Numerical Simulation and Optimization of Carbon Dioxide Utilization for Enhanced Oil Recovery from Depleted Reservoirs
type: CreativeWork
description: Due to concerns about rising CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants, there has been a strong emphasis on the development of a safe and economical method for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). One area of current interest in CO2 utilization is the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) from depleted reservoirs. In an Enhanced Oil Recovery system, a depleted or depleting oil reservoir is re-energized by injecting high-pressure CO2 to increase the recovery factor of the oil from the reservoir. An additional benefit beyond oil recovery is that the reservoir could also serve as a long-term storage vessel for the injected CO2. Although this technology is old, its application to depleted reservoirs is relatively recent because of its dual benefit of oil recovery and CO2 storage thereby making some contributions to the mitigation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Since EOR from depleted reservoirs using CO2 injection has been considered by the industry only recently, there are uncertainties in deployment that are not well understood, e.g. the efficiency of the EOR system over time, the safety of the sequestered CO2 due to possible leakage from the reservoir. Furthermore, it is well known that the efficiency of the oil extraction is highly dependent on the CO2 injection rate and the injection pressure. Before large scale deployment of this technology can occur, it is important to understand the mechanisms that can maximize the oil extraction efficiency as well as the CO2 sequestration capacity by optimizing the CO2 injection parameters, namely, the injection rate and the injection pressure. In this thesis, numerical simulations of subsurface flow in an EOR system is conducted using the DOE funded multiphase flow solver COZView/COZSim developed by Nitec, LLC. A previously developed multi-objective optimization code based on a genetic algorithm developed in the CFD laboratory of the Mechanical Engineering department of Washington University in St. Louis is modified for the…
abstract: Due to concerns about rising CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants, there has been a strong emphasis on the development of a safe and economical method for Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS). One area of current interest in CO2 utilization is the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) from depleted reservoirs. In an Enhanced Oil Recovery system, a depleted or depleting oil reservoir is re-energized by injecting high-pressure CO2 to increase the recovery factor of the oil from the reservoir. An additional benefit beyond oil recovery is that the reservoir could also serve as a long-term storage vessel for the injected CO2. Although this technology is old, its application to depleted reservoirs is relatively recent because of its dual benefit of oil recovery and CO2 storage thereby making some contributions to the mitigation of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Since EOR from depleted reservoirs using CO2 injection has been considered by the industry only recently, there are uncertainties in deployment that are not well understood, e.g. the efficiency of the EOR system over time, the safety of the sequestered CO2 due to possible leakage from the reservoir. Furthermore, it is well known that the efficiency of the oil extraction is highly dependent on the CO2 injection rate and the injection pressure. Before large scale deployment of this technology can occur, it is important to understand the mechanisms that can maximize the oil extraction efficiency as well as the CO2 sequestration capacity by optimizing the CO2 injection parameters, namely, the injection rate and the injection pressure. In this thesis, numerical simulations of subsurface flow in an EOR system is conducted using the DOE funded multiphase flow solver COZView/COZSim developed by Nitec, LLC. A previously developed multi-objective optimization code based on a genetic algorithm developed in the CFD laboratory of the Mechanical Engineering department of Washington University in St. Louis is modified for the…
author: Safi, Razi
language: English (en)
keywords: Mechanical Engineering
date published: 2015-05-15T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:13:49Z
provider: Washington University in St. Louis
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Washington University in St. Louis

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.7936/K7G44NF5