Pressure Maintenance and Improving
Oil Recovery by Means of Immiscible
Water-Alternating-CO2 Processes
in Thin Heavy-Oil Reservoirs
Sixu Zheng, SPE, and Daoyong Yang, SPE, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Summary
Techniques have been developed to experimentally and numeri-
cally evaluate performance of water-alternating-CO2 processes in
thin heavy-oil reservoirs for pressure maintenance and improving
oil recovery. Experimentally, a 3D physical model consisting of
three horizontal wells and five vertical wells is used to evaluate
the performance of water-alternating-CO2 processes. Two well
configurations have been designed to examine their effects on
heavy-oil recovery. The corresponding initial oil saturation, oil-
production rate, water cut, oil recovery, and residual-oil-satura-
tion (ROS) distribution are examined under various operating
conditions. Subsequently, numerical simulation is performed to
match the experimental measurements and optimize the operating
parameters (e.g., slug size and water/CO2 ratio). The incremental
oil recoveries of 12.4 and 8.9% through three water-alternating-
CO2 cycles are experimentally achieved for the aforementioned
two well configurations, respectively. The excellent agreement
between the measured and simulated cumulative oil production
indicates that the displacement mechanisms governing water-
alternating-CO2 processes have been numerically simulated and
matched. It has been shown that water-alternating-CO2 processes
implemented with horizontal wells can be optimized to signifi-
cantly improve performance of pressure maintenance and oil re-
covery in thin heavy-oil reservoirs. Although well configuration
imposes a dominant impact on oil recovery, the water-alternating-
gas (WAG) ratios of 0.75 and 1.00 are found to be the optimum
values for Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively.
Introduction
With escalating oil consumption and depleting conventional oil
resources, the vast heavy-oil resources discovered in western Can-
ada (i.e., Alberta and Saskatchewan) have attracted much more
attention recently. Approximately 62% of Canada’s total heavy-
oil resources are located in Saskatchewan, including 3.4 billion
m3 of proven reserves (Bowers and Drummond 1997). As for
these resources, more than 90% of the proven reserves are con-
tained in reservoirs with pay zones of less than 10 m, approxi-
mately 55% of which have pay zones of less than 5 m (Huang
et al. 1987). It is a great challenge to recover such heavy-oil
resources economically and effectively because of the high vis-
cosity and fast depletion of reservoir pressure. Thermal recovery
techniques, such as cyclic steam stimulation, steamflooding,
steam-assisted gravity drainage, and in-situ combustion, appear to
be effective for recovering heavy oil because the oil viscosity is
very sensitive to temperature. However, characteristics of thin res-
ervoirs are such that thermal-based processes are ineffective or
uneconomical, mainly because of excessive heat losses to adja-
cent formations or aquifers. In-situ combustion processes may
yield more viscous or immobile components in the formation,
Copyright V
C 2013 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 157719) was accepted for presentation at the SPE Heavy Oil Conference
Canada, Calgary, 12–14 June 2012, and revised for publication. Original manuscript
received for review 7 April 2012. Revised manuscript received for review 25 September
2012. Paper peer approved 14 November 2012.
60
meaning that only a small fraction of oil can be displaced and
recovered, especially when low-temperature oxidation is the dom-
inant reaction model (Islam et al. 1989; Moore et al. 1999; Shen
2002). Among the thermal methods proposed for heavy-oil recov-
ery, by far the most successful ones are based on steam injection;
however, large water consumption is another major constraint of
implementing the steam-based processes in certain areas. Chemi-
cal flooding has been considered one of the promising enhanced-
oil-recovery (EOR) techniques in heavy-oil reservoirs (Thomas
et al. 2001). For example, polymer flooding has been successfully
applied in the Pelican-Lake heavy-oil field (Strauss et al. 2010).
In addition to consumption of a large amount of chemical agents,
such as alkali and surfactants, which must be transported and
handled safely in the field, several environmental problems may
result from chemicals that are injected into the formation (Stoll
et al. 2010). Conventionally chemical flooding techniques are sen-
sitive to brine salinity, leading to high cost or infeasibility in
many cases (Flaaten et al. 2009). High levels of adsorption within
the porous medium lead to some chemical EOR techniques asso-
ciated with surfactants being uneconomical (Fletcher et al. 2012).
Regarding heavy-oil reservoirs discovered in western Canada,
although the shallow depth makes it extremely difficult to achieve
miscible CO2 displacement, CO2 has been found to be an effec-
tive agent for recovering heavy-oil resources through an immisci-
ble displacement process, and satisfactory results have been
achieved in heavy-oil reservoirs, such as the Bati Raman field and
Alaska North Slope fields (Issever et al. 1993; Sahin et al. 2008;
Ning et al. 2011). It is of practical and fundamental importance
to evaluate suitability of pressure maintenance and improving
heavy-oil recovery with immiscible CO2 injection in thin pay
zones in which other EOR techniques are not applicable.
Compared with natural gas and air, CO2 still has high solubil-
ity in heavy oil and bitumen, though it is difficult for CO2 to
achieve miscibility with heavy oil. The mechanisms associated
with oil recovery include viscosity reduction, swelling effect,
interfacial-tension reduction, and blowdown recovery (Beecher
and Parkhurst 1926; Jha 1986; Rojas and Farouq Ali 1988). The
injected CO2 not only acts as a pressure-maintenance agent but
also enhances oil recovery during the pressure-maintenance pro-
cess in heavy-oil reservoirs. In recent years, the WAG process has
been found to be much more effective than gas injection alone,
because it combines the improved microscopic displacement effi-
ciency of the gasflooding with improved macroscopic sweep effi-
ciency by injecting water (Christensen et al. 2001). Although
numerous immiscible or miscible WAG processes with use of
CO2 (CO2-WAG) have been implemented in light- or medium-oil
reservoirs (Asghari et al. 2007; Righi and Pascual 2007; Shi et al.
2008; Chen et al. 2010a, b), few attempts have been made to eval-
uate performance of CO2-WAG processes under the well configu-
rations associated with horizontal wells for pressure maintenance
in a heavy-oil reservoir.
In general, the CO2-WAG performance is significantly
affected by reservoir heterogeneity, rock wettability, fluid proper-
ties, miscibility conditions, trapped gas, injection techniques, and
well operational parameters. Performance of a CO2-WAG process
is largely affected not only by the injection parameters, including
February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 TABLE 1—COMPOSITIONAL-ANALYSIS RESULTS OF TABLE 2—COMPOSITION OF SYNTHETIC BRINE
HEAVY-OIL SAMPLE
Component Concentration (mg/L)
Carbon Carbon Carbon
Number (wt%) Number (wt%) Number (wt%) Chloride 43 677
Sodium 24 700
C1 0.00 C11 1.26 C21 2.39 Calcium 1500
C2 0.00 C12 1.54 C22 1.44 Magnesium 850
C3 0.00 C13 1.95 C23 1.98 Potassium 413
C4 0.00 C14 2.18 C24 1.67
C5 0.00 C15 2.55 C25 1.67
C6 0.00 C16 2.29 C26 1.70 21.0 C and 3500 kPa, respectively. The density of the oil sample
C7 0.00 C17 2.29 C27 1.72 is measured as 976.0 kg/m3 at 15.6 C and atmospheric pressure;
viscosity of the oil sample was 5,861 cp at 20.0 C and atmos-
C8 0.00 C18 2.60 C28 1.75
pheric pressure when measured with a Brookfield DV-IIþ Pro-
C9 0.96 C19 2.23 C29 1.50
grammable Viscometer (Brookfield Engineering Laboratories).
C10 0.99 C20 2.02 C30þ 61.33 The asphaltene content of the heavy-oil sample was determined as
14.4 wt% (n-pentane insoluble).
The compositional analysis of the oil sample is tabulated in
WAG ratio (i.e., water-slug size to CO2-slug size), injection rate, Table 1. The heavy components (C30þ) account for 61.3 wt%,
and cycle time, but also by the production parameters, including whereas no hydrocarbon component lighter than C9 exists in this
production rate and bottomhole pressure at the producer (Christen- heavy oil. Density of reservoir brine is measured as 1051.7 kg/m3
sen et al. 2001; Chen et al. 2010a, b). In particular, WAG ratio is a at 20.0 C; chloride, sodium, calcium, and magnesium ions are the
crucial factor that affects the oil recovery and has an optimum dominant components. The brine viscosity is determined as 1.03
value in a hydrocarbon reservoir (Reid and Robinson 1981; Rojas cp at 20.0 C. In this study, a synthetic brine was prepared and
and Farouq Ali 1986; Chen et al. 2010a, b; Torabi et al. 2010). An used as a proxy for reservoir brine, the compositions of which are
improved oil recovery in a miscible CO2-WAG process is provided in Table 2.
achieved as the result of an increase in sweep efficiency, and the In this study, research grade CO2 with a purity of 99.998%
highest oil recovery is achieved when the overall WAG ratio for was purchased from the Praxair, Canada. The Computer Model-
the entire reservoir reaches 0.5 (Chen et al. 2010a, b). Regarding ling Group (CMG) WinProp module (Version 2009.11, Computer
the CO2-WAG application in a heavy-oil reservoir, a high rather Modeling Group Limited, Canada) with the Peng-Robinson (PR)
than low WAG ratio is recommended, and a WAG ratio of 4:1 or equation of state (EOS) (Peng and Robinson 1976) was used to
5:1 is found to be the optimum value (Rojas and Farouq Ali 1986). calculate the densities of CO2 at different pressures and tempera-
In this study, a 3D physical model with five vertical wells and tures. Ottawa sand No. 710 (Bell & Mackenzie Company Lim-
three horizontal wells is developed and applied to experimentally ited) was used to pack the 3D physical model, and its screen
evaluate the performance of pressure maintenance and improving analysis is listed in Table 3.
oil recovery by means of CO2-WAG processes in thin heavy-oil
reservoirs. Experimentally, displacement experiments with a given
well configuration are started first with waterflooding followed by Experimental Setup
CO2-WAG processes, to maintain reservoir pressure and improve A digital image of the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. The
oil recovery. In addition to recording the pressure drop, the pro- whole setup can be divided into three subsystems: fluid-supply
duced oils are collected and measured, and gas-flow rate and system, 3D displacement system, and fluid-production system.
its cumulative volume are measured and logged automatically The major component of this experimental setup is the 3D dis-
throughout the experiments. Theoretically, numerical simulation placement model with dimensions of 304  304  127 mm. The
is performed to match the production history and serves as a basis wall of the 3D model has a thickness of 25.4 mm. The five-spot-
for future optimization of CO2-WAG processes. Once the simula- pattern size covers an area of 253  253 mm, which represents a
tion model is built, history matching is performed to match the ex- typical well spacing of approximately 3.2  104 m2 (8 acres) in
perimental measurements. Subsequently, sensitivity analysis was heavy-oil fields (Rojas and Farouq Ali 1986). Twenty-eight bolts
performed to examine the effect of water-slug size. are used to fasten the steel lid, and a rubber gasket is applied for
sealing the model. Three parallel horizontal wells are at the bot-
tom of the void space, and five vertical wells are distributed as a
Experimental Materials conventional five-spot well pattern in the model. This 3D dis-
The heavy-oil sample and reservoir brine were from the Lashburn placement model can be used to perform experiments under five-
area, Canada. The initial reservoir temperature and pressure were spot, line-drive, and other well patterns associated with horizontal
wells. All the wells have a diameter of 6.4 mm, around which
small holes are perforated to allow fluids to flow. The wells are
TABLE 3—TYPICAL SCREEN ANALYSIS OF OTTAWA SAND
wrapped with a 250-mesh wire-screen (Ferrier Wire Goods, Can-
NO. 710
ada) to prevent sand production during the tests. The maximum
operating pressure of the 3D displacement system is 6.0 MPa at
US Standard Sieve Size
room temperature because the rectangular model shows a tend-
Retained ency to bulge under a high internal pressure. In this study, a leak-
Mesh mm (wt%) age test was conducted up to the pressure of 5.0 MPa at room
temperature for 30 minutes before any experiments.
40 0.425 Trace Two well configurations have been designed to examine their
50 0.300 0.3 effects on heavy-oil recovery in this study. Scenario 1 includes
70 0.212 7.0 two parallel horizontal wells, one of which is injector and the
100 0.150 52.0 other is producer. Scenario 2 has four vertical injectors with one
140 0.106 32.0 horizontal producer. Both of these scenarios are illustrated in
Fig. 2. Porosities of Scenarios 1 and 2 are determined to be 33.1
200 0.075 8.0
and 33.5%, respectively. Absolute permeabilities of Scenarios 1
270 0.053 0.7
and 2 are determined to be 1,700 and 1,800 md, respectively. The

February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 61

 Syringe pump
Transfer cyclinder
Gas flow meter
3D model
BPR Collector
Fig. 1—Digital image of the experimental setup used in this study.
initial oil saturations for Scenarios 1 and 2 are measured to be
93.1 and 92.5%, respectively.
Experimental Procedures
Before conducting the experiments, several preparations must be
completed, including sandpacking, porosity measurement, perme-
ability determination, and initial-oil-saturation determination. As
for the sand-packing process, the 3D displacement model is placed
horizontally before filling the void space with a given amount of
the Ottawa sand. Subsequently, the 3D model is shaken for a tight
packing with a pneumatic vibrator (NP 35, Northern Vibrator) for
at least 10 hours. The lid is then removed, and more sand is added
to the formed void space in the model; the model is then covered,
tightened, and shaken again. The same process is normally re-
peated four to five times until no void space is observed at the top
of the physical model. During the packing process, the bottom of
the sandpack is packed more tightly than the top layer.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 2—Schematic of well configurations. (a) Scenario 1: one
horizontal injector and one horizontal producer; (b) Scenario 2:
four vertical injectors and one horizontal producer.
62
Data acquisition
CO2
The porosity of the sandpacked model is measured by means
of the imbibition method. After completion of the displacement
process, the blowdown process is carried out. Once a blowdown
recovery is completed, ROS is measured. From top to bottom, the
sandpack model is divided into four layers and marked as Layers
1 through 4 in sequence, each of which is approximately 3.0 cm
thick. In each layer, mixtures of sand and reservoir fluids are col-
lected from 13 locations to measure the ROS. First, the weight of
each collected sample that contains sand, residual oil, and water is
measured. Second, the collected sample is heated in an oven at
100.0 C for 4 hours to ensure that water is completely evaporated.
Then the remaining sand/oil mixture is weighed. It should be
noted again that the heavy-oil sample used in this study does not
contain any hydrocarbon components lighter than C9, of which
the normal boiling point is 143.0 C. As such, hydrocarbon com-
ponents will not be distilled when the heating temperature is set to
be 100.0 C for evaporating water. Third, toluene and kerosene are
used as solvents to completely remove the residual heavy oil in
the sample. Finally, the sand is heated in the oven at 110.0 C and
then weighed when it is completely dried. Consequently, ROS is
calculated on the basis of the weight differences, porosity of the
sandpack model, oil density, and sand density. Detailed proce-
dures for the aforementioned preparations can be found elsewhere
(Zheng et al. 2011).
The sandpacked 3D physical model is first flooded with oil
until irreducible water saturation is reached. The physical model
is then left undisturbed for 24 hours to equilibrate the distribution
of fluids. For each scenario, water injection is started from the
injector(s) with a constant injection rate of 2.0 cm3/min, which is
in accordance with the typical average pore velocity of 1.0 ft/D in
an oil field. Water injection is terminated once no more oil is
produced.
After the waterflooding process with a specific well configura-
tion, several cycles of water and CO2 are injected into the physi-
cal model alternatively to evaluate their performance of pressure
maintenance and improving oil recovery. During the CO2-WAG
processes, CO2 is introduced into the physical model from a CO2
cylinder, in which a gas regulator is used to control the injection
pressure of 3900 kPa. A backpressure regulator (BPR) (EB1HP1,
Equilibar) is connected with the production port to maintain the
physical model at the prespecified operating pressure of 3860 kPa
during WAG processes. Therefore, the pressure inside the 3D dis-
placement model has been maintained at approximately 3860 kPa
February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 10
1
Viscosity, 103 cP
0.1
0.01
0.0
Fig. 3—Calculated viscosity (Emera and Sarma 2008) and swelling factor (SF) (Li et al. 2011) of CO2-diluted heavy oil as a function
of CO2 solubility.
with the use of the gas regulator and BPR during the displacement
process. All the experiments are performed at the ambient temper-
ature of 21.0 6 1.0 C.
Conical-bottom glass centrifuge tubes (Kimble) are used to
collect the produced fluids. The capacity of the tube is 100 cm3.
There are several subdivisions, among which the largest toler-
ance is 1.00 cm3. The volume of produced liquids can be meas-
ured accurately through the use of the tubes. A gas flowmeter
(XFM17S, Aalborg) is connected with the collector to measure
the produced gas. The gas-flow rates and gas cumulative volume
are logged and stored automatically in a computer at a preset time
interval.
Numerical Simulation
To better understand the mechanisms of CO2-WAG processes
with the purpose of pressure maintenance in heavy-oil reservoirs,
numerical simulation has been conducted to history match the
waterflooding and CO2-WAG processes. As mentioned previ-
ously, no hydrocarbon components lighter than C9 are found in
the dead heavy-oil sample in this study, whereas heavy compo-
nents account for a large proportion of the composition. The oper-
ating pressure (less than 4000 kPa) is far below the minimum
miscibility pressure of 15.5 MPa at temperature of 21.0 C, which
is calculated by the CMG WinProp module (Version 2009.11).
Neither light-components extraction nor miscible flooding has
been achieved at the experimental conditions in this study.
Injector #1
Injector #3
Injector #2
Injector #4
Producer
Fig. 4—3D view of the simulation model of Scenario 2.
February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
1.20
Calculated viscosity with GA-based correlation
Calculated swelling factor with volume-translated PR EOS
Calculated swelling factor with GA-based correlation
1.15
Swelling factor
1.10
1.05
1.00
0.2 0.4 0.6
Solubility of CO2 in heavy oil, mole fraction
Because it is not reliable to generate the EOS model for composi-
tional simulator without sufficient laboratory pressure/volume/
temperature data, as recommended by the CMG, genetic-algo-
rithm (GA) -based correlations (Emera and Sarma 2008) have
been used to calculate CO2 solubility, swelling factor, and the vis-
cosity of the oil/CO2 mixture in this study. The GA-based viscos-
ity correlation can reproduce 130 viscosity data for oil/CO2
mixtures, with an accuracy of 6.0%, whereas the swelling-factor
correlation is able to reproduce 85 swelling-factor data for oil/
CO2 mixtures, with an accuracy of 0.61% (Emera and Sarma
2008). Fig. 3 shows the predicted viscosity and swelling factor of
an oil/CO2 mixture, as a function of CO2 solubility through the
use of the GA-based correlations. A significant viscosity reduction
and swelling effect can be achieved with the dissolution of CO2 in
heavy oil (Beecher and Parkhurst 1926; Jha 1986). Fig. 3 also
shows the calculated swelling factor with the use of a newly
developed binary-interaction-parameter correlation in the vol-
ume-translated PR EOS, which has been experimentally validated
with an oil sample collected from the same area (Li et al. 2011).
As seen in Fig. 3, there exists an excellent agreement between the
predicted swelling factor by use of the GA-based correlations and
the predicted swelling factor with the PR EOS model. This also
confirms the reliability of the GA-based correlations used in this
study. Because a black-oil model has also been considered to be
an effective tool for simulating performance of immiscible flood-
ing processes (Cobanoglu 2001), the IMEX black-oil simulator
(Version 2009.11, CMG Limited, Canada) has been used in this
study. A grid system of 13  13  6 gridblocks is used in the nu-
merical model to represent the physical model, resulting in a fine-
gridblock size of 2.34  2.34  2.10 cm (see Fig. 4).
Uniform distribution of porosity and oil saturation is used in
10.6 the model; the absolute permeability of each layer varies with the
9.5 depth. Because of the relatively high absolute permeability, the
capillary pressure effect is neglected. Because the relative perme-
8.5
abilities cannot be directly measured from experiments, they are
7.4 to be determined by use of the history-matching techniques
6.4 instead (Watson et al. 1980; Eydinov et al. 2009; Li et al. 2009;
5.3 Li and Yang 2011). In principle, trapping of the nonwetting phase
4.2 (CO2) significantly affects the hysteresis in relative permeability
(Spiteri and Juanes 2004). It is experimentally observed, however,
3.2
that not much CO2 is trapped in the sandpacked model during the
2.1 immiscible CO2-WAG process. It is reasonably assumed that hys-
1.1 teresis effect is not significant in this study, and thus the hysteresis
0.0 effect on relative permeability has not been taken into account. In
this study, two sets of similar relative permeability curves are
used to accurately match the experimental measurements, though
63
 40.0 Cycle 2 CO2 H2O
Cycle 1
CO2 H2O
H2O
CO2
30.0
Oil recovery, %OOIP
CO2 H2O
CO2 H2O
20.0
Cycle 1 Cycle 2
10.0
0.0
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0
Injected fluids, PV
Fig. 5—Oil recovery during displacement experiments for Sce-
narios 1 and 2.
one set of the average relative permeability curves would provide
a reasonable match. Regarding field applications, however, one
set of average relative permeability curves is used because these
two sets of relative permeability curves are similar.
To simulate the experimental displacement process, the well
operational conditions defined in simulation models are set the
same as those used in the experiments. For example, in the experi-
ments, the production port is connected with the BPR that is used
to maintain the pressure of model at the prespecified operating
pressure of 3860 kPa. In the simulation models, the bottomhole
pressure of the producer is then set to be 3860 kPa. During a water-
injection process, the water-injection rate in the simulation model
is set at the constant value of 2.0 cm3/min, which is the same as the
experimental water-injection rate. For the CO2-injection process, a
gas regulator connected with the CO2 cylinder is used to control
the injection pressure of 3900 kPa. Accordingly, the CO2-injection
pressure is set to be 3900 kPa in the simulation model.
Results and Discussion
Waterflooding. Waterflooding is started in Scenarios 1 and 2.
The oil-recovery profiles for the two scenarios are shown in
Fig. 5. After 1.00 pore volume (PV) of water injection, oil recov-
eries of 24.3 and 23.1% are achieved for Scenarios 1 and 2,
respectively. A similar recovery profile for heavy-oil waterfloods
can be found in the literature (Mai and Kantzas 2009). Fig. 6
shows water cut in the produced liquid during displacement proc-
esses of the two scenarios. The fact that the heavy-oil sample is
dramatically more viscous than the injected water leads to a high
mobility ratio of water to heavy oil. In this way, viscous fingering
is severe during waterflooding processes, resulting in a very early
water breakthrough and low oil recovery.
For light- and medium-oil waterfloods, as water is injected, oil
is continuously produced until breakthrough, and a relatively high
recovery factor can be achieved before breakthrough (Hadia et al.
2007). As shown in Fig. 6, however, it is obvious that break-
through occurs very early in a heavy-oil waterflooding process,
and water cut increases sharply to high values at the early stage.
For these two scenarios, water cut approximates 60% at 0.15 PV
of injected water, whereas water cut for Scenarios 1 and 2 is
measured as 95.6 and 97.5%, respectively, at 1.00 PV of injected
water. Although more heavy oil is produced after 0.20 PV of
water injection, water cut is high. This means that the injected
water may still keep contacting the in-place oil and displacing the
oil to the producer. The difference of water cut is minor, whereas
the high water cuts indicate that much water is produced, and
waterflooding is found to be inefficient at the late stage of water
injection. Figs. 5 and 6 demonstrate that considerable heavy oil is
still produced after water breakthrough. This is ascribed to the
fact that water flows through the continuous low-resistance path-
ways that are generated by water after breakthrough. The flowing
64
100
80
H2O
CO2
Water cut, %
60
Cycle 3
40
Scenario #1
Scenario #2
Scenario #1 20
Scenario #2
0
4.0 5.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
Injected fluids, PV
Fig. 6—Water cut during displacement experiments for Scenar-
ios 1 and 2.
water is able to mobilize the contacted oil that is to be displaced
to the producer along these paths (Mai and Kantzas 2009).
As shown in Fig. 5, oil recovery of the two scenarios stays
close at the early stage. With a further increase of injected water
PV, the well configuration associated with two horizontal wells
(i.e., one horizontal injector and one horizontal producer, Scenario
1) tends to yield a higher oil recovery compared with Scenario 2.
For instance, oil recovery of Scenario 1 is approximately 1.3%
higher than that of Scenario 2 when 1.00 PV of water is injected.
This can be attributed to the fact that a horizontal well is efficient
to achieve a better sweep efficiency.
CO2-WAG Processes. After waterflooding, three cycles of water
and CO2 injection are alternately implemented to examine per-
formance of pressure maintenance and improving oil recovery.
During CO2-WAG processes, a BPR is used to maintain the pres-
sure of the physical model at 3860 kPa, which is higher than the
original reservoir pressure of 3500 kPa, whereas the CO2-injec-
tion pressure of 3900 kPa is controlled through a gas regulator
connected with the CO2 cylinder. For Scenario 1, the same slug
sizes (0.40 PV) of water and CO2 are used; that is, the WAG ratio
is 1:1. The slug sizes of water and CO2 of Scenario 2 are 0.25 and
1.00 PV, respectively, resulting in a WAG ratio of 1:4.
Fig. 5 illustrates that the majority of the produced oil in the
CO2-WAG processes is recovered during the first cycle. After the
second cycle, there is no significant increment in oil recovery.
Similar results are also documented in the literature (Sohrabi et al.
2000). It is obvious that the oil recovery of Scenario 1 levels out
during the third cycle, whereas an additional 2.0% in oil recovery
is achieved during the third cycle for Scenario 2. As depicted in
Fig. 5, for these CO2-WAG cycles, CO2-injection processes
recover a small amount of heavy oil, whereas more oil is pro-
duced during the subsequent water-injection processes. Although
there is not much heavy oil produced during the water-injection
phase, the injected CO2 still contributes to oil recovery. The
injected CO2 dissolves into heavy oil, leading to a swelling effect
and oil-viscosity reduction. In addition, because gasflooding leads
to higher microscopic displacement efficiency than that of water-
flooding, the injected CO2 changes the distribution of liquids in
the pores and mobilizes much more oil that is not previously con-
tacted by water. Subsequently, the injected water displaces the
mobilized oil to the producer. In this study, Scenario 1, with a
larger water-slug size, achieves a higher oil recovery than Sce-
nario 2, with a smaller water-slug size, when 3.0 PV of fluids is
injected. Oil recovery of Scenario 1 reaches the plateau in a short
period, demonstrating that it reaches the production limit quickly.
In Scenario 2, oil is still produced in the third cycle, indicating
that production can be sustained for a much longer time. The bet-
ter performance of Scenario 1 is partially attributed to the fact
that a significantly larger drainage volume can be controlled by a
February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 100
Scenario #2
Scenario #1
80
Water cut, %

60

40

20

0
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
Blowdown recovery, %OOIP

Fig. 7—Water cut as a function of blowdown recovery for Sce- (a)

narios 1 and 2.

horizontal well compared with a vertical well because of the

larger contact area of horizontal wells, consequently leading to a
larger sweep efficiency of the CO2-WAG process. Because the
injected CO2 has a tendency to override in the pay zone, a hori-
zontal well at the bottom of the pay zone can alleviate gas over-
ride and more efficiently recover the heavy oil that is produced
through a gravity-drainage mechanism.
The water-cut profiles of the produced liquids during CO2-
WAG processes are also shown in Fig. 6. It is noticeable that water
cut decreases significantly during the CO2 injection processes, espe-
cially in the first cycle, while, in the second and third cycles, water
cut is also decreased during the CO2 injection phases. Because
more heavy oil has been displaced, whereas more water has been
injected into the sandpack model after the first WAG cycle, the dec-
rement of water cut is not as significant as that of the first cycle. Af-
ter CO2 injection, water cut increases with the further water
injection, whereas it oscillates rather than keeps an approximately
constant value during the subsequent water-injection processes. (b)

Blowdown Recovery. After three cycles of water and CO2 are
injected into the 3D physical model under each well configura-
tion, pressure inside the model is decreased to atmospheric pres-
sure for blowdown recovery. As shown in Fig. 7, the blowdown
process contributes an increment of 2.8 and 4.1% in oil recovery
for Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. The blowdown recovery is
mainly attributed to the solution-gas-drive mechanism (Jha 1986).
CO2 gas has a good ability to dissolve into oil. During the blow-
down process, with pressure decline, energy stored by CO2 disso-
lution is then released and continues to drive the oil to the
wellbore (Mangalsingh and Jagai 1996). Besides the expanded
gas exerting a displacement force to drive oil to producers, such a
high efficiency of foamy-oil flow under solution-gas drive in vis-
cous oil is mainly the result of (1) a significant reduction in oil
viscosity, because small gas bubbles are formed in the oil, and (2)
simultaneous flow of continuous oil phase and discontinuous gas
phase in the form of tiny bubbles (Smith 1988).
It is experimentally found that little fluid is produced when
pressure is decreased from 3800 kPa to 2000 kPa, whereas most
of the fluids are produced at pressure less than 1500 kPa. The
blowdown process is found to last for a relatively long period
(i.e., more than 2 hours) in this study. Approximately 40 L of CO2
(ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure) is produced dur-
ing the blowdown process, whereas gas is still producing even
though the pressure of the physical model approximates to the
atmospheric pressure. This implies that CO2 storage also occurs
as the injected CO2 dissolves into reservoir fluids and occupies
the pore spaces that were previously filled by reservoir fluids.
Distribution of ROS. After the blowdown process, the steel lid
on the top of the 3D model is removed and the distribution of
Fig. 8—Distribution of ROS in the top layer for (a) Scenario 1
and (b) Scenario 2.
ROS in the top layer can be observed directly. Digital images of
the top layer for the two scenarios are shown in Fig. 8. In Scenario
1 (see Fig. 8a), it is obvious that the color of sand along the hori-
zontal producer (Well 2) is light, demonstrating that heavy oil
along the horizontal producer has been displaced effectively. It
also can be seen that the color of the bottom-left portion for Sce-
nario 1 is much darker than that of the top-right portion, indicat-
ing that a stable displacement front along the horizontal injector
was difficult to establish. A large portion of injected fluids invades
the sandpack through the heel of the horizontal injector and then
displaces the heavy oil to the producer, resulting in a well-
displaced triangle area (i.e., top-right portion). This observation
implies that it is possible to improve the sweep efficiency by
changing the position of heels and toes of these two parallel hori-
zontal wells. In Scenario 2 (see Fig. 8b), the color of sand for the
top layer is very dark, indicating that much heavy oil is still at the
top layer and the heavy oil at the top layer cannot be swept effi-
ciently, although approximately 5.00 PV of fluids has been
injected. Such observed dark-sand distribution in the 3D model
corresponds to its low oil recovery with the displacement proc-
esses previously applied.
To examine the ROS in the physical model, ROS is measured
in this study. Distribution of ROS in the sandpack for Scenarios 1
and 2 is illustrated in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively. As mentioned
previously, from top to bottom, the sandpack is divided into four
layers, marked as Layers 1 through 4 in sequence. For each layer,
13 samples were collected and measured from different locations
that are marked by the circle symbols in Figs. 9 and 10. The ROS

February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 65

 0.20 0.20
10.0 0.25 10.0 0.25
0.30 0.30
0.35 0.35
0.40 0.40
0.45 0.45
5.0 0.50 5.0 0.50
0.55 0.55
0.60 0.60
0.65 0.65
Y, cm

Y, cm
0.0 0.0

–5.0 –5.0

–10.0 –10.0

–10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 –10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0
X, cm X, cm
(a) (b)

0.20 0.20
10.0 0.25 10.0 0.25
0.30 0.30
0.35 0.35
0.40 0.40
0.45 0.45
5.0 0.50 5.0 0.50
0.55 0.55
0.60 0.60
0.65 0.65
Y, cm

Y, cm

0.0 0.0

–5.0 –5.0

–10.0 –10.0

–10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 –10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0
X, cm X, cm
(c) (d)

Fig. 9—Distribution of ROS for Scenario 1 in (a) Layer 1, (b) Layer 2, (c) Layer 3, and (d) Layer 4.

contour of each layer is then generated on the basis of these meas-
ured values. As shown in Fig. 9, for Layer 1, the bottom-left por-
tion shows a higher ROS, which is consistent with the dark color
of the bottom-left portion in the digital image for Scenario 1 (see
Fig. 8a). For Layer 2 of Scenario 1, the ROS along the horizontal
producer is low, indicating heavy oil along the producer has been
efficiently displaced. That is attributed to the fact that the horizon-
tal producer controls a large reservoir area and has high sweep effi-
ciency. The average ROSs of Layers 3 and 4 for Scenario 1 are
relatively low (See Fig. 9). This is ascribed to the fact that two par-
allel horizontal wells are at the bottom of the physical model, lead-
ing to high sweep efficiency in the bottom layers of the model.
As shown in Fig. 10 for Scenario 2, Layer 1 shows that the
ROS in the top layer is high, which is consistent with the dark
color as seen in Fig. 8b, whereas the average ROS decreases from
top to bottom layers. Layer 4 illustrates low ROS; a clear dis-
placement front from four vertical injectors to the horizontal pro-
ducer is formed because the horizontal producer is at the bottom
of the model in Scenario 2. Therefore, the horizontal producer at
the bottom layer is beneficial for recovering the bottom heavy oil
in reservoirs with gas-cap drive.
Numerical Simulation and Performance Optimization.
Because no direct interpretation methods have been made avail-
able to determine relative permeability for such displacement
experiments, the relative permeability curves for a water/oil sys-
tem and a gas/liquid system are determined by history matching
the experimental measurements (Watson et al. 1980; Spiteri and
Juanes 2004; Eydinov et al. 2009; Li et al. 2009, 2011). More spe-
cifically, the initial inputs of the three-phase relative permeability
curves are generated with the commonly used correlation (i.e.,
Stone II correlation). Subsequently, the relative permeability
curves are tuned and determined once the experimented results
have been history matched. Such determined relative permeability
curves for two scenarios are shown in Figs. 11 through 14. As
can be seen from Figs. 11 and 13, water relative permeability
increases slightly when the water saturation is less than 0.3. The
relative permeability values are low at a high water-saturation
range. The performance of waterflooding is very sensitive to the
relative permeability values at a low water saturation range (less
than 0.2). For gas/liquid relative permeability curves (see Figs. 12
and 14), oil relative permeability values decrease sharply. This
implies that gas fingering is severe because of the high mobility
ratio of gas to heavy oil, resulting in an early breakthrough. The
relative permeability of oil reduces significantly as gas saturation
increases.
The oil viscosity also affects the heavy-oil/water relative per-
meability curves. With an increase in oil viscosity, ROS is
increased and relative permeabilities are decreased at a higher
water-saturation range (Wang et al. 2006; Nejad et al. 2011). Nu-
merical simulation of the displacement processes is conducted
with injection rate, injection pressure, and production pressure as
input constraints. The cumulative oil production and water cut are

66 February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

 0.20 0.20
0.25 0.25
10.0 0.30 10.0 0.30
0.35 0.35
0.40 0.40
0.45 0.45
0.50 0.50
5.0 0.55 5.0 0.55
0.60 0.60
0.65 0.65
Y, cm

Y, cm
0.0 0.0

–5.0 –5.0

–10.0 –10.0

–10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 –10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0
X, cm X, cm
(a) (b)

0.20 0.20
0.25 0.25
10.0 0.30 10.0 0.30
0.35 0.35
0.40 0.40
0.45 0.45
0.50 0.50
5.0 0.55 5.0 0.55
0.60 0.60
0.65 0.65
Y, cm
Y, cm

0.0 0.0

–5.0 –5.0

–10.0 –10.0

–10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0

–10.0 –5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0
X, cm
X, cm
(c)
(d)

Fig. 10—Distribution of ROS for Scenario 2 in (a) Layer 1, (b) Layer 2, (c) Layer 3, and (d) Layer 4.

compared with the experimental data in Figs. 15 and 16. The
good matching results show that the numerical simulation cap-
tured the overall behavior of both the waterflooding and CO2-
WAG processes. As can be seen in Figs. 15 and 16, oil recovery
approaches the plateau after 1.00-PV injection (2,000 minutes),
indicating that the waterflood becomes less efficient afterward.
After CO2 injection, however, a large amount of oil is still pro-
duced during the subsequent water-injection process. This is
attributed to the fact that the injected CO2 with high microscopic
sweep efficiency can swell the heavy oil, reduce oil viscosity, and

1.0
1.0 Krg
Krog
Krw
Krow 0.8
0.8

0.6
0.6
Kr
Kr

0.4
0.4

0.2
0.2

0.0
0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 Sg
Sw
Fig. 12—Liquid and gas relative permeability curves for Sce-
Fig. 11—Water and oil relative permeability curves for Scenario 1. nario 1.

February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 67

 1.0 1.0
Krw Krg
Krow Krog
0.8 0.8

0.6 0.6
Kr

Kr
0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Sw Sg

Fig. 13—Water and oil relative permeability curves for Scenario 2. Fig. 14—Liquid and gas relative permeability curves for Sce-
nario 2.

1600 100

1400
80
Cumulative oil production, cm3

1200

1000

Water cut, %
60

800

40
600
Measured water cut
400 Simulated water cut
Measured oil production 20
Simulated oil production
200

0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Time, min

Fig. 15—Measured and simulated cumulative oil production and water cut for Scenario 1.

1600 100

1400
80
Cumulative oil production, cm3

1200

1000
Water cut, %

60

800

40
600
Measured water cut
Simulated water cut
400
Measured oil production 20
Simulated oil production
200

0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Time, min

Fig. 16—Measured and simulated cumulative oil production and water cut for Scenario 2.

68 February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

 1600
1400
Cumulative oil production, cm3
1200
1000
800
600 WAG ratio: 2.00; Injected PV: 3.6
WAG ratio: 1.00; Injected PV: 3.6
400 WAG ratio: 0.75; Injected PV: 3.5
WAG ratio: 0.50; Injected PV: 3.6
WAG ratio: 0.25; Injected PV: 4.0
200 Continuous Waterflooding; Injected PV: 2.0
Experiment
0 0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
Time, min
Fig. 17—Production profiles with different water-slug sizes for
Scenario 1.
mobilize the heavy oil in the pores, resulting in a higher oil recov-
ery with the subsequent water injection that displaces the mobi-
lized heavy oil. Therefore, the CO2-WAG process is a promising
approach to maintain pressure and improve oil recovery in heavy-
oil reservoirs because of the positive and composite effects of oil
swelling and viscosity reduction by CO2 dissolution, high micro-
scopic sweep efficiency of CO2, and good macroscopic sweep ef-
ficiency of water.
As mentioned previously, oil is mainly produced during the
water-injection process for each CO2-WAG cycle. In this study,
effects of water-slug size are examined by means of the history-
matched reservoir models for Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. In
Scenario 1, the slug size of CO2 is kept to 0.40 PV for each cycle,
whereas the slug size of water is changed from 0.10 to 0.80 PV
(i.e., WAG ratio varies from 0.25 to 2.00). Although the CO2 slug
size of Scenario 2 (1.00 PV) is larger than that of Scenario 1 (0.40
PV), oil recovery of Scenario 2 is still low. For convenient com-
parison, continuous waterflooding is used as a reference case. As
shown in Fig. 17, compared with other schemes, the scheme with
a WAG ratio of 0.25 produces less oil, though 4.00 PV of fluids
has been injected. This is attributed to the fact that compared with
the CO2-slug size, the water-slug size is too small to effectively
control the CO2 mobility in heavy-oil reservoirs. Regarding the
same CO2 slug size, a larger water-slug size yields a higher oil re-
covery. As shown in Fig. 18, if the water-slug size is very large,
the extra amount of water injected leads to trapping of oil and
high cumulative water/oil ratios (WORs) (Rojas and Farouq Ali
1986). It should be noted that oil recovery increases when the
WAG ratio is increased from 0.50 to 2.00, whereas the cumulative
WOR at WAG ratio of 0.75 remains close to the value at WAG
1600
1400
Cumulative oil production, cm3
1200
1000
800
600 WAG ratio: 2.00; Injected PV: 6.00
WAG ratio: 1.00; Injected PV: 6.00
WAG ratio: 0.75; Injected PV: 5.25
400 WAG ratio: 0.50; Injected PV: 6.00
WAG ratio: 0.25; Injected PV: 5.00
Continuous Waterflooding; Injected PV: 3.00
200
Experiment
0 0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000
Time, min
Fig. 19—Production profiles with different water-slug sizes for
Scenario 2.
February 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
12
10
Cumulative WOR
8
6
4 WAG ratio: 2.00; Injected PV: 3.6
WAG ratio: 1.00; Injected PV: 3.6
WAG ratio: 0.75; Injected PV: 3.5
2 WAG ratio: 0.50; Injected PV: 3.6
WAG ratio: 0.25; Injected PV: 4.0
10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
Time, min
Fig. 18—Cumulative WOR with different water-slug sizes for
Scenario 1.
ratio of 0.5. As such, WAG ratio of 0.75 leads to a relatively higher
oil recovery and a lower cumulative WOR. For Scenario 2, the
slug size of CO2 is set to be 1.00 PV for all cases (see Figs. 19 and
20). The production profiles for different WAG ratios follow a
similar trend, whereas a higher water-slug size yields a higher oil
recovery. The water-slug sizes of 1.00 PV and 2.00 PV (i.e., WAG
ratios of 1.00 and 2.00, respectively) are sufficient to control the
mobility of CO2 to achieve high oil recovery. However, the WAG
ratio of 1.0 can keep a lower cumulative WOR than that of WAG
ratio of 2.00 when the same volume of fluids is injected (6.00 PV).
Therefore, the WAG ratios of 0.75 and 1.00 are determined to be
the optimum values for Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively.
It is found from both the experimental measurements and nu-
merical simulation that well configuration imposes a dominant
impact on oil recovery. The well configuration associated with
two horizontal wells tends to yield a higher oil recovery under the
same WAG ratio. Regarding each well configuration, WAG ratio
also affects oil recovery and cumulative WOR, although there
exists an optimum value for each scenario.
Conclusions
Techniques have been developed to experimentally and numeri-
cally evaluate the performance of CO2-WAG processes under
well configurations associated with horizontal wells in thin heavy-
oil reservoirs for pressure maintenance and improving oil recov-
ery. Experimentally, a 3D physical model is used to examine the
suitability of pressure maintenance and improving oil recovery by
means of an immiscible CO2-WAG process in heavy-oil
12
10
Cumulative WOR
8
6
4
WAG ratio: 2.00; Injected PV: 6.00
WAG ratio: 1.00; Injected PV: 6.00
2 WAG ratio: 0.75; Injected PV: 5.25
WAG ratio: 0.50; Injected PV: 6.00
WAG ratio: 0.25; Injected PV: 5.00
10000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
Time, min
Fig. 20—Cumulative WOR with different water-slug sizes for
Scenario 2.
69
reservoirs. Two scenarios are designed to evaluate the effect of
well configurations on pressure maintenance and oil recovery
with CO2-WAG injection. The well configuration with two paral-
lel horizontal wells (i.e., one is injector and the other is producer)
yields a higher oil recovery with less injected fluids. After three
CO2-WAG cycles, 37.6 and 32.5% oil recoveries are achieved for
Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively. Incremental oil recovery of 12.4
and 8.9% through three CO2-WAG cycles was experimentally
achieved for the aforementioned two well configurations, respec-
tively. This is mainly because gasflooding leads to high micro-
scopic displacement efficiency, whereas waterflooding contributes
to large macroscopic displacement efficiency. Well configurations
with horizontal wells lead to a better sweep efficiency. Theoreti-
cally, simulation techniques have been developed to history match
the experimental measurements. The excellent agreement between
the measured and simulated cumulative oil production indicates
that the displacement mechanisms governing water-alternating-
CO2 processes have been numerically simulated and matched. It
can be found from both the experimental measurements and nu-
merical simulation that well configuration has a dominant impact
on oil recovery. Displacement processes are sensitive to the rela-
tive permeability values at low water- and gas-saturation ranges.
Both experimental and simulation results indicate that the slug
size of water during CO2-WAG processes shows a positive effect
on oil recovery. The well configuration associated with two hori-
zontal wells tends to yield a higher oil recovery under the same
WAG ratio. Regarding each well configuration, WAG ratio affects
oil recovery and cumulative WOR, and there exists an optimum
value for each scenario. The WAG ratios of 0.75 and 1.00 are the
optimum values for Scenarios 1 and 2, respectively.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sci-
ences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and
an innovation fund from the Petroleum Technology Research
Centre (PTRC) to D. Yang.
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Sixu Zheng is currently a PhD candidate in petroleum systems
engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sci-
ence at the University of Regina, Canada. His major research
interests include CO2 EOR and storage, reservoir modeling
and simulation, hybrid steam/solvent processes for heavy-oil
recovery, and production optimization. Zheng holds a BSc
degree in petroleum engineering from the China University of
Petroleum and an MASc degree in petroleum systems engi-
neering from the University of Regina. He is a member of SPE.
Daoyong Yang is a professor in and the Chair of the Petroleum
Systems Engineering Program in the Faculty of Engineering
and Applied Science at the University of Regina. He holds BSc
and a PhD degrees in petroleum engineering from the China
University of Petroleum and a PhD degree in petroleum sys-
tems engineering from the University of Regina. Previously,
Yang worked for 3 years as a petroleum engineer in the Petro-
China TuHa Oilfield Company (CNPC). He also worked 4 years
as a reservoir engineer in the Software Development and In-
formation Centre of Petroleum Engineering, CNPC. Yang’s
major research areas include CO2 EOR and storage, formation
evaluation, reservoir modeling and simulation, phase behav-
ior, production optimization, artificial-lift methods, interfacial
interactions in EOR processes, and heavy-oil recovery. He has
authored or coauthored more than 80 refereed-journal
papers and conference papers. Yang was the recipient of the
SPE Canada Region Regional Formation Evaluation Award in
2011. He is an active member of SPE, American Chemical So-
ciety, and Association of Professional Engineers and Geo-
scientists of Saskatchewan and is a registered professional
engineer in Saskatchewan, Canada.
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