chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering Research and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cherd

Reducing heavy oil carbon footprint and enhancing

production through CO2 injection

Alireza Emadi ∗ , Mehran Sohrabi, Mahmoud Jamiolahmady, Shaun Ireland,

Graeme Robertson
Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

a b s t r a c t

The world’s dependence on heavy oil production is on the rise as the existing conventional oil reservoirs mature and
their production decline. Compared to conventional oil, heavy oil is much more viscous and hence its production is
much more difficult. Various thermal methods and particularly steam injection are applied in the field to heat up
the oil and to help with its flow and production. However, the thermal recovery methods are very energy intensive
with significant negative environmental impact including the production of large quantities of CO2 . Alternative non-
thermal recovery methods are therefore needed to allow heavy oil production by more environmentally acceptable
methods. Injection of CO2 in heavy oil reservoirs increases oil recovery while eliminating negative impacts of thermal
methods.
In this paper we present the results of a series of micromodel and coreflood experiments carried out to investigate
the performance of CO2 injection in an extra-heavy crude oil as a method for enhancing heavy oil recovery and at
the same time storing CO2 . We reveal the pore-scale interactions of CO2 –heavy oil–water and quantify the volume
of CO2 which can be stored in these reservoirs.
The results demonstrate that CO2 injection can provide an effective and environmentally friendly alternative
method for heavy oil recovery. CO2 injection can be used independently or in conjunction with thermal recovery
methods to reduce their carbon footprint by injecting the CO2 generated during steam generation in the reservoirs
rather than releasing it in the atmosphere.
© 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide geological storage; Heavy oil; Extra-heavy oil; Enhanced oil recovery; Tertiary CO2 flood;
Secondary CO2 flood

1. Introduction heavy oil market is expanding around the world, an increas-

Worldwide there are huge quantities of heavy oils including
medium-heavy oil, extra-heavy oil, and bitumen resources.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that there
are 6 trillion barrels of heavy oil in place globally (OECD/IEA,
2005). This is more than twice as much as conventional oil
resources (Fig. 1). Hence, heavy oil has the potential to be a
major energy source for the 21st century. Although currently
the volume of heavy oil production is much smaller than the
production from conventional (light) oil, the world’s depen-
dence on heavy oil production is on the rise mainly due to the
projected massive increase in demand in near future. As the
ing number of oil companies are either becoming involved or
increasing their activities around heavy oil production.
Compared to conventional oil, heavy oil is much more vis-
cous and hence its exploitation is much more difficult. The
thermal oil recovery methods (e.g., steam floods, cyclic steam
stimulation, SAGD) are the most common methods of heavy
oil recovery and have been developed and applied in the field
to alleviate the problem of poor sweep efficiency by reducing
oil viscosity (Goyal and Kumar, 1989). Due to the high viscosity
of the heavy oil at the surface conditions, the transportation
process is also very difficult and energy consuming, which is
usually assisted by heating, dilution and partial upgrading of

∗
Corresponding author at: Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, A224, Jim Brown Building, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK.
Tel.: +44 0 131 451 8084; fax: +44 0 131 451 3127.
E-mail address: alireza.emadi@pet.hw.ac.uk (A. Emadi).
Received 24 May 2010; Received in revised form 2 August 2010; Accepted 17 August 2010
0263-8762/$ – see front matter © 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cherd.2010.08.008
1784 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793
Fig. 1 – Total world oil resources. Medium-heavy,
extra-heavy and bitumen make up to 70% of the world’s
total oil resources (Alboudwarej et al., 2006).
the heavy crude oil (Saniere et al., 2004). Thermal cracking
is the technique currently used to break the heavy hydrocar-
bon molecules to light hydrocarbon products in the refineries.
All these thermal processes are extremely energy intensive
with substantial CO2 emission and negative environmental
impacts. With present technologies, the extraction and refin-
ing of heavy oils generate as much as two to ten times more
CO2 emissions compared to conventional oil depending on
the project and heavy oil recovery technique (Plouchard, 2001;
Romm, 2006; Century, 2008).
An attractive solution for meeting the increasing demand
for oil and at the same time addressing the environmental
concerns in relation to thermal heavy oil production would
be to inject the CO2 produced from the steam generation
process in the reservoir. Although heavy oil viscosity reduc-
tion due to mixing with CO2 is not as high as the reduction
achieved by thermal methods, viscosity reduction of two
orders of magnitudes has been reported (Klins, 1984; Klins and
Bardon, 1991). CO2 injection also provides a solution for recov-
ery from heavy oil reservoirs in which thermal methods are
impractical or uneconomical especially for deeper reservoirs
or those located in thin formations in which heat loss would
be significant (Goyal and Kumar, 1989). Compared to thermal
methods, CO2 injection can offer advantages on capital cost,
energy consumption, environmental pollution, safety and in
situ upgrading.
CO2 injection is a relatively well-established oil recovery
method but has been mainly applied to conventional oil reser-
voirs where the displacement of oil by CO2 is likely to be
miscible. Compared to light oil, application of CO2 injection
in heavy oil reservoirs has received much less attention and
hence mechanisms of heavy oil recovery by CO2 injection
are not fully understood. One major difference between CO2
injection in light oil compared to heavy oil is that in heavy
oil reservoirs CO2 would not develop miscible with the oil.
Although at the pore-level miscible displacement efficiency
is much higher than immiscible displacement, there are var-
ious mechanisms operating during immiscible displacement
of oil by CO2 that can lead to improved oil recovery.
Several field projects have been reported in the literature
in which CO2 successfully recovered heavy oil in an immis-
cible recovery process (Khatib et al., 1981; Saner and Patton,
1986; Moffitt and Zornes, 1992; Fulop et al., 1997; Issever and
Topkaya, 1998). Laboratory tests have shown that although
miscibility cannot be reached, CO2 injection improves heavy
oil recovery mainly due to viscosity reduction and to a lesser
extent due to oil swelling and IFT reduction (Klins, 1984;
Matthews, 1989; Klins and Bardon, 1991). While most of these
laboratory tests are focused on the PVT properties of heavy
oil–CO2 system, very few core flood tests exist in the litera-
ture to investigate displacement mechanisms and efficiency of
heavy oil recovery by immiscible CO2 at moderate pressures
(between 500 and 1000 psig) especially for heavier crude oils
with viscosities of higher than 100 cp (Sankur and Emanuel,
1983; Jha, 1986; Mayer et al., 1988; Srivastava and Huang, 1994).
Moreover, injection of CO2 in heavy oil reservoirs for combin-
ing CO2 storage and EOR has not yet been throughway studied.
In this paper we present the results of a series of flow visu-
alisation and coreflood tests physically simulating immiscible
CO2 injection in tertiary (post-waterflood) and secondary (pre-
waterflood) oil recovery modes. The objective of this study is
twofold. First, to explore the potential of CO2 injection in a
specific heavy oil reservoir for the purpose of improved oil
recovery and CO2 storage. In particular, to study the impact
of different recovery strategies on the volume of oil recovery
and stored CO2 . Second, to obtain a better understanding of
heavy oil recovery mechanisms by immiscible CO2 injection
and explore ways that this knowledge can be used in field
applications.
2. Experimental facilities
A high-pressure micromodel rig was used to perform a
series of direct flow visualisation experiments. Flow visualisa-
tion experiments improve our understanding of the physical
processes underlying CO2 injection in heavy oil reservoir
by revealing the mechanisms of interactions between the
injected CO2 and the reservoir’s fluids and rock. To quantify
the level of heavy oil recovery improvement, displacement
experiments were also conducted in a sand pack. The exper-
iments have been performed using a heavy crude oil at an
average pressure of 600 psia and a temperature of 50 ◦ C.
2.1. The micromodel rig
A high-pressure micromodel rig was used to perform direct
flow visualisation experiments. Details of the experimental
facilities can be found elsewhere (Sohrabi et al., 2000, 2007,
2008).
Micromodels are made of a two-dimensional pore struc-
ture, which is etched onto the surface of a glass plate, which is
otherwise completely flat. A second glass plate is then placed
over the first, covering the etched pattern and thus creating
an enclosed pore space. This second plate, the cover plate, has
an inlet hole and an outlet hole drilled at either end, allowing
fluids to be displaced through the network of pores. Because
the structure is only one pore deep, and the containing solid
walls are all glass, it is possible to observe the fluids as they
flow along the pore channels and interact with each other. It is
also possible to observe how the geometry of the pore network
affects the patterns of flow and trapping. Various pore patterns
can be designed and used in micromodel experiments.
In this study, a micromodel with a heterogeneous rock-
look-like pore pattern was used. This pattern which resembles
pore shapes in a real porous medium was originally taken
from enlarged photographs of thin sections of a sandstone
core sample and, after some modifications, was etched onto
glass plates by acid etching technique. The micromodel orien-
tation was vertical with the inlet port at the top and the outlet
port at the bottom end of the model. Fig. 2 shows the full-
length picture and a magnified picture of the rock-look-alike
 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793 1785

Table 1 – Dimensions of the glass micromodel and their pore.

Length Width MM PV Ave. depth Pore dia. range
cm cm cm3 ␮m ␮m

Rock look alike pattern (heterogeneous) 4 0.7 0.01 50 30-500

micromodel and Table 1 shows the dimensions of the micro-
model and the pores. To show the images of the micromodel
at a suitable magnification, only the image of a middle sec-
tion of the micromodel, which is representative of the whole
micromodel, is presented throughout this paper.
In the micromodel pictures present in this paper, heavy
oil and water are shown in their real colour (oil is black and
water colourless). However, to distinguish between gas (CO2 )
and water, in the pictures, CO2 has been digitally coloured
yellow.
2.2. The core rig
The high-pressure coreflood rig used in this study is shown
schematically in Fig. 3. The rig consists of the following main
components:
2.3.
High pressure high temperature oven: A temperature-controlled
air bath is used to house the core holder, injection fluids, the
back pressure regulator (BPR) lines and connections at con-
stant temperature (basically all the equipments other than
the injection pumps).
Injection pumps: To flow fluids around the system (micromodel
and bypass lines) and also to apply overburden pressure to
core and supply pressure to the BPR three pumps are used.
Deployment of three injection pumps also allows us to inject
two fluids simultaneously through the micromodel while the
pressure at the back pressure regulator is maintaining by the
third pumps.
Sand pack and core holder: A sand pack was prepared and used
as the porous medium in the core experiments. The rea-
son for using a sand pack rather than a consolidated core
was to perform the experiments in a porous medium that
would resemble a typical heavy oil reservoir that are usu-
ally shallower than conventional oil reservoirs and hence are
unconsolidated with a relatively high permeability. The ori-
entation of the sand pack was vertical with an injection port
at the top and a production port at the bottom. A summary of
sand pack properties is given in Table 2. Given the relatively
long length of the sandpack, i.e. 1 ft compared to standard 3-
in. core plug length and its high permeability (1.4 Darcy), the
impact of the capillary end effects are believed to be minimal.
Fluids
Aqueous phase: In the micromodel (flow visualisation) exper-
iments, DW (distilled water) was used as the aqueous phase,
however, the core tests were performed using a brine solution
containing a total dissolved salt concentration of 10,000 ppm.
The synthetic brine solution consists of 8000 ppm NaCl and
2000 ppm CaCl2 . The liquids were de-aired before being
injected into the storage cell.
CO2 : The CO2 gas used for the experiments has 99.8% purity.
Crude oil: A highly viscous crude oil was used in the exper-
iments. The basic properties of this crude oil are listed in
Table 3.

3. Experimental procedure

A very similar experimental procedure was followed in all

micromodel and core flood tests reported here. At the prepara-
tion stage of the test, the porous medium (either micromodel
or core) was first saturated with the aqueous phase (DW or
brine) and pressurised to 600 psig at 50 ◦ C. To resemble the
initial migration of oil in a water-bearing reservoir and to
establish an initial oil and water saturation, the crude oil was
then injected in the porous medium.

Table 2 – Basic properties of the core used in this study.

Parameter Size Unit

Depth (D) 0.5 cm

Width (W) 3.7 cm
Length (L) 31.9 cm
Core pore volume 23.5 cm3
Porosity () 40 %
Permeability to brine (K) 1.4 Darcy

Fig. 2 – Pictures of the rock-look-alike micromodel

saturated with blue-dyed water. Pores are shown in blue Table 3 – Basic properties of the extra-heavy crude oil
and unetched glass in white. (b) A magnified section of the used for the experiments.
pore pattern which has been repeated a few times to make API Viscosity Asphaltene Acid number
the full length of the micromodel (a). (For interpretation of (cp) @ 50 ◦ C content (wt/wt%) (mgKOH/g)
the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is 11.5 8670 11.6 3.38
referred to the web version of the article.)
1786 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793
Fig. 3 – Schematic of the high-pressure high temperature coreflood oven.
In the tests simulating CO2 injection in tertiary mode (post-
waterflood), the test started with injection of the aqueous
phase to simulate the process of waterflood in a heavy oil
reservoir. Waterflood continued until oil production either
completely stopped or dropped to very low rates. Then, CO2
injection commenced through the porous medium to simu-
late the tertiary injection of CO2 . The period of CO2 injection
was 2 days in the micromodel test and 7 days in the core test.
This extended period of CO2 injection, was followed with a
second period of water injection, which continued until all
the dissolved CO2 in the oil was stripped by fresh water.
In the tests simulating secondary mode of CO2 injection
(pre-waterflood), the test started directly with the injection of
CO2 for 8 days in the core and 2 days in the micromodel test.
Then water was injected in the porous medium to strip the
dissolved CO2 out of the oil.
The micromodel and core were positioned vertically and
the fluids were injected from the top ends. Therefore, the pro-
cess of oil/brine displacement by CO2 was gravity stable. In the
micromodel tests, all the fluids were injected at a slow rate of
0.01 cm3 h−1 corresponding to a Darcy velocity of 96 cm/day.
The injection of fluids through the core was performed at
a rate of 1 cm3 h−1 , which corresponds to Darcy velocity of
23.9 cm/day. Based on the very slow rate of injection used in
these experiments, the capillary number was estimated to be
2.5E−7 in the micromodel tests and less than 1E−7 in the core-
flood tests.
4. Results
In this study, two scenarios of CO2 injection were investi-
gated using transparent porous media (micromodel) and core
flood experiments. The first scenario simulates the case of CO2
injection and storage in a mature heavy oil reservoir which has
already been flooded with water. The second scenario looks
into the process of CO2 injection in a reservoir prior to water-
flood where the oil phase is still connected within the porous
medium.
4.1. Scenario 1: tertiary (post-waterflood) CO2
injection
Despite a very unfavourable viscosity ratio between water
and heavy oil, waterflooding is often employed in heavy oil
reservoirs, both along or after primary recovery in order to
re-pressurise the reservoir and displace oil towards produc-
ing wells (Mai and Kantzas, 2009). The main advantage of
waterflood is that it is cheap and practised widely around
the world. The pore scale displacement mechanisms of water-
flooding have been studied comprehensively and the impact
of different parameters like the pore structure, wettability
and IFT (interfacial tension) have been investigated by differ-
ent researchers. At the field scale, well-documented literature
exists on the design, performance prediction and operation of
waterfloods (Green and Willhite, 1998).
The existence of an adverse viscosity ratio between heavy
oils and the flood water makes waterflooding not a very effec-
tive option for improving heavy oil recovery. For heavy oil
reservoirs (with oil viscosities above 1000 cp) primary produc-
tion and waterflood usually can only recover up to 10% of the
original oil in place, meaning that at the end of waterflood
there are still significant oil resources remaining as potential
for EOR (enhanced oil recovery).
The first scenario was designed and carried out with the
main objective of simulating the process of immiscible CO2
injection after an initial waterflood. The main question in ter-
tiary CO2 flood is whether the injected CO2 would be able to
displace the oil or would it just finger through the continuous
path of water created during the preceding waterflood. This
is a very important point because; if injected CO2 does not
contact residual oil, there will not be much oil displacement
and recovery by CO2 . Instead there will be a premature CO2
breakthrough (BT) with not much oil recovery after BT through
mechanisms like gravity drainage. A micromodel test was
performed to investigate the pore scale interactions between
injected CO2 , water and oil, the pore scale distribution and the
oil displacement mechanisms by CO2 injection after a water-
flood period. The test followed with a core experiment to verify
the micromodel observations and to quantify the amount of
oil recovery (Fig. 4).
4.1.1. Tertiary micromodel test
Fig. 5 shows the micromodel during various stages of this
experiment. The test started by injection of the heavy crude oil
through micromodel which was initially fully saturated with
DW water (Fig. 5a). The test then continued with an extended
period of water flood (Fig. 5b), which was later followed, by an
extended period of CO2 injection to simulate tertiary injection
of CO2 (Fig. 5d). The test was concluded with a second period
of waterflood to displace the CO2 diluted oil (Fig. 5e).
The pore-scale events taking place during each stage of
the experiment were closely observed and videos and still
images were recorded and were later studied in detail. This
micromodel test revealed some of the very important physi-
 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793 1787

4 orders of magnitude). In the areas with relatively high oil

Fig. 4 – Schematic of the sand pack core.
cal processes and mechanisms involved in tertiary injection of
CO2 at the pore scale. One of the most important observations
was that the injected CO2 flowed through oil-occupied pores
rather than the water-occupied pores despite much higher
viscosity of the crude oil compared to the water (more than
saturation, a small bank of oil formed and flowed ahead of
the CO2 front and hence, the advancement of the CO2 front
was associated with the movement of oil–water interfaces
ahead of it (double displacement). In the areas with low oil
saturation, a layer of oil covered the CO2 front, which was
indicative of a spreading system (Oren, 1994; Sohrabi et al.,
2000). Fig. 5c shows a magnified section of the micromodel at
the CO2 breakthrough time. The existence of thick oil layers
around the CO2 stream is evident in the picture. This obser-
vation is very important because without these oil spreading
layers the injected CO2 would flow through water occupied
pores and the process of heavy oil recovery by tertiary CO2
flood would be much less effective.
Another important observation was the shielding effect of
the layers of water on the performance of the injected CO2 .
It meant that the injected CO2 was unable to directly contact
the disconnected oil ganglia remaining after the water flood
period. Fig. 5d shows the magnified section of the micromodel
at the end of the period of CO2 injection where it can be clearly
seen that the CO2 has not been able to spread laterally in the
porous medium towards the oil ganglia trapped on the right
side of the porous medium. This behaviour is important for

Fig. 5 – Oil recovery and fluid distribution in a magnified section of the micromodel at different stage of tertiary CO2 injection
test. After (a) oil flood, (b) first waterflood, (c) CO2 breakthrough, (d) 2 days of CO2 injection and (e) after second waterflood,.
1788 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793

both oil recovery and storage purposes as CO2 will only be

stored in these uncontacted oil ganglia by dissolution (not a
free phase). This reduces the availability of the reservoir pore
volume and hence the volume of CO2 stored in the reservoir.
From EOR point of view, the presence of high water saturation
which has disconnected the oil reduces sweep efficiency and
the amount of oil recovery.
The injection of CO2 resulted in significant dilution of the
crude oil, as the injection of CO2 continued. Fig. 5c and d
respectively show two images of the same section of the
micromodel during CO2 injection after the breakthrough of
CO2 and at the end of the 2 days of the CO2 injection period.
As can be seen, the colour of the areas of the crude oil directly
in contact with CO2 has changed from black to brown, which is
a good indication of the dissolution of CO2 in the crude oil and Fig. 6 – Oil recovery and deferential pressure across the
the subsequent dilution of the crude oil to a lighter mixture of core versus brine injection during first period of waterflood.
the oil and CO2 . The red dashed lines in Fig. 5c and d demon-
strate the presence of a layer of water between the oil in the until 6.9 core’s pore volumes (PV) was injected. During the
left hand side of the micromodel, which separates the flowing extended period of CO2 injection, oil was continuously pro-
CO2 from the oil resident on the right hand side of the micro- duced from the sandpack at low rates. Fig. 7 schematically
model. As can be seen, although there is a slight discolouring illustrates the sequence of production of fluids from the core
of the oil on the right side of the porous medium, however, during this period of CO2 injection.
it is not comparable with the extent of the colour change of The fact that a bank of oil was produced before the
the oil located on the left hand side of the porous medium CO2 breakthrough is a strong indication of the oil spreading
where the oil is in direct contact with CO2 . This implies that behaviour during the injection of CO2 . It means that the CO2
secondary (pre-waterflood) injection of CO2 in which the oil had been invading the oil-filled pores rather than water. Due to
phase is mainly connected and continuous would result in a the viscosity difference between the oil and brine, the bank of
more efficient process and hence, higher oil recovery. oil would in turn displace water and that explains why initially
The dissolution of CO2 in the crude significantly reduced only water was produced before the oil bank. These obser-
its viscosity. A small fraction of the diluted oil was produced vations are consistent with the observation made during the
through layers of oil around the stream of CO2 during the corresponding visualisation (micromodel) experiments using
period of CO2 injection. However, a significant amount of this the same oil where the oil spreading behaviour was observed.
diluted oil was recovered when water was re-injected after CO2 Fig. 8 displays the oil recovery and brine production data
injection due to the viscosity reduction brought about during versus the volume of the injected CO2 during this period of
the CO2 injection period. CO2 injection. As can be seen, most of the brine is displaced
and produced from the core before oil production starts. The
4.1.2. Tertiary core test important point which should be noted at this stage of the test
In the core test a procedure similar to the micromodel test is that despite a low oil recovery at the CO2 breakthrough (only
was followed. However, the aqueous phase used in the core
test was the brine solution rather than DW which was used in
the micromodel test. The results of the core flood experiment
verified many of the observations made during the direct flow
visualisation experiments.
The core was initially saturated with brine. Then, the crude
oil was injected through the core for an extended period Fig. 7 – Sequence of production of fluids from the core
of time to ensure that the core was completely and uni- before and after CO2 breakthrough during the period of CO2
formly saturated with the oil. The core was then flooded flood.
with water to simulate secondary waterflooding of an oil
reservoir. As expected, due to a very large viscosity contrast
between the flood water and the extra-heavy oil, an early
water breakthrough was observed. The first droplets of water
were observed at the outlet only after 0.13 PV of brine injection.
The red dashed line in Fig. 6 points out the water breakthrough
time on the graph. After the water breakthrough the produc-
tion of oil still continued as is shown by the gradual change
in the slope of the oil recovery curve after the breakthrough
(deviation from straight line).
After the initial waterflood period, CO2 injection com-
menced from the top end of the vertically oriented core. As CO2
injection progressed, first; only brine was observed to be pro-
duced from the core until almost all of the injected brine was
displaced from the core. The brine production was followed
with the production of a bank of crude oil before CO2 break- Fig. 8 – Oil recovery and brine production versus CO2
through. The injection of CO2 continued after breakthrough injection during the period of CO2 flood.
 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793
Table 4 – Summary of the results of the tertiary CO2
injection test.
Oil recovery Ultimate oil
factor @ BT (%) recovery factor (%)
1st Waterflood 6.4 16.4%
CO2 flood 1% 10.6%
2nd Waterflood 2% 5.1%
Total – 32.1%
1% of the initial oil in the core) the oil recovery has continued
after breakthrough during the extended period of CO2 injec-
tion and eventually 10% of the oil originally in the core was
recovered from the core due to tertiary CO2 injection.
Unfavourable viscosity ratio between the injected CO2 and
the resident heavy oil is believed to be the main reason for the
low oil recovery by direct displacement mechanism before the
CO2 breakthrough. However, after CO2 breakthrough, oil pro-
duction prolonged due to some indirect recovery mechanisms.
Swelling of the oil and brine as a result of CO2 dissolution,
along with gravity forces caused by density difference between
the oil and CO2 play major contributions to the oil recovery
after the CO2 breakthrough. The gravity drainage mechanism
is assisted by oil viscosity reduction which decreases the resis-
tance viscous forces.
After the CO2 injection period, a 2nd water injection was
carried out to examine the potential of the recovery of the CO2
diluted oil. 3.1 PV of water was injected during the 2nd water
injection period which resulted in 5% additional oil recovery.
Table 4 summarises the amount of oil recovery at various
stages of this coreflood experiment as well as the cumulative
oil production achieved. Over 16% of the oil was recovered dur-
ing the initial extended water flooding period. The subsequent
immiscible CO2 injections recovered more than 10.6% of the
oil over what had been recovered during the preceding water
flooding period. A second water injection period recovered
another 5% of the CO2 diluted oil.
Fig. 9 depicts the fluid saturations (CO2 , oil and water) in
the core at the end of each stage of this experiment. It can be
seen that a CO2 saturation of 23% was achieved at the end of
the tertiary CO2 flood period. This is more than twice as much
as the volume of the recovered oil during tertiary CO2 flood.
The difference is the CO2 stored in the core through displace-
ment of the resident brine. In other words, in this experiment,
the injection of CO2 in this very heavy oil resulted in 10.6% PV
additional oil recovery and 23% PV CO2 storage. Therefore, the
Fig. 9 – Saturation of the fluids in the core during various
stages of the tertiary CO2 -flood core test.
1789
results clearly demonstrate the huge potential of CO2 injec-
tion in heavy oil reservoirs for increasing oil recovery and at
the same time storing significant quantity of CO2 for environ-
mental reasons.
4.2. Scenario 2: secondary (pre-waterflood) CO2
injection
In the previous section, the performance of CO2 injection in
tertiary mode at pore scale and core scale was examined. In
this section, secondary injection of CO2 is investigated again
visually through a micromodel test and also by coreflood
experiments. Secondary injection of CO2 in heavy oil reser-
voirs is viable in the reservoirs where adequate volume of CO2
is available (e.g., supply from power plants or steam genera-
tion plants). Secondary injection of CO2 is expected to perform
better compared to tertiary CO2 injection in terms of heavy oil
recovery and CO2 storage capacity.
4.2.1. Secondary micromodel test
The micromodel test of the secondary CO2 injection was
performed using a similar preparation and experimental pro-
cedure as the first micromodel (tertiary) experiment. The only
difference was that in the secondary test no initial waterflood
was carried out and after establishment of the initial oil sat-
uration the test commenced directly with CO2 injection. The
CO2 injection continued for an extended period of time and
then was followed with a period of water flood. Fig. 10 shows
the micromodel during various stages of this experiment.
Whilst during the tertiary CO2 injection the oil phase was in
the form of disconnected ganglia, in the secondary CO2 injec-
tion it was a continuous phase (Fig. 10a). Thus, the shielding
effect which had a negative effect on displacement of heavy
oil by tertiary CO2 was avoided in this test. Comparison of oil
recovery at CO2 breakthrough time in this test (Fig. 10b) with
the case of tertiary CO2 injection (Fig. 5c) vividly shows the
better performance of secondary CO2 injection. Additionally,
as the CO2 injection continued after the CO2 breakthrough,
the CO2 stream readily widened towards the right side of the
micromodel and accessed the oil which was initially bypassed
by the CO2 in the low connectivity part (right-hand side) of
the micromodel (Fig. 10c and d). The resident oil was initially
diluted as a result of dissolution of CO2 (this can be identified
from the change of colour of the oil in Fig. 10c compared to
Fig. 10b and a) and then mobilized due to the gravity force.
This behaviour had not been observed in the first (tertiary)
experiment due to the water shielding effect which resulted
in significant amount of residual oil on the right side of the
micromodel (Fig. 5d). Fig. 10d illustrates a magnified section
of the micromodel at the end of the period of CO2 flood which
shows good oil displacement and recovery. The test was fol-
lowed with a period of waterflood which resulted in more oil
recovery as a result of the displacement of the CO2 dilute oil
by water.
4.2.2. Secondary core test
The second coreflood test was performed to simulate the pro-
cess of secondary immiscible CO2 flood and to confirm the
observations made in the corresponding micromodel test. To
start the test, the core was initially fully saturated with brine
and then the crude oil was injected through the core.
Having established the initial oil saturation and distribu-
tion in the core, CO2 was injected through the core from top
end of the vertically positioned core. During the CO2 injection,
1790 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793

Fig. 10 – Oil recovery and fluid distribution in a magnified section of the micromodel at different stage of tertiary CO2
injection test. After (a) oil flood, (b) CO2 breakthrough, (c) 6 h of CO2 injection, and (d) 2 days of CO2 injection.

at first, only oil was produced from the core outlet, however, as
the CO2 injection continued the effluent changed to foamy oil
(mixture of CO2 and oil). Fig. 11 displays the oil recovery data
versus the volume of the injected CO2 during this period of
CO2 flood. Production of foamy oil was observed shortly before
the CO2 breakthrough however it was responsible for a signif-
icant amount of heavy oil production. The CO2 breakthrough
took place after production of 12.3% of the oil. Similarly to
the previous core test, oil production continued after the CO2
breakthrough at low rates due to the combination of CO2 dis-
solution and gravity segregation mechanisms which resulted
in a significant final oil recovery of 22.3 at the end of the CO2
flooding period.
In Fig. 12, the oil recovery after the CO2 breakthrough in
this test has been plotted against the injected CO2 (pore) vol-
ume for both the secondary and the tertiary CO2 flood tests.
The black lines in this figure correlate the oil recovery as a
result of gravity drainage with the volume of the injected CO2 .
The early recovery data after breakthrough (2 pore volumes of
injected CO2 ) have not been considered in this calculation as it
seems that in that period oil/brine swelling as a result of CO2
dissolution is the main mechanism of oil displacement and
production and not gravity drainage. The slope of 1 for tertiary
injection of CO2 (or 1.4 for secondary CO2 injection) obtained
from the graph means that the oil recovery increased by 1%
(or 1.4% for secondary condition) for every pore volume of the
injected CO2 .
The higher rate of oil recovery during the secondary CO2
flood compared to the tertiary CO2 flood is expected and is
supported by the visual results obtained from our micromodel
tests under similar conditions. During tertiary CO2 injection,
the presence of layers of water separating the injected CO2
and oil weakens the process of oil production after the CO2
breakthrough mainly because of two reasons:

Fig. 12 – Oil recovery versus CO2 injection after CO2

Fig. 11 – Oil recovery versus CO2 injection during the period breakthrough during secondary and tertiary CO2 flood core
of CO2 flood. tests.
 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793
Table 5 – Summary of the results of the secondary CO2
injection test.
Oil recovery Ultimate oil
factor @ BT (%) recovery factor (%)
CO2 flood 12.3% 22.3%
Waterflood 5.3% 6.8%
Total – 29.1%
1. The water layers isolate some of the oil and as the CO2
stream does not contact this portion of the oil in the porous
medium, it becomes much more difficult to remobilize and
produce this trapped oil and hence the ultimate oil recovery
would be reduced.
2. The water layers disconnect the residual oil and as a result
the flow of the CO2 -diluted oil is reduced due to the reduc-
tion of the effective permeability of the oil phase.
After this CO2 injection period, a period of water injec-
tion was carried out to examine the potential of increasing
recovery by displacing the CO2 -diluted oil by water. The water
breakthrough occurred after the injection of 0.25 pore volume
of water. An incremental oil recovery of 5.3% was observed at
the water breakthrough which increased to 6.8% at the end of
the water flooding period.
Table 5 summarises the amount of oil recovery at various
stages of this core flood experiment as well as the cumula-
tive oil production achieved. Just over 22% of the heavy oil
was recovered during the initial extended CO2 flooding period
which was performed under immiscible and gravity stable
conditions. The subsequent water injection recovered just
under 7% additional oil on top of what had been recovered
during the CO2 injection.
Fig. 13 depicts the fluid saturations (CO2 , oil and water) in
the core at the end of each stage of this coreflood experiment
and compares it with the case of tertiary CO2 flood in the previ-
ous coreflood experiment. As can be seen, despite differences
in the amount of oil recovery by the secondary and tertiary
CO2 injection, similar amount of CO2 was stored in the porous
medium as a free phase.
Fig. 14 – Comparison of the recovery factor at different stages of the secondary and tertiary CO2 injection experiments.
1791
Fig. 13 – Saturation of the fluids in the core during
secondary CO2 -flood test and comparison with that of
tertiary injection.
5. Discussions
5.1. Oil recovery by secondary and tertiary CO2
injection
In the two core flood tests reported here an average ultimate
oil recovery of 30.6% was achieved as a result of water and CO2
injection under gravity stable conditions (Tables 4 and 5). This
is almost twice as the recovery achieved during plain water-
flood. Considering the very high viscosity of the heavy crude
oil this is a very good recovery efficiency which was mainly
due to a significant reduction in the viscosity of the heavy oil
due to CO2 injection.
Fig. 14 compares the amount of oil recovered during the
secondary CO2 injection experiment with the first cycle of
tertiary CO2 injection. The comparison of the ultimate oil
recovery values reveal that the oil production is higher for
the case of secondary CO2 injection where 29.1% of the oil
was produced compared to the case of tertiary CO2 injection
where 26% of the original oil was produced. One reason for this
difference is that in the case of the secondary CO2 injection
test is the continuity of the oil phase in the porous medium
which helps the oil recovery process by gravity drainage as was
explained in the previous section. The other reason is that in
the secondary CO2 injection, water injected following the CO2
1792 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793
Fig. 15 – Comparison of the amount of the stored CO2 in different forms (free or dissolved) during tertiary and secondary
core tests.
injection period would be displacing the CO2 -diluted oil with
a much lower viscosity than the original oil which would be
the case in the case of tertiary (post-waterflood) CO2 injection.
Nevertheless, the results show an excellent performance for
CO2 injection for increasing the recovery of this very viscous
oil and certainly much better than plain waterflood.
5.2. CO2 storage by secondary and tertiary CO2
injection
From CO2 storage point of view, injection of CO2 in both sec-
ondary and tertiary modes shows very similar performance.
The volume of CO2 stored in the porous medium was equal
to 27.87 PV (655 cm3 ) at standard conditions for the case of
secondary CO2 injection and 27.93 PV (656.5 cm3 ) at standard
conditions for tertiary CO2 injection. Fig. 15 illustrates the
amount of CO2 stored in the core during the core injection tests
as both free phase and also dissolved. As can be seen from
Fig. 15, a significant part of CO2 storage happened through the
dissolution of CO2 in the heavy oil. Despite higher saturation
of free CO2 in the tertiary CO2 injection test, the lower capac-
ity of water to dissolve CO2 compared to oil makes the final
volume of the stored CO2 very similar in both cases.
These results reveal that while early injection of CO2 prior
to waterflood in heavy oil reservoirs would be beneficial from
oil recovery point of view it would offer similar storage capac-
ity as that of tertiary CO2 flood. Many heavy oil reservoirs are
located in parts of the world where there is a shortage of water
for injection in these reservoirs. The results of our experi-
ments show that CO2 can be a very good replacement which
would add value to the reservoir by increasing oil recovery
and also helps keeping the carbon footprint associated with
production of heavy oil low. Ideal scenarios would be cases
that a continuous stream of CO2 would be available from for
instance a coal-fired power plant or other industrial sources
which could be injected in the nearby heavy oil reservoirs.
5.3. Recovery mechanisms
A number of mechanisms were identified from the flow
visualisation (micromodel) and core flood tests for CO2 /oil
interactions and oil recovery during CO2 injection. Here is a
list of some of these mechanisms based on the order of their
appearance:
(1) Direct displacement: Our observation shows that in spite
of the very unfavourable viscosity ratio between CO2 and
heavy oil, if CO2 is injected in gravity stable conditions,
high oil recovery factors can be obtained. This is partly due
to the positive oil spreading behaviour of the CO2 /oil/water
system which causes the CO2 to flow through the oil phase
rather than water phase. In a negative oil spreading system
(water spreading), an early breakthrough of CO2 through
water-occupied pores with almost zero (or very low) oil
production is expected.
(2) Oil/brine swelling: CO2 dissolution in oil and connate water
caused swelling which in turn improved oil recovery
during early times after CO2 breakthrough (first 2 pore
volumes of CO2 injection).
(3) Viscosity reduction: CO2 dissolution in heavy oil diluted the
oil and significantly decreased the oil viscosity. This signif-
icantly improved oil mobilization and recovery. It should
be noted that although CO2 dissolution in heavy oil is
generally less than conventional oil, the resultant drop in
viscosity of heavy oil is much more than light oil. As a
result, this is a major recovery mechanism for heavy oil
but not as significant in light oil reservoirs.
(4) Gravity drainage: The density difference between the heavy
oil and CO2 resulted in another recovery mechanism
which facilitated the flow of the CO2 -diluted oil towards
the production (bottom) end of the porous media. This
recovery process was more pronounced in the case of sec-
ondary CO2 flood were the oil phase was connected in the
porous medium.
6. Conclusions
1. The results of this study demonstrate that in addition to the
CO2 disposal benefits, there is a huge potential for heavy oil
recovery improvement by CO2 injection in these reservoirs.
The ultimate oil recovery for both secondary and tertiary
CO2 injection was more than twice as much as plain water-
flood.
2. Secondary (pre-waterflood) CO2 injection recovered more
oil compared to tertiary (post-waterflood) CO2 injection
however, almost the same amount of CO2 storage was
achieved in both scenarios.
3. Several recovery mechanisms including direct displace-
ment (double drainage), swelling of the oil (and to a lesser
extent connate water), viscosity reduction and gravity
drainage were observed to contribute to heavy oil recovery
improvement during CO2 injection.
4. CO2 was observed to flow through oil-occupied pores rather
than water-occupied pores during CO2 front advancement
 chemical engineering research and design 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 1783–1793
in the tertiary CO2 injection test despite the fact that the
viscosity of the oil was significantly higher than water. This
is attributed in the spreading characteristics of the oil in
this system and plays an essential role in determining the
efficiency of heavy oil displacement and recovery by CO2
injection.
5. After the CO2 breakthrough, the main contribution to oil
recovery came from CO2 dissolution in heavy oil. The
diluted oil was produced during the extended period
of CO2 injection or during the subsequent period of
waterflood.
Acknowledgment
The heavy oil joint industry research project at the Insti-
tute of Petroleum Engineering of Heriot-Watt University
is supported equally by: Total Exploration and Production
UK, Shell International Exploration and Production B.V.,
ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Petrobras which is gratefully
acknowledged.
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