experimental investigation - Application of dual cores methodology for evaluation of IOR and EOR process

Core flooding experiment is an important technique to simulate the dynamitic characteristics of one or multiple phase through a porous media and evaluate displacement efficiency and performance of IOR and EOR process. In this study, a novel methodology of dual core flooding was first developed and described in detailed, and applied to evaluate displacement efficiency and performance of IOR and EOR process. The dual core flooding apparatus consists of components as follows: two core holders; two differential pressure measurement systems; an injection system; an auto-confining pressure system; two effluent measurement systems; computer data acquisition and control system and two backpressure control systems. The experimental conditions of apparatus are up to 150oC for temperature, 6000 psi for pore pressure and 10,000 psi for confining pressure. This apparatus can be used to inject individually or simultaneously for one phase or two phases fluids into cores. The orientation of dual core holder can change horizontally or vertically for propose of experiments. As example of application of apparatus, the oil recovery schemes of seawater and sc-CO2 injection were conducted at reservoir conditions. The results from dual core flooding experiments are discussed and compared for between high and low permeability of carbonate rocks in this paper.