Investigating Supercritical CO2 Foam Propagation Distance: Conversion from Strong Foam to Weak Foam vs. Gravity Segregation

This study investigates how to determine the optimal supercritical CO2 foam injection strategies, in terms of total injection rate (or injection pressure, equivalently) and injection foam quality, to place injected foams deep and far into the reservoir. Two different mechanisms that limit field foam propagation, such as “conversion from strong foam to weak foam” and “gravity segregation,” are examined separately, and the results are combined together. The first is performed by using a mechanistic foam model based on bubble population balance, while the second is conducted by an analytical model (called Stone and Jenkins model) and reservoir simulations with a commercial software (CMG-STARS). Note that the gas-phase mobility, required as a key input parameter for gravity segregation simulations, is calibrated by the mechanistic model, which is a significant advance in this study.