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An Experimental Investigation of WAG Injection

Performance under Near-Miscible Conditions in
Carbonate ....

Conference Paper · April 2018

DOI: 10.2118/190053-MS

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SPE-190053-MS

An Experimental Investigation of WAG Injection Performance under

Near-Miscible Conditions in Carbonate Rock and Comparison with
Sandstone

Bashir Alkhazmi, S. Amir Farzaneh, Mehran Sohrabi, and Adam Sisson, Centre for Enhanced Oil Recovery and
CO2 Solutions, Heriot-Watt University

Copyright 2018, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Western Regional Meeting held in Garden Grove, California, USA, 22-27 April 2018.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
of the paper have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect
any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written
consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may
not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

Abstract
In this study, the effect of rock type on two-phase and three-phase flow and displacements have been
experimentally investigated as a part of a study on the performance of WAG injection in sandstone and
carbonate rocks. A series of core flood experiments have been performed under reservoir conditions to
investigate the effect of parameters pertinent to the performance of WAG injection. Clashach sandstone
and Indiana limestone cores with almost similar porosity and permeability were selected for this work. To
reduce the effects of experimental artifacts, large cores were used with diameter and length of 2 in × 2 ft
respectively. To investigate the role of rock type, the WAG design parameters including injection order,
injection strategy, and slug size were kept unchanged for the sandstone and carbonate rocks. Both core flood
experiments were performed on water-wet cores and at near-miscible gas/oil IFT conditions.
Comparison of our core flood experiments reveal that even though the waterflood efficiency was higher
in carbonate core than in sandstone rock, the overall oil recovery performance by the alternation of water
and gas injections in the sandstone rock outperformed its trend in the carbonate core. Ultimate oil recovery
values of 88.35 % (IOIP %) and 71.0 % (IOIP %) were obtained for the sandstone and the carbonate cores,
respectively. The results show that about 39.12 % (IOIP %) and 12.37 % (IOIP %) of additional oil was
recovered by the alternation of water and gas injection in the sandstone and carbonate cores, respectively.
Comparing the average saturation profiles in the cores revealed that the higher trapped gas saturation in
sandstone rock had significantly enhanced its oil recovery performance, during the tertiary water and gas
injections, compared with that in the carbonate rock. The results also revealed the impact of rock type on
pressure drop and fluid saturation distribution.

Introduction
When the secondary oil recovery approaches are no longer economically viable, water-alternating-gas
(WAG) injection may be applied to lower the residual oil saturation values from what was left after water
flood or gas injection (Dong et al. 2005; Latil, 1980; Sohrabi et al. 2004; Zeron, 2012). Since the injection
of gas into an oil reservoir results in a poor macroscopic displacement efficiency, due to its high mobility,
2 SPE-190053-MS

the subsequent injection of water assists to control the gas mobility and stabilizes the displacement front
(Hustad & Holt, 1992; Kulkarni & Rao, 2005; Sohrabi, 2004). Another benefit of utilizing WAG injection
technique is its ability to contact the unswept zone, especially the recovery of the attic oil, by exploiting the
segregation of the gas to the top and the water deposition towards the bottom of the reservoir (Christensen
et al. 2001; Sohrabi et al. 2001).
The WAG process involves three-phase flow, and the complex physical processes underlying these flow
conditions are still not well understood. Also, the prediction of the three-phase flow functions (i.e., relative
permeability and capillary pressure) by the current reservoir simulators lacks reliability (Dong et al. 2002;
Sohrabi et al. 2004). However, the empirical correlations, which have been developed for strongly water-wet
systems, have been broadly used to predict three-phase relative permeability (Blunt, 2000). These empirical
models exhibit poor predictions when used to predict three-phase relative permeability for the non-water-
wet system (Element et al. 2003; Sohrabi et al. 2010).
The first work of WAG injection was done in the North Pembina oil field in Alberta, Canada in 1957.
After that, Caudle and Dyes (1958) proposed water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection as a method to improve
sweep efficiency of gas, essentially by injecting water to have better control over the mobility ratio and to
improve the stability of the displacement front (Christensen et al. 2001). Gas, at the microscopic level, and
water, at the macroscopic scale, are well-known to be very efficient in mobilizing oil at their displacement
fronts. Since WAG combines both effective displacement efficiencies, the oil recovery performance by
WAG injection is enhanced significantly compared to a pure water or gas flood. A variety of gas types has
been used within EOR schemes, especially for WAG, including CO2, hydrocarbon gases, nitrogen, and air.
CO2 (mostly used in the US) and hydrocarbon gases (widely used in North Sea region) represent nearly
80% of the gas used in EOR projects worldwide (Awan et al. 2008; Kulkarni & Rao, 2005). Moreover, due
to continuous restrictions on greenhouse emissions, CO2 flooding has become more attractive as a storage
method (Denney, 2013).
The design of WAG process is vital and is affected by many factors including wettability, fluid properties,
rock-fluid interaction, fluid-fluid interaction, availability of the injected gas, WAG ratio, heterogeneity,
injection pattern, capillary pressure and relative permeability (Christensen et al. 2001; Morrow 1990; Raj
et al. 2010; Rouzbeh and Larry, 2010). Alkhazmi et al. (2017) investigated the impact of some WAG
design parameters, including slug size, the order of fluid injection and injection strategy on the performance
of immiscible WAG injection. The authors reported a comprehensive series of core flood experiments
performed on a mixed-wet sandstone rock and under immiscible displacement conditions in terms of oil
recovery and injectivity. The experimental results revealed that the short sizes of the injected water and
gas have better efficiency and higher oil recovery performance compared with the large cycle injections.
Farzaneh et al. (2016) investigated the effect of the injection order, by experimentally simulating different
injection scenarios including water flood, CO2 flood, CO2-WAG and CO2-SWAG injections. The authors
published a comprehensive data set of core flood experiments performed on high permeable sandstone
cores. Their results showed that even though combining CO2 and water (in CO2-SWAG) increased the oil
recovery more than only water or CO2 injection and the highest efficiency of oil recovery was achieved
by CO2-WAG injection.
Near miscible gas, injection is referred to a gas injection process in which the injected gas does not
quite develop complete miscibility with the oil but comes close to it (Sohrabi et al. 2008 a & b; Wylie and
Mohanty, 1997). Near miscible gas injection also represents the process of multi-contact gas/oil miscibility,
in which light components from oil go to gas (stripping) and heavy components from gas go to oil (swelling)
(Alkhazmi et al. 2017; Christensen et al. 2001; Sohrabi et al. 2008 a & b). For instance, condensing/
vaporizing gas drives and gas floods at enrichments slightly below minimum miscibility enrichment (MME)
or pressures somewhat below minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) are near miscible processes. Near-
miscible gas drives appear attractive from both economic and operational standpoints (Sohrabi, 2001; Wylie
and Mohanty, 1997). In many of the miscible projects, gas was injected to bring the reservoir pressure
SPE-190053-MS 3

above the MMP, for a specific combination of crude oil and gas, to achieve a miscible flood displacement.
However, in many of those projects, the displacement was found to be a near miscible under reservoir
conditions (Awan et al. 2008; Fatemi and Sohrabi, 2013). Hence, it is difficult to distinguish between near
miscible and fully miscible displacements due to the uncertainties remain about the actual displacement
process (Christensen et al. 2001).
Sohrabi et al. (2008 a & b) used high-pressure glass micromodel with model fluids representing near-
miscible fluid system to visually investigate the pore-scale mechanisms of oil recovery by near-miscible
secondary and tertiary gas flooding. From their experimental results, they identified a new pore scale
recovery mechanism for near miscible (ultra-low gas/oil interfacial tension (IFT)) gas flood which is
different from the mechanisms reported for the immiscible (high gas/oil IFT) and complete miscible (zero
gas/oil IFT) processes. The underlying mechanism of oil recovery, under very low gas/oil IFT, is attributed
to oil recovery through enhanced flow and cross-flow from the bypassed pores into the main flow stream
of gas.
Carbonates formations are the repositories of the largest oil reserves worldwide (Manrique et al. 2004;
Treiber and Owens, 1972; Wenzhi et al. 2014). Hence, it is widely accepted that more than 60 % of the
world's oil reserves are held in carbonate reservoirs. Moreover, the Middle East region, for instance, is
dominated by carbonate reservoirs that held about 70 % of the oil reserves. The common features of
carbonate rocks are low porosity, the presence of fractures and wettability described as mixed-wet to
oil-wet (Cuiec, 1984). Such characteristics establish tough conditions for oil recovery, and as a result,
lower recovery performance of oil is usually observed in carbonates in comparison to the oil recoveries in
sandstones. The dominate EOR process, in carbonates is gas injection (Manrique et al. 2010). However,
CO2-WAG injection, in carbonates, performs better than a pure CO2 injection due to a greater sweep
efficiency and a slower gas breakthrough (Duchenne et al. 2015). Thus, several WAG schemes have been
used in both carbonates and sandstone formations, but with a particular focus on onshore applications
(Christensen et al. 2001). However, offshore applications in the North Sea have led to positive findings
and results, as in the case of the Snorre Field (Skauge et al. 2002). One of the fundamental differences
between carbonates and sandstones is the greater chemical reactivity of the carbonate minerals (Ehrenberg
and Nadeau, 2004). In sandstones, WAG is positioned as an EOR method with a high likelihood of success
(Brodie et al. 2012). Furthermore, continuous improvements in frontal stability control have substantially
increased the sweep efficiency when using WAG processes (Lane et al. 2013).
The complex limestone reservoirs are commonly associated geological events such as tectonic, vugs,
sedimentary breccias, which need to be understood dynamically and geologically to derive a proper
analytical model to better describe the flow behavior (Barros-Galvis et al. 2015). In limestone rocks, Vugs
can be either connected to the major fracture system or isolated in the matrix rock (Kossack and Gurpinar,
2001; Zhan-guo and Jun, 2009). The vugs that are located in the matrix vary in size, shape, orientation, and
connectivity (Domingo, 1996). Since the vugs characterized with zero capillary pressure, capillary forces
do not have any effect on the oil flow through the vugs. Thus, viscous and gravity forces will act to displace
the oil from the vugs (Kossack and Gurpinar, 2001). However, various factors are affecting the displacement
mechanisms such as the density difference between the fluids, the vertical height of the vugs and the matrix
permeability behavior (Barros-Galvis et al. 2015). Neale and Nader (1972) described the flow dynamics
in a vuggy porous medium using the creeping Navier-Stokes and the Darcy equations in the surrounding
homogeneous and isotropic medium. Whereas, Koenraad and Bakker (1981) reported a theoretical study
about fracture/vug, collapse breccias, and brecciated karst based on the geological information. Wu et al.
(2011), moreover, proposed numerical models for single-phase and multiphase flow in vuggy reservoirs
using mass balance equations, Darcy and Forchheimer equations and Hagen Poiseuille tube flow.
Fatemi and Sohrabi (2013) experimentally investigated the performance of waterflood, gas injection and
WAG injection, under different wettability conditions (water-wet and mixed-wet), at very low gas/oil IFT
4 SPE-190053-MS

in a sandstone rock sample. The results under their experimental conditions revealed that WAG injection
performed better than only water or gas flood. Also, the alteration of the core wettability from water-wet
to mixed-wet significantly improves the efficiency of water injection, and contrary to this, the ultimate oil
recovery by gas injection decreased.
In the current work, a comprehensive series of water and gas cycles were alternately injected into an
Indiana limestone core. In these near-miscible WAG injection experiments, commenced with waterflood
period, three water cycles followed by three slugs of gas were injected through the water-wet carbonate
core. By performing these core flood experiments, we aimed to experimentally investigate the performance
of WAG injection, under near-miscible and water-wet conditions, in this carbonate rock. Another goal was
to compare the results of WAG injections carried out on two different rock types, sandstone and carbonate,
in terms of oil recovery, average saturation profile and remaining gas saturation. More details on the WAG
injection conducted on the sandstone core can be found elsewhere (Fatemi and Sohrabi, 2013; Fatemi et al.
2011). It is worth emphasizing that to eliminate the uncertainties in the comparisons between sandstone and
carbonate, the experimental conditions (pressure, temperature and IFT values) in the carbonate core was
kept the same as what was in the sandstone experiment. Also, the same brine and hydrocarbon mixture (of
oil and gas) were used, during alternating water and gas injection cycles, in both rock types. Furthermore,
to facilitate the comparison of WAG results, the experimental procedure and injection strategy, which were
designed for the sandstone, were repeated in the carbonate experiment.

Experimental Set-up
Figure 1 illustrates the high-pressure and high-temperature core flood rig that was employed to run our core
flood experiments for our WAG studies. The rig has been designed to allow injection and production of
gas, oil, and water in unsteady or steady state manner. All components of the rig are placed in temperature
control ovens with very good temperature stability and control.

Figure 1—Schematic diagram of the core flood rig used in this study.

Experimental Material
Rock Core System
An Indiana limestone core was employed for the core flood experiments presented in this paper. The natural
wettability of this carbonate rock is water-wet with a dominant lithology of Calcite. Since the aim of this
study was to investigate the effect of rock type on the performance of WAG injection process and then
compare it with the performed experiments on sandstone cores. The Indiana limestone core (IL) had a
similar porosity and permeability to the Clashac sandstone (CS) core (Alkhazmi et al. 2017; Fatemi and
Sohrabi, 2013). Table 1 shows the physical properties of the carbonate and sandstone cores. By selecting
SPE-190053-MS 5

long and large core samples, we aimed to eliminate the effect of the experimental artifacts such as end-
effects. Also, the cores were mounted horizontally and rotated continuously, while water or gas was being
injected into the core, to minimize the gravity effects.

Table 1—Physical properties of the rock samples used in the experiments reported in this study

Permeability
Rock Sample Porosity (%) Length (cm) Diameter (cm)
(mD)

Clashach Sandstone (CS) 65 18 60.5 5.08

Indiana Limestone (IL) 45 15 59.9 4.96

To characterize the internal pore structure of each rock type, we run several tests at different scales
including miscible tracer test, Mercury Injection Capillary Pressure (MICP) test, CT scan analysis and
ESEM analysis. It is well known that the internal structure of carbonate rocks and the nature of porosity and
permeability in these rocks are completely different from that in sandstone rocks and identifying the pore
structure is crucial in identifying fluids flow in porous media and interpretation of the experimental results.
Tracer Test. Figure 2 shows a comparison of the results of the tracer tests, during the adsorption process,
carried out on CS and IL core samples using passive tracer. As can be noticed from the graph that, first,
the breakthrough time of the tracer in the Clashach sandstone core is observed at around 1 PV of injected
tracer whereas its breakthrough time in the carbonate core (IL) was much shorter and observed at 0.45 PV.
This reveals that there is a degree of heterogeneity in the IL core compared to the CS rock. However, it is
believed that this heterogeneity is due to the nature of the internal pore structure of the IL core. In other
words, the pore size distributions in CS core is in the form of intergranular pores whereas in the IL core
the voids spaces are in the form of interconnect vugs. When the size of these vugs is large, they produce
paths of least resistance of a fluid to flow towards the core outlet, which may be the cause of the early
breakthrough of the tracer. Secondly, during the adsorption process, tracer concentration increased sharply
for the CS core. Whereas, the tracer concentration increased slower in the case of the IL core. This indicates
that there is a degree of heterogeneity in the carbonate core compared to the CS rock.

Figure 2—Comparison of tracer tests carried out on Clashach

sandstone (blue color) and Indiana Limestone core (orange color).

MICP Test. The pore size distribution (PSD) for the IL and CS core samples were measured by using MICP
to estimate the size of the internal pore structure of both rock systems. Figure 3 compares the distribution
functions against the pore throat radius for IL (right graph) and CS (left graph) cores. The results of MICP
revealed a uniform-modal (one peak) of PSD in sandstone core compared with bi-modal (two peaks) PSD in
6 SPE-190053-MS

the carbonate core. It means that the MICP results are in agreement with those obtained from the tracer tests.
In other words, the internal pore structures in the limestone core, in the form of interconnected vugs, are
relatively heterogeneous compared with its size distribution in the sandstone core. These observations are
crucial for the interpretation of data obtained from core flood experiments especially for the ones generated
from WAG injections.

Figure 3—Comparison of MICP tests carried out on Clashach sandstone (left graph:
uniform modal PSD) and Indiana Limestone core (right graph: Bi-modal PSD).

CT Scan Analysis. To further investigate the nature of the internal pore structure of both rocks, CT scan
imaging was conducted on the IL and CS core samples. Figure 4 illustrates the cross-sectional images taken
from the carbonate (RHS graph) and sandstone (LHS graph) core samples. A comparison of the images
reveal that, in the carbonate rock, the vugs (the black dots in the image) are the main features of the IL core
whereas, in the Sandston core, the images show a clean rock with homogenous intergranular pore spaces.

Figure 4—Comparison of images taken from Clashach sandstone (left graph: uniform
PSD) and Indiana Limestone core (right graph: vuggy rock) during CT scan analysis.

ESEM Analysis. For further investigation of the vugs that were identified by the Tracer test, CT scan
and MICP techniques, in the carbonate core, ESEM analysis was carried out on the same IL and CS core
samples (Figure 5). High-resolution images were taken to closely visualize the inside body of the vugs.
SPE-190053-MS 7

The ESEM images confirmed the natural heterogeneity of the internal pore structure of the limestone core
compared with its homogenous pore structure in the sandstone core.

Figure 5—Cross-section from ESEM analysis carried out on the Indiana Limestone core (vuggy rock).

Test Fluids
The water phase was represented by a synthetic brine, with a salinity of 10,000 ppm, which was prepared by
dissolving NaCl and CaCl2 at a ratio of 4 to 1 into distilled and vacuumed water. The hydrocarbon test fluid,
oil and gas phases, was made from a binary mixture of methane (CH4) and n-butane (C4H10) at 2,250 psi and
38° C. Then, this hydrocarbon fluid pressure was decreased, at the same temperature of 38° C, to 1840 psia
at which conditions the core flood experiments were carried out. At these conditions, oil and gas phases
were transferred into their vessels that are located in the storage oven of the core flood rig (Figure 1). Two-
and three-phase mixing processes were carried out to pre-equilibrate the fluids (gas, oil, and water) before
commencing any core flood experiment to eliminate the effect of mass exchange between the fluids during
the displacement experiments. Since the critical point, conditions of the hydrocarbon mixture are at 1870
psia and 38°C, the current experiment conditions fall very close to the critical point, and correspondingly a
very low gas/oil IFT value of 0.04 mN.m-1 was produced. Table 2 shows the physical properties of the gas,
oil and water phases under the experimental conditions stated above.

Table 2—Physical Properties of the fluids used in the experiments reported in this study

Phase Density / kg.m-3 Viscosity / mPa.s

Gas 211.4 0.0249

Oil 317.40 0.0405
Water 992.96 0.680

Methodology
During the preparation stage of our experiments, the Indiana limestone core was firstly cleaned, dried, and
vacuumed. The Synthetic brine was then injected into the core to make it fully saturated with water (Sw
= 100 %). The core base permeability to brine was also measured. Then, immobile water saturation was
established at 19.29 % using a series of mineral oils and normal alkanes. At the end of this stage, the core
was fully saturated with pre-equilibrated oil, at 80.71 %, and in-situ water saturation of 19.29 %.
The WAG injection experiment was carried out on the water-wet limestone core under near miscible
conditions. In the injection strategy, three water cycles, starting with secondary water flood, followed
by three gas cycles were injected through the core. Also, after each injected slug, two- and three-phase
8 SPE-190053-MS

mixing processes were conducted to pre-equilibrate the fluids (gas, water, and oil) before commencing the
subsequent injection cycle as well as to validate the accuracy of our experimental results obtained from each
water or gas injection cycle. The same experimental conditions, preparation and injection sequences was
followed in both carbonate and the sandstone cores to facilitate the comparisons between their experimental
results and also to minimize the uncertainty when investigating the effect of different rock types on WAG
injection performance. The full experimental procedure conducted on the sandstone core can be found
elsewhere (Fatemi and Sohrabi, 2013; Fatemi et al. 2011). Table 3 lists two core flood experiments reported
in this paper.

Table 3—List of the unsteady-state core flood experiments reported in this paper.

Exp. No Experiment Rock Type Cycle Number Slug Size

3 Water Cycles ≈ 2 PV
*1 WAG injection Clashach Sandstone
3 Gas Cycles ≈1.6 PV
3 Water Cycles ≈ 1 PV
2 WAG injection Indiana Limestone
3 Gas Cycles ≈ (1.5)

*This core flood experiment was reported in our previous publications.

Results and Discussion

WAG Injection Performance under Near-Miscible Gas/Oil IFT in Carbonate Rock
As mentioned earlier, this WAG experiment was performed on the 45mD water-wet Indiana limestone (IL)
core under near-miscible displacement conditions (1840 psia & 38°C) corresponding to gas/oil IFT of 0.04
mN.m-1). In this near-miscible WAG injection experiment, three cycles of water followed by gas slugs were
injected starting with secondary water flooding. In this part, the results of all water and gas injection cycles
will be discussed in details. The explanations are based on the complex physics and mechanisms involved
in three-phase flow and microscopic sweep efficiency, using micromodel flow technique (Sohrabi et al.
2008 a&b).

Performance of Secondary Waterflood

The first water injection period, which represents the case of two-phase flow inside the core, in this WAG
experiment was performed on the IL core where the initial water and oil saturation of Swim = 19.29 % and
Soi = 80.71 %, respectively. About 1.9 PV of water was injected through the core at a constant rate. By
stopping water injection after 1.9 PV injections and then switching to gas flood, we aimed to investigate
the effect of hysteresis on oil recovery in the carbonate rock and then compare it to its effect in the CS
core. Figure 6 shows the performance of oil recovery and the behavior of pressure drop across the carbonate
core that corresponded to the preliminary water flood. As it can be seen from the graph, with the start
of water injection only oil was produced at the core outlet, due to a direct displacement of oil by water,
and the pressure drop was gradually increasing corresponding to the increase in water saturation inside the
core. This continued till the water breakthrough time (at 0.432 PV), at which time oil recovery dropped
significantly for a short time before it ceased and the pressure drop values maintained at a relatively constant
value till the end of this injection period, was attained. The ultimate oil recovery achieved after 1.9 PV of
brine injections (end of the water flood period) was 59 % (IOIP %) which means that the oil saturation
inside the core reduced to 33.18 %.
SPE-190053-MS 9

Figure 6—Oil recovery and pressure drop corresponded to the first water flood in the carbonate rock.

Performance of Different Water Injection Cycles

Figure 7 compares oil recovery for different water injection cycles (W2 & W3) under water-wet and near
miscible conditions in the carbonate core. As water was advancing into the core, oil was produced along with
gas at the core outlet and continued till the water breakthrough happened at which time the tail of oil recovery
was observed and continued till the end of the injection period. Comparison of cyclic oil recovery values
shows incremental oil recoveries of 11.5 % and 3 % (to Sorg %) were achieved by W3 and W2 injections
respectively. This reveals that oil recovery performance was much higher in the third water injection period
than in the second water injection period. The reason may be attributed to the larger jump of oil recovery in
W3 than in W2 due to a larger oil bank forming ahead of the waterfront. It can be drawn from the graph that
the performance of water injection cycles increased as the number of WAG cycles increased in carbonate
core.

Figure 7—Cyclic oil recovery corresponded to the Subsequent water floods

(W2 & W3) during near miscible WAG injection in the carbonate rock.

A comparison of the differential pressure behavior, for different water injection cycles, under three-phase
flow conditions was also studied. Before the water breakthrough (BT) time, during W2 and W3 injections,
pressure drop values were increasing gradually corresponding to the increase in the viscosity of the fluids
inside the core. However, after the water BT, the slope of the tail of each pressure drop reduced as more
water was injected through the core. The reason may be due to the reshuffling of fluids inside the core, in
which water and gas were displacing each other with no significant remaining (or trapped) gas saturation,
10 SPE-190053-MS

Sgr, inside the core, which may be the result of the effect of the natural heterogeneity of the internal pore
structure in the limestone core. Comparing the periodic pressure drop behavior illustrates a slight increase
in DP values in W3 cycle compared with that in the W2 slug, which may be attributed to the small increase
in the Sgr inside the core sample. In another word, the periodic injectivity drop for successive water injection
cycles is somewhat increased as moreWAG cycles were performed.

Performance of Different Gas Injection Cycles

Figure 8 compares the oil recovery obtained for different gas injection cycles (G1, G2, and G3) during WAG
injection experiment. When gas was entering into the core, no oil was associated with water production at
the core outlet. However, at the gas BT, oil production started and continued till the end of the injection
period. The production of oil with gas is the result of the effect of ultra-low gas/oil IFT (0.04 m.N.m-1) in
which a co-current flow of oil and gas takes place which moves oil towards the core outlet. Comparing
the efficiency of oil recovery for different gas injection cycles revealed that the oil recovery efficiency
decreased as more gas injection cycles were conducted. The reason may be linked to the inactive snap-
off mechanism of gas by water in this water-wet carbonate core. Hence, this had reduced the overall oil
recovery performance for WAG injection in the carbonate core.

Figure 8—Cyclic oil recovery corresponded to different gas cycles (G1,

G2 & G3) during near miscible WAG injection in the carbonate rock.

The periodic pressure drop behaviors for successive gas injection cycles (G1, G2, and G3), under three-
phase flow conditions, during WAG injection in the carbonate core was also investigated. Although the
threshold pressure in G2 had started at a value almost double that of the G1 cycle, no further significant
increase in the entry pressure after G2 injection was observed. On the contrary, after the gas BT, the
injectivity of different gas cycles had slightly increased as more WAG injection cycles were conducted.
This behavior may be attributed to the small increase in the gas saturation inside the core that had somewhat
decreased the combination of average fluid viscosity which in turn had slightly reduced the pressure drop
values for the subsequent gas injection cycles.

Summary of the Results

Oil Recovery Performance and Pressure Drop Behaviour

To investigate the performance of near miscible WAG injection in carbonate rock, in terms of oil recovery,
the cumulative oil recovery throughout WAG injection experiment was plotted against the PV of water and
gas injections (Figure 9). Although the ultimate oil recovery reached 71.5 % (IOIP %) at the end of the
WAG injection experiment, only 14.5 % (IOIP %) of it was recovered by the alternation of gas and water
SPE-190053-MS 11

injection after the secondary waterflood period. On the other hand, comparing the behavior of pressure drop
for different water injection cycles shows a much higher injectivity loss under three-phase flow conditions
(e.g., W2 and W3) than in the two-phase region (W1). The reason may be linked to the remaining (trapped)
gas saturation inside the core by W2 injection.

Figure 9—Oil recovery Efficiency corresponded to near miscible WAG injection in the carbonate rock.

Ternary Diagram of Average Saturation Changes

The trajectories of saturation changes in two- and three-phase regions corresponding to water-alternating-
gas injection performed under water-wet and near miscible conditions and on the carbonate core are
presented in the ternary diagram (Figure 10). The average saturation changes were calculated from the
volumetric method. To better distinguish between the saturation paths during the water and gas injections,
the red, green and blue colors were allocated for gas, oil and water phases respectively. Investigating the
saturation paths shows that the highest reduction in oil saturation, in which oil saturation decreased from
80.71 % to 33.18 %, was achieved by W1 injection. During G2, the trend of the saturation trajectory
presented a reduction in oil saturation inside the core after reaching the gas breakthrough time. The reason
may be related to the effect of near miscible gas/oil IFT (0.04 mN.m-1) in which oil is coupled with gas and
simultaneously flow towards the core outlet. Apart from W3, the alternation of water and gas injections in
the subsequent WAG cycles shows a zigzag shape which resulted from fluid re-shuffling inside the core. At
the end of this WAG experiment, the oil saturation dropped to 18.62 %. This reveals that about 14.56 % of
the remaining oil saturation was recovered from the three-phase region.
12 SPE-190053-MS

Figure 10—Ternary Diagram of saturation changes corresponded to WAG injection in the carbonate rock.

Comparison of WAG Injection Performance in Sandstone and Carbonate

Rocks
Effect of Different Rock Types on the Performance of Secondary Waterflood
To study the effect of rock type on to the efficiency of secondary water flood (two-phase flow), the oil
recovery performance and pressure drop values corresponding to the injected pore volume of water were
plotted on the same graph for sandstone and carbonate core samples (Figure 11). As can be observed from the
plot, higher oil recovery performance associated with almost three times less injectivity loss in the carbonate
compared to that in the sandstone core. This observation can be attributed to the nature of the internal pore
structure of the limestone (carbonate) core. Based on the experimental results, it can be stated that, since
the large vugs had established its connective paths from the inlet to the outlet of the Indiana limestone core,
there will be more resident oil in the vugs than those in the intergranular pores, as in sandstone. Also, the
vugs created the least path resistance of water to displace oil towards the core outlet, during the two-phase
displacement. Thus, the ultimate oil recoveries achieved by secondary water injections were 59 % and 49
% (IOIP %) in the carbonate and sandstone cores, respectively. This implies that an additional 10 % (IOIP
%) oil was recovered from the carbonate core compared with that in sandstone rock.

Figure 11—Comparison of the effect of different rock types on oil recovery efficiency and
pressure drop behavior during the first water flood of the near miscible WAG injection.
SPE-190053-MS 13

Effect of Rock Type on the Performance of Different Water Injection Cycles

The efficiency of W2 and W3 injection cycles is shown for sandstone and carbonate rocks in Figure 12
and Figure 13 respectively as well as pressure drops. Contrary to the performance of secondary water
injection, the cyclic oil recovery efficiency, during the subsequent water floods (W2 & W3), in the sandstone
core is higher than that in the carbonate core. The incremental cyclic oil productions during W2 and W3
injections were 4.4 % and 3.75 % (IOIP %) respectively in sandstone whereas 1 % and 3.45 % (IOIP
%) respectively in carbonate rock. The redistribution of fluid saturations inside the sandstone core, due to
the increase in the total gas saturation during the former gas injections (Figures 18), may assist water to
mobilize more oil towards the core end face. The mechanism that this oil was recovered by may be due to a
double displacement process in which water was mainly displacing gas, which was, in turn, displacing oil.
Comparing the behavior of the periodic pressure drop, during the successive water injection slugs, before
the water breakthrough shows a higher drop in injectivity in the carbonate core than that in the sandstone
rock. However, after the water breakthrough, the slope of the tail of pressure drops remained constant at
zero value in the sandstone rock whereas it was gradually decreasing in the carbonate core until the end of
these injection periods. From the comparison of the average saturation profiles for sandstone and carbonate
cores (Figure 17 & Figure 18), it can be drawn that, in the sandstone core, DP values remained constant
because of the higher magnitude of gas remained inside the pore spaces after gas was snapped-off at their
pore throats. On the contrary, milder snap-off mechanism in the carbonate core caused a reduction in the
slope of the Dp tails. Hence, for each subsequent water cycle, the injectivity values increased as more water
injected through the carbonate core. Contrary to this, no more drop in the water injectivity was observed
until the end of that subsequent water injection in the sandstone rock.

Figure 12—Comparison of the effect of different rock types on oil recovery

efficiency during the second waterflood of the near miscible WAG injection.
14 SPE-190053-MS

Figure 13—Comparison of the effect of different rock types on oil recovery

efficiency during the third waterflood of the near miscible WAG injection.

Effect of Rock Type on the Performance of Different Gas Injection Cycles

To investigate the performance of different gas cycles in two different rock types (sandstone and carbonate),
the behaviors of the oil recovery during G1, G2, and G3 injections were plotted against the injected pore
volume of gas in Figure 14, Figure 15 and Figure 16 respectively. As can be seen, when gas was entering
into the core, only water was being produced at the core outlet. After the gas breakthrough, oil production
started and continued until the end of this injection period. This reveals that the oil was recovered by the
near miscible displacement mechanism in which oil and gas flow simultaneously within the pore spaces
towards the core outlet. Comparing oil recovery during successive gas injection cycles revealed a higher
efficiency in sandstone than in carbonate cores. The lower recovery in Limestone rock is attributed to its
intrinsic heterogeneity. A comparison of oil recovery values during G1, G2, and G3 injections demonstrated
additional oil recoveries of 14.4 %, 7.3 %, 4.7 % (IOIP%) respectively in the sandstone and 6.85 %, 2 %,
and 1.15 % respectively in the carbonate core. On the other hand, a comparison of the behavior of periodic
pressure drop shows higher DP values corresponded to the gas injection in the carbonate than that in the
sandstone. When gas is injected into the carbonate, gas will not flow through the small water shielded pores,
and instead, it will flow through the large vugs. However, since limestone rocks are characterized with low
permeability, those large vugs, that are full of water, may be connected together with small pores along the
core. Hence, the injected gas would require higher injection pressure to overcome the resistance of flow at
those small connective pores and consequently mobilize the water out of the core. This could be the reason
for the higher DP values across the carbonate core than that in the sandstone. Hence, it can be drawn that
injectivity drop during the gas injection cycles in carbonates would be higher than in sandstone.
SPE-190053-MS 15

Figure 14—Comparison of the effect of different rock types on oil

recovery during the first gas injection of the near miscible WAG injection.

Figure 15—Comparison of the effect of different rock types on oil recovery

efficiency during the second gas injection of the near miscible WAG injection.

Figure 16—Comparison of the effect of different rock types on oil recovery

efficiency during the third gas injection of the near miscible WAG injection.
16 SPE-190053-MS

Summary of the Comparisons – Sandstone versus Carbonate

The results of WAG injection experiments performed on both water-wet rock types (Indiana limestone and
Clashach sandstone) at near miscible conditions are compared against each other in terms of the average
saturation profile and the remaining gas saturation. Figure 17 illustrates the average gas, oil and water
saturations inside the carbonate core corresponded to 6 cycles of water and gas injections during WAG
injection experiment. As can be seen from the figure, when water was advancing into the core, during the
water flood period (W1), the average oil saturation decreased inside the core corresponding to the increase
in the average water saturation. The recovery mechanism here is governed by direct displacement of oil by
water (two-phase flow). After reaching water breakthrough, the average oil saturation maintained constant
until the end of this injection period. It is worth mentioning that the little reduction in the oil saturation
corresponded to the insignificant jump in water saturation, at the end of the water flood period, was due to
the multi-rate bumped flood injections in which the impact of the capillary end effect on our experimental
results was investigated. During G1 injection, the total gas saturation (Sg) increased inside the core up to
26.2 % and in turn the So, and Sw reduced to 25 % and 48.8 % respectively. About 12 % of the average gas
saturation remained inside the core at the end of the second water injection. Apart from the W3 period, no
significant reduction of So level across the core was observed during the subsequent WAG injection cycles

Figure 17—Average saturation profile corresponded to the near miscible WAG injection in the carbonate rock.

Figure 18 shows the average saturation profile for WAG injection carried out on a water-wet Clashach
sandstone core. For more details regarding this core flood experiment, it can be found elsewhere (Mobeen
Fatemi, 2013). Some conclusions can be drawn from the comparisons of the average saturation profiles
(Figure 17 versus Figure 18). Firstly, comparing the efficiency of the secondary waterflood (W1) in both
rocks shows a higher reduction in the average oil saturation in the carbonate core than in the sandstone rock.
This is because a larger magnitude of oil was resident in the vugs of the carbonate core than that located in
the central body of the intergranular pore spaces of the sandstone core. However, investigation of the effect
of the subsequent water flood cycles (W2 & W3) shows a higher reduction in the average oil saturation in
the sandstone rock than that in the carbonate core. This behavior may be due to the natural discrepancy in
the internal pore size distributions between the sandstone and carbonate cores. In other words, the lower
displacement efficiency in the carbonate core may be attributed to the interconnected vugs that would create
a path of the least resistance of a fluid to flow. Hence, water and gas were unable to invade an additional
number of new pores containing remaining oil and this adversely affected the cyclic oil recovery efficiency
by the subsequent water cycles during WAG injection in the carbonate core.
SPE-190053-MS 17

Figure 18—Average saturation profile corresponded to the near miscible WAG injection in the sandstone rock.

Secondly, comparing the performance of the different gas injections (G1-G3) performed on the sandstone
core shows that the total gas saturation increased as higher number of gas cycles were injected into the core.
On the contrary, in the carbonate core, no significant increase in the total Sg was observed. According to our
tests (Tracer, MICP, CT Scan Analysis and ESEM Analysis), the clashach sandstone core is a homogenous
rock compared to that in the Indiana limestone core. This means that when gas is alternated with water in
the water-wet sandstone core, gas will invade new pores, which contains a remaining oil, to displace the
oil out of those pore spaces and then they simultaneously flow, due to the effect of ultra-low IFTg/o (0.04
mN.m-1), towards the core outlet. As a result, higher reduction in the average So and more gas remained
inside the sandstone core. On the contrary, when gas is injected into the water-wet Indiana limestone core,
gas would flow through the connective vuggy stream, which produces the path of the least resistance of
a fluid to flow towards the core outlet. Hence, gas would not invade new remaining oil pores to displace
more of that oil out of their pores and redistribute the fluids inside the core, and instead, gas would flow in
the same large connected vugs towards the core outlet. Based on above findings, it can be drawn that the
performance of different gas injections (G1, G2 & G3) in the water-wet sandstone (Clashach) core is much
higher than that in the carbonate (Indiana limestone) core.
Thirdly, investigation of the effect of remaining gas saturation (Sgr), after the subsequent water injection
cycles, on the performance of WAG injection with different rock types shows that, in the sandstone rock,
the Sgr increased as an additional number of water cycles was carried out. On the contrary, no significant
Sgr was observed in the carbonate rock. Hence, the higher Sgr has significantly improved the performance
of WAG injection in the water-wet sandstone rock whereas the absence of Sgr reduced the WAG injection
performance in the carbonate core.
For further investigation of gas trapping mechanism, in which water trapped gas, the Sgr for both rock
types (sandstone and carbonate) has been plotted against the total gas saturation at the beginning of
each cycle in Figure 19. Pore size distribution and water-wet condition are parameters pertinent to the
mechanisms of trapping the none-wetting phase and can play an essential role in increasing/decreasing the
performance of WAG injection in different systems of porous media. Thus, the discrepancy in the nature
of the pore structure (e.g. the intergranular pore spaces in sandstone core and the large connected vugs in
the carbonate rock) and the difference in the wetting degrees of the grain surfaces, by water phase, between
Quartz (in sandstone) and Calcite (in carbonate) were accounted for in the analysis of our experimental
data. Considering all above, the larger magnitude of the remaining gas saturation observed in the sandstone
core may be attributed to a more active snap-off mechanism that took place at the pore throats of the water-
wet pores which were invaded by gas in the previous gas injection cycle. On the contrary, milder effect
of this trapping mechanism in the carbonate rock caused an insignificant increase in Sgr inside the core.
18 SPE-190053-MS

Also, these findings can be drawn from the comparison of the amount and the slope of the Sgr in both rock
systems (Figure 19).

Figure 19—Effect of different rock types on the remaining gas saturation.

Summary – Oil Recovery Performance

Figure 20 (a & b) compares the oil recovery achieved by near miscible WAG injection, after water flooding,
in the sandstone and carbonate rocks. The figure presents oil recovery values (as a percentage of the
remaining oil after water flooding period) against PV of an injected WAG. As can be observed from the
graph, the performance of WAG in sandstone rock is much better than its performance in carbonate core. The
higher performance of gas, during gas injection cycles, and the larger magnitude of gas remained inside the
core, during the subsequent water cycles, may be playing a significant role for better oil recovery efficiency
achieved by WAG injections in the sandstone rock than that in the carbonate core. The ultimate oil recoveries
achieved by WAG injections, including the water flooding period, attained 88.5 % and 71 % (IOIP%) in the
sandstone and carbonate rocks respectively (Figure 20-a). Also, the additional oil recovery values, achieved
by the alternation of water and gas cycles after water flooding, reached to 77.40 % and 36 % (Sorw %) in the
sandstone and carbonate rocks respectively (Figure 20-b). This revealed that about 41.4 % (Sorw %) of extra
oils were recovered by WAG injections in the sandstone compared to that in the carbonate rock.
SPE-190053-MS 19

Figure 20—Effect of different rock type on oil recovery performance during near miscible
WAG injection (a): including first water flood and (b): excluding first water flood).

Conclusions
1. To investigate the homogeneity of each rock type, a series of tests were conducted on the carbonate
and sandstone cores. The results of these tests revealed that there was an intrinsic heterogeneity in
the internal pore structure of the limestone rock. In other words, the large vugs have established their
connective path from the inlet to the outlet of the core. On the contrary, the results show a homogenous
and clean sandstone rock with intergranular porosity.
2. Investigation of the performance of WAG injection, under water-wet and near miscible conditions, in
the carbonate core revealed that the performance of water cycles increased as the number of WAG
cycles increased. On the contrary, the performance of gas cycles decreased as a higher number of
WAG cycles was carried out.
3. The results showed that the oil recovery was much higher in the sandstone than that in the carbonate
core during different gas injection cycles (G1 to G3).
4. The ultimate oil recovery achieved by WAG injection experiments in sandstone and carbonate cores,
under water-wet and ultra-low gas/oil IFT conditions, were 88.5 % and 71 % (IOIP %) respectively.
Also, the incremental oil recovery accomplished by the alternating of water and gas injections, after
water flooding period, reached to 77.40 % and 36 % (Sorw %) in sandstone and carbonate rocks.
5. Pressure drop remained almost constant after water BT in the water-wet sandstone rock due to
the active snap-off mechanism of this system. However, the ineffective trapping mechanism in the
carbonate rock, due to the effect of the natural heterogeneity, led to re-shuffling of fluids.
20 SPE-190053-MS

Acknowledgement
This work presented in this paper was performed within the ‘Improved Characterisation of Three-Phase
Flow and WAG injection’ JIP at Heriot-Watt University. The project is equally funded by ADNOC, Galp
Energia, Maersk Oil, Petrobras, Premier Oil, Shell, Schlumberger, Total, and Woodside Energy, which is
gratefully acknowledged. The ESEM imaging analysis was conducted at Centre for Environmental Scanning
Electron Microscopy, Heriot-Watt University.

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