Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363

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Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery in Bakken tight oil reservoirs
Wei Yu a,⇑, Hamid Reza Lashgari b, Kan Wu a, Kamy Sepehrnoori b
a
Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
b
Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

h i g h l i g h t s

 The CO2 huff-n-puff for EOR in the Bakken is investigated.

 CO2 molecular diffusivity is a significant factor.
 Sensitivity studies are performed to quantify the key parameters.
 More heterogeneity is much favorable for the CO2 huff-n-puff process.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The combination of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing have boosted the oil produc-
Received 27 January 2015 tion from Bakken tight oil reservoirs. However, the primary oil recovery factor is very low due to the
Received in revised form 26 June 2015 extremely tight formation, resulting in substantial volumes of oil still remaining in place. Hence, it is
Accepted 29 June 2015
important to investigate the potential of applying enhanced oil recovery methods to increase oil recovery
Available online 6 July 2015
in the Bakken formation. Although carbon dioxide (CO2) is widely used in conventional reservoirs to
improve oil recovery, it is a new subject and not well-understood in unconventional oil reservoirs such
Keywords:
as the Bakken formation. In this paper, we use numerical reservoir simulation to model CO2 injection
CO2 huff-n-puff
Enhanced oil recovery
as a huff-n-puff process with typical reservoir and fracture properties from the Bakken formation.
CO2 diffusion Effects of CO2 molecular diffusion, number of cycle, fracture half-length, permeability and reservoir
Tight oil heterogeneity on the well performance of CO2 huff-n-puff are examined in detail. The results show that
Bakken the CO2 diffusion plays a significant role in improving oil recovery from tight oil reservoirs, which cannot
be neglected in the reservoir simulation model. Additionally, the tight oil formation with lower perme-
ability, longer fracture half-length, and more heterogeneity is more favorable for the CO2 huff-n-puff pro-
cess. This work can provide a better understanding of the physical mechanisms and key parameters
affecting the effectiveness of CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery in the Bakken formation.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The Bakken formation with multiple oil-bearing layers is one of
major productive tight oil reservoirs in North America (see Fig. 1)
[1], where Middle Bakken and Three Forks are the two primary lay-
ers for oil production since they have the best reservoir qualities
such as porosity and oil saturation [2]. It has been reported that
the Middle Bakken has an estimated average oil resource of 3.65
billion barrels and Three Forks has an estimated average resource
of 3.73 billion barrels [3]. Horizontal drilling and multi-stage
hydraulic fracturing are the two key enabling technologies to make
tight oil production commercial from the Bakken formation with
low or ultra-low permeability. The key dominant mechanisms for
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 512 574 0080.
E-mail address: yuwei127@gmail.com (W. Yu).
the primary recovery are depressurization and solution gas drive.
Although with the advanced technologies, most estimates for pri-
mary oil recovery factor remain very low due to tight nature of
the Bakken formation [4,5]. Hence, there are still substantial vol-
umes of oil remaining in the reservoir, resulting in a strong moti-
vation of applying enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods to
improve oil recovery in tight oil reservoirs. It has been reported
that a minor improvement in oil recovery factor such as 1% could
yield 1.6–9 billion barrels of additional oil [6]. The 1% additional
oil recovery factor could bring revenue of $128 to $720 billion with
an assumption of crude oil price of $80 per barrel. Accordingly, it is
important to investigate the potential of applying enhanced oil
recovery methods to improve long-term oil productivity in the
Bakken formation.
Although water flooding has been widely used in conventional
oil reservoirs, it is challenging to be applied in unconventional oil

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2015.06.092
0016-2361/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363
Nomenclature
Selected list of acronyms and units
SCF standard cubic feet (ft3)
MSCF 103 standard cubic feet
MMSCF 106 standard cubic feet
RB reservoir barrels
STB stock tank barrels
ft  0.3048 m
(°F-32)/1.8 °C
reservoirs with low permeability because of low injectivity, poor
sweep efficiency with fracture networks, and clay swelling prob-
lems. Nevertheless, it is believed that gas injection is more suitable
due to lower viscosity and larger injectivity than water injection.
Additionally, the depth of the Bakken formation (average of
10,000 ft) and high oil saturation are beneficial to gas injection
[2]. Most gases used for injection include carbon dioxide (CO2),
nitrogen (N2), natural gas or the mixture of them. Among these
gases, CO2 has received much more attention for enhanced oil
recovery in the Bakken formation [7–9]. CO2 has a considerably
lower minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) than that of the other
gases such as N2 and CH4 [10,11]. The so-called MMP refers to the
lowest pressure required to recover about 95% of the contacted oil
at a given temperature, which highly depends on the reservoir
temperature and crude oil composition [11,12]. A high percentage
of intermediate hydrocarbons (especially C5-through-C12) have a
significantly larger impact on the MMP [11,13].
CO2 injection is one of the most effective methods for enhanced
oil recovery in conventional oil reservoirs, which has been well
understood [14]. The main mechanisms generally include oil swel-
ling, oil viscosity reduction, oil density increasing, highly soluble in
water, vaporization and extraction of crude oil, exerting an acid
effect on rock [15]. CO2-EOR process is generally classified as mis-
cible or immiscible. For achieving a miscible oil-recovery process,
the reservoir pressure is necessary to be maintained above the
MMP. CO2 and trapped oil will become completely miscible and
CO2 will extract light and intermediate hydrocarbons from the oil
phase, and the interfacial tension will become zero and capillary
pressure disappears, resulting in the oil phase and CO2 phase,
which contains some extracted hydrocarbon components, flow
together more easily through the porous media [16–18].
Fai-Yengo et al. [19] presented that the effect of capillary pressure
Fig. 1. A cross section of the Bakken formation with multiple oil-bearing layers [1].
355
psi  6.895 kPa
ft3  0.02832 m3
cp  0.001 Pa s
md  1e15 m2
lD  1e3 md
bbl  0.1589873 m3
has negligible effect on oil recovery in the Bakken formation. The
extraction of hydrocarbons is highly dependent on the density of
the CO2, and the CO2 will extract more and heavier hydrocarbons
with the increasing CO2 density [20–22]. The CO2 density varies
from 0.1 to 0.8 g/cm3 at pressure from 1000 to 4000 psi when
the temperature is above its critical temperature of 87.9 °F [20].
Holm and Josendal [20] found that sufficient hydrocarbon extrac-
tion occurs when the CO2 density is about 0.42 g/cm3, which is
close to the CO2 critical density of 0.468 g/cm3. In practice, CO2
injection is typically a multiple contact process since it is hard
for the injected gas to be miscible with the in-situ oil at the begin-
ning, especially for the light and medium oil reservoirs [23]. In the
Bakken formation, the average reservoir pressure is between
7500 psi and 8000 psi and reservoir temperature is about 240 °F
[24]. Under these conditions, the injected CO2 is actually at super
critical condition. The density of the super critical CO2 is more like
liquid, but the viscosity is like gas. Thus, the miscible process gen-
erally improves the oil recovery more effectively than that of
immiscible process when injection pressure is below the MMP
[17].
Although CO2-EOR in conventional reservoirs has been well
understood, it is still a new subject in unconventional oil reservoirs
such as the Bakken formation with low permeability and multiple
hydraulic fractures. Hawthorne et al. [6] proposed five conceptual
steps for CO2 injection in the Bakken formation: ‘‘(1) CO2 flows into
and through the fractures, (2) unfractured rock matrix is exposed
to CO2 at fracture surfaces, (3) CO2 permeates the rock driven by
pressure, carrying some hydrocarbon inward; however, the oil is
also swelling and extruding some oil out of the pores, (4) oil
migrates to the bulk CO2 in the fractures via swelling and reduced
viscosity, and (5) as the CO2 pressure gradient gets smaller, oil pro-
duction is slowly driven by concentration gradient diffusion from
356 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363

pores into the bulk CO2 in the fractures.’’ Also, they demonstrated 2. Methodology
that CO2 is effective to improve oil recovery based on CO2-exposure
experiments with some rock samples from the Bakken formation. 2.1. Reservoir simulation model
The main mechanisms for gas-EOR in naturally fractured reservoirs
include viscous forces, gravity drainage, and molecular diffusion The governing equation that describes the total mass balance
[25]. However, in tight oil reservoirs with low permeability, the for component i in the oil and gas phases is expressed by the con-
viscous forces and gravity drainage become less important while tinuity equation below, including accumulation term of compo-
molecular diffusion will be dominant [26]. Although there are nent i in rock and fluid phases as well as convection, dispersion
many attempts to evaluate CO2 injection in the Bakken formation and molecular diffusion terms of component i in phase ‘ [30].
[23,27–29], the effect of CO2 molecule diffusion on well perfor- !
XNp
mance of the CO2 injection is still poorly understood. @
ð1  /Þqs wis þ / q‘ S‘ wi‘ ~
þr
Furthermore, the impacts of key reservoir and fracture properties @t ‘¼1
such as permeability, fracture half-length, and reservoir hetero- !
Np
X
geneity on the effectiveness of CO2-EOR have not been evaluated
quantitatively. Accordingly, a detailed study of investigation of
 q‘ wi‘ u‘  /q‘ S‘ K i‘ rwi‘  ri
‘¼1
the key parameters affecting the CO2-EOR in the Bakken formation
is necessary. ¼ 0 i ¼ 1; . . . ; Nc ; ð1Þ
This paper will mainly focus on numerical simulation of the CO2
where / is matrix porosity, qs is matrix density, q‘ is density of
injection as a huff-n-puff process, which consists of three stages
phase, ‘, S‘ is saturation of phase, ‘, ri is mass rate injection or pro-
such as CO2 injection, CO2 soaking, and production, as shown in
duction as source or sink term, Np is number of phase, Nc is number
Fig. 2, since it is more effective than CO2 flooding, which will take
of component, wis is mass fraction of component i that precipitates
longer time for pressure propagation from the injection well to
on the matrix rock per unit volume, wi‘ is mass fraction of compo-
production well [29]. The numerical reservoir simulation approach
nent i in the phase per unit volume. u‘ is Darcy’s flow velocity,
is used to model the CO2 huff-n-puff process with typical reservoir
which is defined as
and fracture properties from the Bakken formation. Effect of CO2
molecular diffusion on the effectiveness of CO2 injection is dis- k  
cussed in detail. Furthermore, a comprehensive sensitivity study ‘ ¼ 
u rp‘  q‘ g ð2Þ
l‘
is performed to investigate the effects of number of cycle, fracture
half-length, permeability and reservoir heterogeneity on the well where k is the formation permeability tensor, kr‘ is the relative per-
performance of CO2 huff-n-puff. This work can provide a better meability of phase, ‘, p‘ is pressure of phase ‘ and l‘ is viscosity of
understanding of the effectiveness of CO2 huff-n-puff process in
the Bakken formation, which can be easily extended to evaluate phase ‘. K i‘ is the dispersivity coefficient of component i in the
CO2 injection in the other tight oil reservoirs in North America such phase, ‘ which is defined as
as Eagle Ford shale in the Western Gulf Basin and Permian Basin in
West Texas. Di‘ a ‘ ju ‘ j
K i‘ ¼ þ ; ð3Þ
s /S‘

where a  ‘ is the dispersivity coefficient of fluid ‘ in the longitudinal

direction and two transverse directions, s is tortuosity of the matrix,
Di‘ is the diffusion coefficient of component i in phase ‘. The
Sigmund correlation [31] is often used to calculate the oil and gas
diffusion coefficients (unit is cm2/s) since it is valid for both oil
and gas phases [32]. The binary diffusion coefficient between com-
ponent i and j is calculated by [31,32]

q0‘ D0ij
Dij ¼  ð0:99589 þ 0:096016q‘r  0:22035q2‘r
(a) Stage 1: CO 2 injection q‘
þ 0:032874q3‘r Þ; ð4Þ

where q0‘ D0ij is the zero pressure limit of the product of density and
diffusivity, which can be calculated by
 1=2
0:0018583T 1=2 1 1
q0‘ D0ij ¼ þ ; ð5Þ
r2ij Xij R Mi Mj

(b) Stage 2: CO2 soaking q‘r is the reduced density, which can be calculated from the follow-
ing form:
Pn c !
i¼1 yi‘ v 5=3
ci
q‘r ¼ q‘  Pn c ; ð6Þ
i¼1 yi‘ v 2=3
ci

where Mi is molecular weight of component i, R is universal gas con-

(c) Stage 3: production
Fig. 2. The CO2 huff-n-puff process in a horizontal well with multiple fractures.
stant, T is absolute temperature (K), vci is critical volume of compo-
nent i, yi‘ is mole fracture of component i in phase, ‘, nc is number of
hydrocarbon components, rij is the collision diameter (Å), and Xij is
the collision integral of the Lennard-Jones potential (dimension-
less). The diffusion of component i in the mixture is defined as
 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363 357

1y used. This approach has been extensively used to model transient
Di‘ ¼ P yi‘i‘ ; ð7Þ
j–i Dij gas flow in hydraulically fractured shale gas reservoirs [35–38].

Eq. (7) is used to calculate the amount of molecular diffusivity

for Eq. (3). The collision diameter (rij) and the collision integral 3. Fluid characterization of Bakken
of the Lennard-Jones potential (Xij) can be calculated based on
the component critical properties as follows [32,33]: Typical fluid properties of the Bakken formation are used to
simulate the CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery. The average
 1=3
T ci oil gravity of the Bakken formation is around 42 °API, indicating
ri ¼ ð2:3551  0:087xi Þ  ; ð8Þ that the crude oil is light. Nojabaei et al. [39] reported that the
pci
range for gas oil ratio (GOR) is from 507 to 1712 SCF/bbl and bub-
ei ¼ kB ð0:7915 þ 0:1963xi Þ  T ci ; ð9Þ ble point pressure varies from 1617 to 3403 psi based on the field
production data from different location in the Bakken formation.
ri þ rj Kurtoglu et al. [24] conducted laboratory measurements of oil
rij ¼ ; ð10Þ properties of eight fluid samples from the Middle Bakken and
2
Three Forks, and presented that the bubble point is 1389–
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 2674 psi, oil formation factor is 1.34–1.68 RB/STB, oil viscosity is
eij ¼ ei ej ; ð11Þ
0.184–0.4883 cp, and GOR is 455–1062 psi. There is less informa-
tion available in the literature on the actual characterization of
kB T
T ij ¼ ; ð12Þ composition data for the Bakken formation. Hence, in this study,
eij it is assumed that the crude oil of the Bakken has seven different
pseudo components, i.e., CO2, N2, CH4, C2–C4, C5–C7, C8–C9, C10+,
1:06036 0:19300 1:03587 and their corresponding molar fractions are 0.02%, 0.04%, 25%,
Xij ¼ þ þ
ðT ij Þ
0:15610 expð0:47635T ij Þ expð1:52996T ij Þ 22%, 20%, 13%, and 19.94%, respectively. In addition, these compo-
1:76474 nents are convenient to investigate different gas injection (CO2, N2,
þ ; ð13Þ CH4, or mixture) in the future study. The key oil properties are cal-
expð3:89411T ij Þ
culated based on these components using CMG-WinProp [40] with
where x is acentric factor, pc is critical pressure (atm), Tc is critical the input data for the Peng–Robinson equation-of-state (EOS)
temperature (K), e is the characteristic Lennard-Jones energy (ergs), (Table 1) and the binary coefficient for flash calculation
and kB is the Boltzmann’s constant (1.3805  1016 ergs/K). (Table 2): oil gravity is 42 °API, GOR is 1000 SCF/bbl, bubble point
The system of partial differential equation (PDE) of Eq. (1) rep- is 2000 psi, oil formation factor is 1.6, which are within the reason-
resents a reservoir simulation model. In this paper, CMG-GEM [34], able range of typical values for the Bakken formation. In addition,
which is a numerical reservoir simulator, is used to solve Eqs. (1)– the MMP is calculated as 3334 psi, which has a great match with
(7). the measured data of 3300 psi by Kurtoglu et al. [24] using a
rising-bubble apparatus (RBA).
2.2. Reservoir model including multiple hydraulic fractures
4. Results and discussions
In our simulation model, the local grid refinement (LGR) with
logarithmic cell spacing is utilized to model multiple hydraulic 4.1. Base case
fractures explicitly, which can accurately model fluid flow from
the shale to the fracture. The fracture width is set at a small value For the base case, we set up a basic reservoir model with four
(0.01 ft) but a large permeability. A no-flow boundary condition is effective hydraulic fractures within one stage because of the

Table 1
Compositional data for the Peng–Robinson EOS in the Bakken formation.

Component Molar fraction Critical pressure (atm) Critical temperature (K) Critical volume (L/mol) Molar weight Acentric factor Parachor coefficient
(g/gmol)
CO2 0.0002 72.80 304.20 0.0940 44.01 0.2250 78.0
N2 0.0004 33.50 126.20 0.0895 28.01 0.0400 41.0
CH4 0.25 45.40 190.60 0.0990 16.04 0.0080 77.0
C2–C4 0.22 42.54 363.30 0.1970 42.82 0.1432 145.2
C5–C7 0.20 33.76 511.56 0.3338 83.74 0.2474 250.0
C8–C9 0.13 30.91 579.34 0.4062 105.91 0.2861 306.0
C10+ 0.1994 21.58 788.74 0.9208 200.00 0.6869 686.3

Table 2
Binary interaction parameters for oil components from the Bakken formation.

Component CO2 N2 CH4 C2–C4 C5–C7 C8–C9 C10+

CO2 0 0.0200 0.1030 0.1327 0.1413 0.1500 0.1500
N2 0.0200 0 0.0130 0.0784 0.1113 0.1200 0.1200
CH4 0.1030 0.0310 0 0.0078 0.0242 0.0324 0.0779
C2–C4 0.1327 0.0784 0.0078 0 0.0046 0.0087 0.0384
C5–C7 0.1413 0.1113 0.0242 0.0046 0 0.0006 0.0169
C8–C9 0.1500 0.1200 0.0324 0.0087 0.0006 0 0.0111
C10+ 0.1500 0.1200 0.0779 0.0384 0.0169 0.0111 0
358 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363

Fig. 3. A basic 3D model with four effective hydraulic fractures within one stage.

expensive computational time for the entire well with multiple Grogan et al. [42] conducted experimental measurements of the
fractures, as shown in Fig. 3. The dimensions for this segment are CO2 diffusion coefficients in pentane, decane, and hexadecane at
340 ft  1300 ft  40 ft, which corresponds to length, width, and temperature of 77 °F (25 °C) and pressure up to 870 psi
thickness, respectively. The grid block size is set to (6000 kPa) and presented that the CO2 diffusion coefficients are
20 ft  20 ft  40 ft in x, y, z directions, respectively. Fracture in the range of 1.80  105 cm2/s–7.59  105 cm2/s. Renner43
half-length is 210 ft, fracture height is 40 ft, fracture conductivity measured the CO2 diffusion coefficients in decane at temperature
is 50 md ft, and fracture spacing is 80 ft. The LGR for each grid with of 100 °F (38 °C) and pressure up to 850 psi (5860 kPa) and
fracture is set as 7  1  1 to reduce the numerical dispersion reported that the CO2 diffusion coefficients range from
effect. The air permeability of the Middle Bakken is on the order 1.97  105 cm2/s to 12.6  105 cm2/s. It is worth noting that
of microdarcies [39]. Water saturation ranges between 25% and the CO2 diffusion coefficients in oil phase at reservoir condition
50% in the Middle Bakken [4]. In this paper, matrix permeability are 5–10 times higher than those measured at ambient conditions
of 10 lD and initial water saturation of 25% are used. Table 3 sum- [44]. More importantly, the diffusion coefficient for the super crit-
marizes all the parameters used for simulation study based on the ical CO2 is 10–100 times of that for liquid [45]. Thus, the range of
typical values of the Middle Bakken. The relative permeability CO2 diffusion coefficient of 0.0001–0.01 cm2/s is selected and
curves, such as water–oil relative permeability and liquid–gas rel- investigated in this work. For the base case, CO2 diffusion coeffi-
ative permeability (see Fig. 4), are from our previous work based cient of 0.001 cm2/s is used. For the CO2 huff-n-puff process, ini-
on history matching with a field production well from the tially the horizontal well produces for three years, and then it is
Middle Bakken [41]. The reservoir is assumed to be homogeneous converted to a CO2 injector with constraints of the maximum injec-
and the fractures are with stress-independent porosity and perme- tion rate of 500 MSCF/day and the maximum bottom hole pressure
ability. Bottom hole pressure of 1000 psi is used for reservoir sim- of 8000 psi. After one year of CO2 injection, the well is shut-in and
ulation constraint. soaking for three months. Finally, the well is put back into produc-
The CO2 diffusion coefficient in oil and gas phases can be deter- tion. This is one cycle of CO2 huff-n-puff process. After one year of
mined based on the published laboratory measurements [42,43]. production of this cycle, another cycle of CO2 huff-n-puff contin-
ues. The total production period of the well is 30 years. In order
to compare the well performance of the base case with CO2 injec-
Table 3
tion and CO2 diffusion, the case without CO2 injection is simulated,
Basic reservoir and fracture properties from middle Bakken for simulation study of
CO2 huff-n-puff process. which means that the well is only under shut in corresponding to
the well is under CO2 injection and soaking for the case with CO2
Parameter Value Unit
injection, and another case with CO2 injection while without con-
Initial reservoir pressure 8000 (5.52  107) psi (Pa) sidering CO2 diffusion effect is also simulated.
Production time 30 year
Fig. 5 compares the oil recovery factor with and without CO2
Reservoir temperature 240 (115.6) °F (°C)
Initial water saturation 0.25 Dimensionless injection and CO2 diffusion and only with primary production. As
Total compressibility 1  106 (1.45  1010) psi1 (Pa1) shown, the oil recovery factor at 30 years of production for the case
Matrix permeability 10 (1  1017) lD (m2) with CO2 injection and diffusion is the highest. Also, the oil recov-
Matrix porosity 0.07 Value ery factor is almost the same for the case without CO2 injection and
Stage spacing 340 (103.6) ft (m)
Fracture conductivity 50 (1.5  1014) md ft (m2 m)
the case only with primary production. In addition, the recovery
Fracture half-length 210 (64) ft (m) factor of the case with CO2 injection while without CO2 diffusion
Fracture height 40 (12.2) ft (m) is the lowest, illustration that CO2 diffusion plays an important role
 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363 359

(a) Water-oil relative permeability curve (b) Liquid-gas relative permeability curve

Fig. 4. Relative permeability curves used in this work [41].

around hydraulic fractures due to the low permeability of shale

matrix; however, with CO2 diffusion, the CO2 molecules can diffuse
into the shale matrix to mix with the oil phase, leading to a higher
oil recovery. Thus, the CO2 diffusion term should be considered in
order to accurately model CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery
in reservoir simulation model. Without considering CO2 diffusion
term, large amount of CO2 will backflow to the surface after the
end of soaking time and impede oil production, as shown in
Fig. 8. The results show that about 88% of CO2 injected is produced
back at the end of production period without considering CO2 dif-
fusivity, while 69% of CO2 injected is produced back with consider-
ing CO2 diffusivity. For the base case, the oil recovery factor is
increased by 2.90%, 1.93%, and 1.40% through CO2 injection when
compared to the case without CO2 injection at 10, 20, and 30 years
of production, respectively.
Fig. 5. Comparison of oil recovery factor with and without CO2 injection and CO2
diffusion and only with primary production.

4.2. Effect of CO2 diffusion coefficient

in simulating CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery. Figs. 6 and 7
compare CO2 gas mole fraction distribution for the CO2 injection The effect of CO2 diffusion coefficient on the comparison of well
cases with and without considering CO2 diffusion. As shown, with- performance with and without CO2 injection is shown in Fig. 9,
out CO2 diffusion, most CO2 molecules are mainly concentrated while keeping the other parameters same as those in the base case.

Fig. 6. CO2 gas mole fraction distribution without considering CO2 diffusion.
360 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363

Fig. 7. CO2 gas mole fraction distribution with considering CO2 diffusion.

Fig. 8. Comparison of total volume of CO2 injected and volume of CO2 backflow to Fig. 10. Effect of number of cycle on comparison of oil recovery factor with and
the surface with and without considering CO2 diffusion. without CO2 injection.

Fig. 9. Effect of CO2 diffusion coefficient on comparison of oil recovery factor with Fig. 11. Effect of fracture half-length on comparison of oil recovery factor with and
and without CO2 injection. without CO2 injection.
 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363
Fig. 12. Effect of reservoir permeability on comparison of oil recovery factor with
and without CO2 injection.
As shown, the incremental oil recovery factor at 30 years of pro-
duction is 0.10%, 1.40%, and 3.25% corresponding to the CO2 diffu-
sion coefficient of 0.0001 cm2/s, 0.001 cm2/s, and 0.01 cm2/s,
respectively, illustrating that the CO2 diffusion plays an important
role in improving oil recovery during the process of CO2
huff-n-puff.
4.3. Effect of number of cycle
Fig. 10 shows the impact of number of cycle of CO2 huff-n-puff
on the comparison of well performance with and without CO2
injection, while keeping the other parameters same as those in
the base case. It can be seen that oil recovery factor increases with
an increase in the number of cycle and the incremental oil recovery
Fig. 13. Three cases of reservoir heterogeneity: (a) minimum heterogeneity, (b) medium heterogeneity, (c) maximum heterogeneity.
361
factor at 30 years of production is 1.40%, 2.12%, and 2.43% corre-
sponding to the number of cycle of 1, 2, and 3, respectively.
4.4. Effect of fracture half-length
In practice, fracture half-length is uncertain, which is hard to
characterize exactly. The typical range of 110–310 ft is investi-
gated. Fig. 11 presents the impact of fracture half-length on the
comparison of well performance with and without CO2 injection,
while keeping the other parameters same as those in the base case.
It can be observed that the incremental oil recovery factor at
30 years of production is 0.13%, 1.40%, and 2.79% for the fracture
half-length of 110 ft, 210 ft and 310 ft, respectively, illustrating
that longer fracture half-length is more favorable for the CO2
huff-n-puff process. This is because longer fracture has more con-
tact area with the reservoir, resulting in CO2 diffusing in larger por-
tion of the reservoir and leading to a higher recovery factor.
4.5. Effect of reservoir permeability
The typical reservoir permeability range of 0.001 md (1 lD) to
0.1 md (100 lD) is considered. Fig. 12 shows the effect of reservoir
permeability on the comparison of well performance with and
without CO2 injection, while keeping the other parameters same
as those in the base case. It can be seen that the incremental oil
recovery factor at 30 years of production is 2.35%, 1.40%, and
0.70% for the permeability of 0.001 md, 0.01 md and 0.1 md,
respectively, illustrating that lower permeability is more beneficial
for the CO2 huff-n-puff process. This is because the reservoir with
lower permeability at the end of primary production has larger
residual oil saturation and the diffusion mechanism is more dom-
inant than the convection mechanism compared to the larger
permeability.
362 W. Yu et al. / Fuel 159 (2015) 354–363
Fig. 14. Effect of reservoir heterogeneity on comparison of oil recovery factor with
and without CO2 injection (Hete01: minimum heterogeneity, Hete02: medium
heterogeneity, Hete03: maximum heterogeneity).
4.6. Effect of reservoir heterogeneity
In order to evaluate the reservoir heterogeneity effect, we used
the geostatistical approach to generate stochastically multiple
realizations of the permeability. The stochastic method uses and
honors the mean and variances of observed static data in the pres-
ence of correlation lengths, which represent anisotropy of model in
different dimensions and provide a relationship between data in
space. This approach can give a better representation of the natural
variability of the property. It is also a useful tool to quantify the
uncertainty in the reservoir description. In order to generate
heterogeneity, the spherical variogram type is used. We set up
the correlation length of 1000 ft and 170 ft in the X and Y direction,
respectively. The nugget effect is used to generate discontinuity
between data in reservoir. Larger nugget value causes more discon-
tinuity and more heterogeneity. In this work, three different nug-
get values such as 0.0001, 0.2, and 0.7 are used to represent the
minimum heterogeneity, the medium heterogeneity, and the max-
imum heterogeneity, respectively, as shown in Fig. 13. The average
permeability of these three cases remains the same as the base
case of 0.01 md. The other parameters are the same as the base
case.
Comparison of oil recovery factor with and without CO2 injec-
tion for the homogeneous and heterogeneous cases is shown in
Fig. 14. As shown, the incremental oil recovery factor at 30 years
of production is 1.96%, 1.97%, and 2.02% for the minimum hetero-
geneity, the medium heterogeneity, and the maximum hetero-
geneity, respectively, which are larger than the homogeneous
case (the base case) of 1.40%, illustrating that the more heteroge-
neous reservoir is more beneficial for the CO2 huff-n-puff process
in tight oil reservoirs. The reason is that the more heterogeneous
reservoir has larger portion of lower permeability and higher resid-
ual oil saturation, resulting in the CO2 diffusion process to be more
pronounced.
5. Conclusions
We performed a series of simulations for the CO2 huff-n-puff
process for enhanced oil recovery in the Bakken formation. The fol-
lowing conclusions can be drawn from this work:
(1) CO2 molecular diffusivity is a significant factor in reservoir
simulation model to capture the real physics mechanism
during CO2 injection into the tight oil reservoirs.
(2) Oil recovery factor increases with the increasing number of
cycle of CO2 huff-n-puff, and the incremental oil recovery
factor at a 30-year period is 2.43% corresponding to three
cycles in this case study.
(3) Lower permeability, longer fracture half-length, and more
heterogeneity are much favorable for the CO2 huff-n-puff
process.
(4) The CO2 diffusion mechanism is more pronounced than the
convention mechanism for the reservoir with lower perme-
ability during the CO2 huff-n-puff process.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to acknowledge Computer Modeling
Group Ltd. for providing the CMG software for this study. The
financial support from the Chief Oil & Gas LLC for this study is also
acknowledged.
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