A laboratory investigation of carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery by focusing on CO2-oil physical properties

Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) miscible flooding has become an important method in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) for recovering residual oil. In addition it may help in protection of the environment as (CO 2 ) is widely viewed as an important agent in global warming. Knowledge of the interactions between (CO 2 ) and reservoir crude oil is very critical for any (CO 2 )-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. This paper shows the effect of (CO 2 ) miscible flooding application for Egyptian oil fields by swelling studies. The swelling test is a laboratory simulation of the process of injecting gradually different percentage of (CO 2 ) gas into a reservoir containing under-saturated oil. The gas (injection solvent) can dissolve, causing the reservoir fluid to swell. This paper presents a summary of a wide range of laboratory tests conducted on ten different crude oils varying from 26.4 to 40.5 API. These were used to invested the use of (CO 2 ) and its effect on parameters such as viscosity, density, gas solubility and swelling factor as a function of pressure at temperature from 620.3 to 706.0 °R.