Research Article

Energy Exploration & Exploitation

2021, Vol. 39(4) 1162–1183
3D experimental investigation ! The Author(s) 2021
DOI: 10.1177/01445987211006555
on enhanced oil recovery journals.sagepub.com/home/eea

by flue gas assisted steam

assisted gravity drainage

Lei Tao1, Xiao Yuan1, Sen Huang1,

Nannan Liu1, Na Zhang2 and Bingchao Li1

Abstract
Flue gas assisted steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is a frontier technology to enhance oil
recovery for heavy oil reservoirs. The carbon dioxide generated from the thermal recovery of
heavy oil can be utilized and consumed to mitigate climate warming for the world. However, most
studies are limited to merely use numerical simulation or small physical simulation device and
hardly focus on large scale three-dimensions experiment, which cannot fully investigate the
enhanced oil recovery (EOR) mechanism of flue gas assisted SAGD, thus the effect of flue gas
on SAGD production performance is still not very clear. In this paper, large-scaled and high
temperature and pressure resistant 3D physical simulation experiment was conducted, where
simulated the real reservoir to a maximum extent, and systematically explored the EOR mech-
anisms of the flue gas assisted SAGD. Furthermore, the differences between the steam huff and
puff, SAGD and flue gas assisted SAGD are discussed. The experimental result showed that the
production effect of SAGD was improved by injecting flue gas, with the oil recovery was
increased by 5.7%. With the help of thermocouple temperature measuring sensors, changes of
temperature field display that flue gas can promote lateral re-development of the steam chamber,
and the degree of reservoir exploitation around the horizontal wells has been increased partic-
ularly. What’s more, the addition of flue gas further increased the content of light components
and decreased the content of heavy by comparing the content of heavy oil components produced
in different production times.

Keywords
Flue gas, SAGD, steam chamber, large-scaled 3D physical experiment, EOR

1
College of Petroleum Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, China
2
College of petrochemical Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, China
Corresponding author:
Na Zhang, College of petrochemical Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou 213164, China.
Email: zhangna3021@126.com

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Tao et al. 1163

Introduction
With the continuous development of conventional oil reservoir resources, most common oil
fields are entering into the exhaustion stage, water cut is relatively high, triggering that
conventional oil and gas resources are difficult to maintain the current energy demand,
therefore, more and more attention has been paid to non-conventional energy, such as
heavy oil (Meyer et al., 2007), shale oil and tight oil resources developed by hydraulic
fracturing technique (Chen et al., 2020; Guo et al., 2021), furthermore, bioenergy including
biodiesel produced by using catalysts has gradually become a key research object (Panchal
et al., 2020; Panchal et al., 2021). The heavy oil resources are widely distributed in the world
and have huge reserves that account for about 70% of the total oil reserves (Babadagli,
2018; Briggs et al., 1988). Heavy oil has a particularly important strategic position in the
national economy, and it is of great significance to national energy security. However, as
well known that heavy oil is a non-renewable energy source, which is also difficult to be
developed, in addition, the primary and secondary oil recovery usually attain recovery only
about 33% of Original Oil in Place (Godec, 2011), so the primary purpose of EOR techni-
ques is to enhance heavy oil recovery, improving economic benefits and ensuring energy
security. EOR techniques is divided into three main categories: solvent, chemical and ther-
mal EOR (Sun et al., 2014). Surfactant-assisted chemical EOR has an important position for
carbonate reservoirs, and surfactant plays a leading role in foam generation, wettability
alteration and lowering of oil–water interfacial tension (IFT) processes (Pal et al., 2018). The
addition of surfactant can dramatically decrease the interfacial of water-oil, increasing the
capillary number and prominently enhancing the oil mobilization (Pan et al., 2020).
Similarly, Yang et al. (2020) optimized the formula of the temporary plugging agent and
evaluated its selective plugging performance and permeability recovery characteristics, the
result showed that using micro-foam temporary plugging agent could increase liquid output
of the low-pressure layer. Meanwhile, the addition of weak-base in ASP (alkali/surfactant/
polymer) flooding is of great significance to improve oil displacement efficiency and reduce
injection cost (Zhong et al., 2019). However, solvent and chemical EOR techniques exist
some problems, for example, polymer flooding is vitally important for chemical EOR, but
polymer-stabilized emulsions from polymer flooding process causing pollution, human
health and environmental threats (Wang et al., 2019a). Hence, thermal EOR has been a
high priority for researchers and oil producers. Conventional thermal recovery including
steam huff and puff, steam flooding, and the combustion of oil in situ (Laine, 1987; Moore
et al., 1995; Woods, 1964), have been widely used in heavy oil exploitation. However, these
conventional methods also have some disadvantages, such as the complexity of the project,
huge investment in the early stage, a lot of resource consumption, and low recovery factor,
which disturbs field developers and indicates that the new theoretical guidance and technical
method should be invented and applied. Steam assisted gravity drainage that possesses high
efficiency (Butler, 1985; Butler et al., 1981), which is habitually referred to as SAGD, has
gradually become one of the most important thermal recovery technologies for heavy oil.
The theory of SAGD was founded in the 1980s by engineer Butler whose concept of
gravity flooding promoted the development of heavy oil production, and the SAGD tech-
nology of dual horizontal well was successfully tested for the first time, accelerating the
development and application of SAGD technology (Butler, 1994). The SAGD technology
mainly makes use of the heat released by the high-temperature steam of the upper horizontal
injection well to transfer and exchange heat with the reservoir (Reis, 1992; Zhao et al., 2014),
1164 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

forming a steam chamber to deliver heat to the reservoir, then the heated heavy oil flows to
the bottom well by gravity (Akin, 2006; Irani and Cokar, 2016; Ji et al., 2015; Jia et al.,
2019). However, this technique also has some defects, including that high consumption of
steam, serious heat loss, and incomplete steam chamber development, which restricts the oil
recovery factor (Lawal, 2014; Li et al., 2013; Shin and Polikar, 2006). To solve the above
problems, non-condensable gas such as flue gas and natural gas was proposed to inject into
the production of SAGD (Butler, 1999; Butler et al., 1999; Butler et al., 2001), an abundance
of subsequent experiments and simulations confirm that it could effectively reduce the heat
loss of the top of the reservoir (Canas and Kantzas, 2012; Lin et al., 2012) by forming a heat
insulation layer, expand the sweep range of the steam chamber(Fatemi,2010; Yuan et al.,
2018), slow down the topwater drainage, contributing for improving the oil-steam ratio and
the production of SAGD (Jiang et al., 2000; Li et al., 2011, 2017; Pang et al., 2017). In
addition, by taking advantage of gas lifting, non-condensate gas, such as natural gas and
carbon dioxide, can be injected into reservoir through the tubing, which can reduce crude oil
density and bottomhole pressure, the fluidity of crude oil is enhanced and well production is
increased. (Davarpanah and Mirshekari, 2018) Lastly, a newly patented Expanding Solvent-
SAGD (ES-SAGD) process to improve OSR (Nasr et al., 2003).
Flue gas, usually composed of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, has the properties of non-
condensate gas that experiences no obvious condensation (Dong et al., 2017), can steadily
exist in the stream chamber (Bagci and Gumrah, 2004; Li et al., 2019; Yuan et al., 2010) to
migrate to the top of the steam zone to provide a barrier to reduce heat loss (Heron et al.,
2008), and diminish the pressure of steam chamber (Yee and Stroich, 2004). In addition,
some heat can be transferred to cold oil to promote the development of the steam chamber
again to enhance the recovery factors (Aherne and Birrell, 2002; Canbolat et al., 2004; Wang
et al., 2017). Non-Condensable Gasses not only can enhance the thermal efficiency of
SAGD (Liu et al., 2012), but also can enhanced gas from shale layers recovery,
Davarpanah and Mirshekari (2019) proposed a modified unipore diffusion model to
study adsorption of methane and carbon dioxide at different pressure ranges, the result
shows that the production of gas from shale layers is increased because of methane and
carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide plays an extremely important role in enhancing oil recovery, Ampomah
et al. (2018) proposed a genetic algorithm with mixed integer capabilities, optimizing the
multi-objective function to co-optimize oil recovery and CO2 storage. Jiang et al. (2019)
adopt a statistical method to study EOR of carbon dioxide and build an economics model,
and the net present value (NPV) under different conditions was established. The simulation
results show that NPV is increased by injecting carbon dioxide, which is of great significance
for economic benefit and carbon dioxide emission reduction, it is observed that more and
more researches are focusing on the importance of carbon dioxide to EOR. Furthermore,
carbon dioxide has higher solubility in oil, which caused to decrease the viscosity dramat-
ically and subsequently increase the volume of produced oil at higher temperature and
pressure (Cui et al., 2021; Davarpanah and Mirshekari, 2020), which also can maintain
internal pressure and improve the fluidity of crude oil (Law, 2004). Wang et al. (2020)
found that increasing the amount of dissolved CO2 gas resulted in the interfacial tension
between oil and water decreased with the increase of the system pressure by using the high
temperature and high-pressure interfacial tensiometer. Tang et al. (2021) utilize a visualiza-
tion experiment and X-ray scanning accurately observed that CO2 could effectively displace
the remaining oil in the macropores. Song and Yang (2017) carried out CO2 huff and puff
Tao et al. 1165

experiments under different operation pressures ranging from 7 to 14 MPa using the Bakken
cores. In the immiscible scenario at a low injection pressure, only 42.8% of oil was recov-
ered, while above the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) the total oil recovery reached
63%. Hu et al. (2020) conducted that pressure increase resulted in rising the carbon dioxide
storage capacity and enhancing heavy oil recovery factor, increasing the soaking time
between oil and carbon dioxide could obtain more production. Moreover, due to hot
CO2 gas and hot water are able to reduce oil viscosity and surface tension, recently, alter-
native hot water and hot CO2 gas injection also can be used specifically for heavy oil
(Ebadati et al., 2019). At the same time, flue gas assisted SAGD technique has been
regarded as a crucial and economical method of carbon capture utilization and storage
(CCUS). The existence of N2 can supplement formation pressure and increase oil displace-
ment power (Hemmati-Sarapardeh et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2013; Yue et al., 2018). The
experiment of nitrogen-assisted SAGD production in Liao he Oilfield in China was the first
to be conducted, and the results showed that the injection of nitrogen increased the oil-steam
ratio by 80% and the oil recovery by 20% (Guo et al., 2015). A study on the mechanism of
N2 assisted SAGD technology in block Du84 oil reservoir in Liao he Oilfield, which man-
ifested that nitrogen can accumulate in large quantities on the upper part of the steam
chamber, forming a heat insulation layer to reduce heat loss (Gao et al., 2009). Al
Bahlani and Babadagli (2008) found that injection of non-condensate gases (nitrogen, meth-
ane, carbon dioxide, etc.) could improve the thermal utilization efficiency of SAGD tech-
nology, and the ultimate recovery factor had no significant decrease. Through conducting
an experimental investigation of nitrogen assisted SAGD, Li et al. (2019) found that the
addition of nitrogen can effectively assist steam to break through long interlayers and
bypass short interlayers, increasing the steam sweep efficiency and recovery factor. It is
important to the flue gas assisted SAGD that facilitates the regeneration and lateral expan-
sion of the steam chamber, which determines whether the recovery factor can be improved.
Li et al. (2020) used one-dimensional core tube experiments to reveal the evolution of the
temperature field and displacement zone during the development of flue gas composite
thermal fluids. The results showed that the heat spread ranges of steam zone and hot
water zone are expanded because of injecting flue gas, and the heat utilization rate was
improved. The flue gas can accumulate at the top of the reservoir where it provides an
insulation effect and forces the steam chamber to spread laterally (Canbolat et al., 2004).
Ahmadi (2015) utilized numerical simulation method to compare with effect for EOR dif-
ferent gas injection methods (N2, CO2, produced reservoir gas, and flue gas), and found that
the ultimate oil recovery was greatest for flue gas injection. Bender and Akin (2017) used
reservoir simulations to investigated the difference between CO2 and flue gas injection for
EOR, the results displayed that pure CO2 injection achieved higher oil recovery and greater
CO2 sequestration than flue gas injection for injection periods up to 25 years but beyond this
time oil recovery was similar for CO2 and flue gas injection. Chang (2020) performed res-
ervoir simulations (using CMG STARS) to study flue gas waste heat utilization for
enhanced oil production, the results showed that flue gas addition to water increased oil
production effectivity due to the heat of vaporization that it transferred to the reservoir and
significantly reduced steam consumption. By carrying out a three-dimensional physical
experiment, Wu et al. (2018) found that flue gas has the ability to reduce oil viscosity,
and decrease steam heat loss to achieve the best development effect. Utilizing the 2-dimen-
sional visualization model, Wang et al. (2019) found that the injection of flue gas could
penetrate the interlayer and promote steam chamber, improving SAGD development in the
1166 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

reservoir with an interlayer. Chen et al. (2020) conducted a 2-dimensional visualization

model to confirm that the addition of flue gas can inhibit the increase of water cut and
stable cumulative oil-steam ratio, meanwhile, the upward heat loss and steam condensation
can be effectively restrained.
In conclusion, even though recently studies of the flue gas assisted SAGD have made
considerable progress, most of studies merely focused on numerical simulation (Ahmadi,
2015; Bender and Akin, 2017; Chang, 2020) and small physical simulation experiments
(Chen et al., 2020; Li, 2019; Li et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2019b), three-dimensional physical
simulation experiments on flue gas assisted SAGD, large physical model especially, were
barely carried out. The effect of flue gas on SAGD and the role flue gas plays in EOR
mechanism are still not fully verified by performing large-scale 3D physical simulation
experiments. Therefore, in this paper, a large-scale 3D physical experiment, where the
inner space was 50 cm
100cm and its volume was 196.35 L, was innovatively carried
out, and the main aim of this experiment is to study the effect of flue gas on SAGD pro-
duction behavior. Several production parameters such as production rate, water cut, cumu-
lative oil-steam ratio and cumulative oil production changing with time are analyzed, and
the changes of steam chamber is studied intuitively by temperature monitoring. In addition,
the heavy oil components in different stages were measured and analyzed as well. At last, the
main effect of flue gas improving SAGD recovery is that flue gas can accumulate at the top
of the model to reduce the heat loss of the steam outward and drive steam extend suffi-
ciently, hence, the steam efficiency of heat utilization was effectively improved, which pro-
moted lateral re-development of the steam chamber and decreased water cut. Furthermore,
the addition of flue gas further increased the light components content and reduced heavy
components content, improving the flow property of heavy oil.

Experiments
Material
Figure 1 shows the viscosity-temperature curve for Canadian dehydrated heavy oil
(asphaltene ¼ 10.07%; resin ¼ 32.52%; aromatic ¼ 39.36%; saturate ¼ 18.05%) used in this
experiment. The viscosity of dehydrated crude oil was 15623mPa.s at 50 C. Based on
Dalton’s partial pressure law, flue gas prefabricated by mixing 80% carbon dioxide and
20% nitrogen with the purity of 99.9 mol% each that were supplied by Jiangsu Yuan tong
Gas Co. LTD The water used in this experiment was distilled water, and the silica sands
with 80, 120 and 160 mesh grain sizes were provided by Hebei Hong Yao Mineral
Processing Co., LTD.

Apparatus
A large-scale 3D physical model is used to evaluate the production performance of every
process. Figure 2(a) shows the large-scaled 3D simulation experiment device, which consists
of five parts: oil sand mixing system, injection system, large-scaled simulation model, output
system, and control record system.
The oil sand mixing system was comprised of an oil-sand mixing agitator and thermostat.
The injection system consisted of ISCO high-precision plunger pump (the 100DX from
Teledyne ISCO Company, Teledyne Co., Ltd., Thousand Oaks, CA, USA; flow accuracy
Tao et al. 1167

Figure 1. The viscosity–temperature curve for the oil sample used in this work.

Figure 2. System of this simulation experiment. (a) The large-scale 3D simulation experiment device. (b)
Schematic diagram of internal structure. (c) External structure of the model. (d), (e) and (f) Asphaltene
measuring equipment.

 0.25 mL/min, and pressure accuracy  0.5%), steam generator (from Fei Yu Technology
Co. LTD, with a temperature range of 450 C and pressure range of 25 MPa), pressure
gauge, check valve, cylinder, intermediate container and gas flow controller (Sla58550,
with a flow rate range of 30 mL/min under standard conditions; Brooks, USA), which
can inject oil, water, steam, and flue gas into the model. The large-scale simulation model
was a cylindrical structure, the inner space of this model was 50 cm
100cm, and its volume
was 196.35 L, and the maximum operating temperature and pressure of this model were up
1168 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

Table 1. Parameters of large-scaled simulation model.

Model parameter Value

Size (cm) 150
100

Porosity (%) 0.344
Permeability (D) 2.7
Initial oil saturation (%) 81
Irreducible water saturation (%) 19

to 350 C and 50 MPa respectively. A total of 180 temperature sensors in 36 groups were
uniformly distributed in the simulated chamber, as shown in Figure 2(b) and (c), then
connected the computer to record the change of temperature inside the model at each
time. Fourteen wells were distributed at the front end of the model and one well at the
back-end center. The front and rear ends were equipped with a detachable insulation layer.
The output system was aimed to collect and measure the output oil-water. Computer,
temperature sensors, and pressure sensors were constituted a control recording system to
collect and process temperature data in each production stage.
Figure 2(d), (e), and (f) show the asphaltene measuring equipment to measure the com-
ponent of heavy oil.

Experimental parameters and procedures

Experimental parameters. Table 1 shows the parameters of this experiment. The porosity and
permeability of the simulated reservoir were 0.34, 2.7D respectively. The original oil satu-
ration was 81%, and the bound water saturation was 19%. In terms of a certain mass ratio,
silica sands of 80–120 mesh in a ratio of 10:5:3, water, and oil with 10.6% water cut were
mixed. The mass of oil, sands, and water in the mixture was 55.69 kg, 338.41 kg, and 5.96 kg
respectively. Due to the interference of air during the filling process and the presence of part
of pore volume in the sand, after the filling of oil sand, continued to inject a mixture of oil-
water proportionally, and 4.3 L of the oil-water mixture was injected.

Experimental procedures
(1) Selection of experimental wellhead. In this experiment, two horizontal wells were used
to produce in this experiment, as shown in Figure 3, boreholes A as an injection well and B
as a producing well, well A was above well B. Due to the spacing between two wells in the
practical oil field was 10 m, the well distance of wells A and B was set as 20 cm according to
the ratio between reality and model was 50:1, which both stood 10 cm apart from the center
of the model. In this case, the development boundary of the temperature field and flow field
had less effect on the model that surrounding temperature measurement points were more
concentrated. It was aimed to prevent oil sand from blocking the simulated well by wrap-
ping a sand prevention meshwork of 400 mesh around the simulated well before inserting
wells into the model.

(2) Process of filling oil and sands. This physical simulation experiment was different from
the conventional method that sand filling followed by saturated oil, which called a dry
filling. In this experiment, an innovative method called wet filling was adopted, that was,
oil and sands were mixed before filling. The method of dry filling has difficulties in heavy oil
Tao et al. 1169

Figure 3. Position of simulated well.

Figure 4. Flow chart of this work. (a) Flow diagram of steam huff and puff. (b) Flow diagram of SAGD or
flue gas assisted SAGD.

injection and uneven mixing of oil sands, which greatly impacts the experimental results.
However, the way of wet filling solved the problem of uneven mixing of oil sands, and the
correctness and objectivity of ultimate results were ensured well.
After filling oil and sands, sand prevention meshwork was set at both ends of the model
to prevent oil sand from polluting this model. The 3d large-scale simulation model was put
laterally for overall heating. The initial temperature was set at 50 C, and checked the tem-
perature, pressure sensors at the same time.

(3) Design of scheme. Figure 4(a) and (b) provide flow diagrams of this experiment, three
stages are designed to compare. Steam huff and puff was performed first, and the
following was SAGD. Finally, flue gas and steam were injected simultaneously, transferring
1170 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

Table 2. Injection parameters.

Injection Injection rate Injection rate Injection

Period temperature ( C) of steam (ml/min) of flue gas (ml/min) timing (min)

Steam stimulation 350 10 þ 10 0 Six cycles

SAGD 350 20 0 4000
Flue gas assisted SAGD 350 16 4 4000
SAGD: steam assisted gravity drainage.

to the production of flue gas assisted SAGD. The design of the three stages has been shown
below:

1. Process of steam huff and puff: This production was aimed to preheat the reservoir
between wells A and B. The temperature of steam injected into wells A and B was
350 C. The total amount of steam injected was 2000 mL, the steam injection rate of
each well was 10 mL/min and the injection time was 100 min. Then opening wells for
oil production after soaking 100 min, measuring the output of oil and water. Finally,
steam huff-and-puff production lasted for six cycles to form initial thermal connectivity
between two wells.
2. Process of SAGD: At this stage, well A was set as an injection well and well B was a
production well. The temperature of steam injected into wells A at a rate of 20 mL/min
was still 350 C, which lasted for 4000 min. Measuring the oil-water output of well B
regularly.
3. Process of flue gas assisted SAGD: In this stage, the injection well and production well
were unchanged. Different from the SAGD, steam and flue gas were injected simulta-
neously, injection temperature were all 350 C; the flue gas injection rate was 4 mL/min
and the steam injection rate was 16 mL/min. Measuring the oil-water output of well B
regularly.

Meanwhile, thermocouple temperature measuring sensors were used to monitor and

record temperature change in three production processes. The specific injection parameters
of the three stages are shown in Table 2.

(4) Heavy oil composition measurement. To measure the four components of heavy oil,
according to the relevant provisions of the petrochemical industry standards of the People’s
Republic of China, asphaltene was precipitated out of the sample with n-heptane. After
filtration, n-heptane reflux was used to remove the soluble part contained in the precipita-
tion, and toluene was used again. The fluid dissolves and precipitates to obtain asphaltenes.
Then, the diasphaltene was adsorbed on the column of alumina chromatography, and
washed out with n-heptane toluene and toluene – ethanol successively, corresponding to
the saturate, aromatic and resin fraction.

Results and discussions

The experimental results were divided into three aspects to analyze, including the production
of oil-water at each stage, changes of temperature field, and components of produced oil.
Tao et al. 1171

Analysis of oil and water output

Steam huff and puff stage. Steam huff and puff lasted for six cycles. The cumulative oil pro-
duction was 4,138.21 mL. Figure 5(a) to (g) and Figure 6(a) to (g) respectively show the
performance of oil production and water cut of two wells in six cycles, and the output data
was listed in Tables 4 and 5.
It can be seen from Figure 5 and Table 3 that oil production was higher in the early stage,
especially in the second cycle, which lasted for 300 min, with cumulative oil production was
852.63 ml. The injection of steam reduced the viscosity of heavy oil and enhanced the uti-
lization of natural energy in the reservoir (Ebadati et al., 2019), so the initial production was
relatively high. From 2nd to 6th cycle, cumulative oil production gradually decreased by
218.59 ml. With the increase of steam huff and puff rounds, the reservoir energy will be
decreased gradually, resulting in the oil production will be reduced. The variation trend of
oil production in six cycles was similar, and the oil production of well B was higher than that
of well A. Analysis suggested that steam overlapped upwards because of its lower density,
causing that the reservoir near the upper acquired more heat and the oil viscosity was
reduced greatly according to viscosity-temperature characteristics, making the heavy oil

Figure 5. Changes of oil production with time in different cycles. (a) The first cycle. (b) The second cycle.
(c) The third cycle. (d) The fourth cycle. (e) The fifth cycle. (f) The sixth cycle. (g) Cumulative oil production.
1172 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

fluidity of upper well become better and flowing to the well B under action of gravity, so the
oil production of well B was higher than well A.
As shown in Figure 6 and Table 4, the water cut increased gradually after cyclic steam
stimulation, from fourth cycle to sixth cycle, the water cut maintained above 50%, the
internal energy of the model was lost, weakening the effect of oil displacement. At the
beginning of each production cycle the water cut of the upper and bottom wells decreased

Figure 6. Changes of water cut with time in different cycles. (a) The first cycle. (b) The second cycle.
(c) The third cycle. (d) The fourth cycle. (e) The fifth cycle. (f) The sixth cycle. (g) Water cut at the end of
each cycle.

Table 3. Oil production in six cycles of steam huff and puff.

Production of Production of Cumulative

Cycle well A (mL) well B (mL) production (mL)

1 441.46 366.42 807.88

2 471.85 380.79 852.64
3 411.54 327.46 739.00
4 360.97 282.63 643.60
5 323.24 251.44 574.68
6 293.87 226.56 520.41
Tao et al. 1173

Table 4. Water cut in six cycles of steam huff and puff.

Water cut of Water cut of Total water

Cycle well A (%) well B (%) cut (%)

1 28.392 31.321 29.792

2 35.317 39.439 37.234
3 43.310 47.176 45.289
4 49.684 53.955 51.654
5 53.648 57.314 55.412
6 54.064 59.705 56.810

rapidly, but the change of water cut with time in every production round was not obvious.
Analysis considered that steam overlapped to exchange heat with porous media (oil-sand),
which lost heat and condensed into water. The condensed water was produced rapidly
because of it has high relative permeability when opened wells for production. Therefore,
the water cut was relatively high in the early stage. With the rapid output of condensed
water at early stage, water cut gradually decreased and tended to be stable. Condensate
water from the well A flowed into the well B by the gravity, which accelerated the conden-
sation rate of steam injected into the well B, so the water cut of the upper well (well A) was
lower than that of the bottom well (well B).

Comparison of production performance of SAGD stage and flue gas assisted SAGD stage. The process
of SAGD production lasted for 4000 min and its cumulative oil production was 5495.95 ml,
after adding flue gas, the production time was prolonged 4000 min, with cumulative oil
production was 3,143.07 mL. Figure 7(a) to (d). provides production performance of two
stages, including oil production rate, cumulative oil production, water cut, and cumulative
oil-steam ratio respectively.
In SAGD experiment, from 0 min to 600 min, this period was a fast drainage stage, the oil
production rate was relatively high due to the dual effects of steam displacement and gravity
drainage, with the highest reached 8.24 mL/min. The cumulative oil production increased
rapidly, the cumulative oil-steam ratio reached the highest 0.39 at this time, owing to the
steam chamber had been taken shape and had a rapid expansion rate. From 600 min to
1900 min, the oil production rate gradually slowed down, and the cumulative oil-steam ratio
declined continually, water cut gradually increased to 90%, indicating that the steam cham-
ber development was stable. Beginning from 1900 min, the oil production rate was very low,
with around about 0.4 ml/min, and the cumulative oil-steam ratio decreased to 0.068, indi-
cating that steam chamber development basically stagnated. The steam overlapped at the
top of the model and lost heat outward, there was no enough time to diffuse and release
sufficient heat laterally and condensed into quickly, therefore, water cut was maintained at
above 95%.
After adding flue gas, from 4000 min to 4600 min, which was as the high-speed oil drain-
age stage, the oil production rate recovered to 4.83 mL/min in a short time, water cut
decreased to 74% and the oil-steam ratio showed a trend of gradual rise, indicating that
the production effect of SAGD was improved obviously. That is because that flue gas first
fingered (Wang et al., 2019a), which reduced the seepage resistance and accelerate steam
expansion rate, steam heat exchange with the reservoir was more sufficient. This period
1174 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

Figure 7. Comparison of production performance of SAGD stage and flue gas assisted SAGD stage. (a) Oil
production rate. (b) Cumulative oil production. (c) Water cut. (d) Cumulative oil-steam ratio.

Figure 8. Foam oil produced during flue gas assisted SAGD stage.

could be regarded as a re-development stage when the oil production recovered at a rela-
tively high level (Li et al., 2019). Form 4600 min to 6000 min, the oil production rate con-
tinued to decline, which was in a stable oil drainage period as well, the water cut increased
gradually. At 8000 min, oil production rate was very low and the water cut was extremely
high due to the arrested development of steam chamber.
Figure 8 shows that foam oil produced after injecting flue gas, the foam mainly come
from the light components dissolved in heavy oil which become gas-phase under high tem-
perature (Wu et al., 2018), which indicated that flue gas was slightly more effective in
Tao et al. 1175

viscosity reduction and swelling for remaining oil (Dong and Huang, 2002; Ebadati et al.,
2019). Under the combination of steam and flue gas, interfacial tension and viscosity of
heavy oil were decreased, the fluidity of heavy oil was increased, and drainage becomes
better. The lateral sweep area of steam was broadened, improving oil displacement efficiency
significantly, thus recovery factor was enhanced finally. Compared with SAGD, the oil
recovery in flue gas assisted SAGD experiment was improved by about 5.7%, this experi-
mental result certified that flue gas possessed abilities that could observably prolong pro-
duction time and decrease water cut, improving the development effect of SAGD.

Analysis of temperature distribution

Steam huff and puff stage. Figure 9(a) and (b) show the images for the temperature distribu-
tion profile along with wells and perpendicular to wells at different huff and puff cycles. By
analyzing the temperature field at the end of each cycle, the high temperature area mainly
concentrated along the well, as shown in Figure 9(a), however, the temperature distribution
along the horizontal well was uneven. In addition, the steam condensate and heavy oil
flowed into well B under the influence of gravity, resulting in the steam of the bottom
well lost more heat and the high-temperature area near well B was smaller than that near
well A, as shown in Figure 9(a1) and (b1). After the second cycle, the temperature between
the two horizontal wells began to rise, as shown in Figure 9(a2). The initial thermal inter-
connecting between wells had been formed by steam huff and puff experiment, with the
temperature between two wells increased by nearly 20 C, as shown in Figure 9(a3) and (b2).
However, after several rounds of huff and puff, the steam sweep area was still limited, which
resulted in the oil production declined.

Figure 9. Changes of temperature field in the steam huff and puff experiment. (a) Profiles of temperature
distribution along wells. (a1) The end of second cycle. (a2) The end of fourth cycle. (a3) The end of sixth
cycle. (b) Profiles of temperature field perpendicular to wells. (b1) The end of the second cycle. (b2) The end
of the sixth cycle.
1176 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

SAGD stage. Figure 10(a) and (b) respectively shows the images for the temperature distri-
bution of SAGD process along with wells and perpendicular to wells at different times.
Compared with steam huff and puff, the temperature of SAGD at 600 min had gone up
significantly in Figure 10 (a1), with the highest temperature was up to about 220 C, and
sweep area of steam near the injection well had increased obviously, indicating that the
steam chamber expanded rapidly. What’s more, due to the viscosity of heavy oil was
extremely sensitive to temperature, when the temperature rises, the viscosity was decreased
substantially and the fluidity was enhanced, so the oil production rate was fast in this
period. In addition, heavy oil with the condensate steam flowed along with the vapor-
liquid contact toward the production well and formed large pores, so the high-
temperature part gradually developed towards the lower part of the model, as shown in
Figure 10(b1), the steam chamber had a high longitudinal expansion rate. Figure 10(a2)
shows that steam also gradually expanded along the horizontal well to heat heavy oil when it
overlapped. From 600 min to 1900 min, the steam gradually began to overlap the top of the
model, although the upward development speed of the steam chamber decreased, the area of
high temperature area increased further this period was in the stable gravity drainage stage.
However, from 1900 to 4000 min, the steam lost heat outward when it gathered at the top
of the model, the injected steam could not extend sufficiently and condense into water
quickly, thus the steam chamber basically no longer developed upward and the lateral
expansion rate was extremely low, as shown in the Figure 10(a3) and (b2). For another
thing, the lateral migration of steam in the model was also limited, which resulted in the oil
production rate declined by a big margin and the water cut was high with escalating rate.
The main reason for entering the depletion stage in SAGD was that steam lost heat outward
when it overlapped to the top and water cut was increased, leading to the lateral develop-
ment of the steam chamber was insufficient.

Figure 10. Changes of temperature field in the SAGD experiment. (a) Profiles of temperature distribution
along wells. (a1) 600 min. (a2) 1900 min. (a3) 4000 min. (b) Profiles of temperature field perpendicular to
wells. (b1) 600 min. (b2) 4000 min.
Tao et al. 1177

Flue gas assisted SAGD stage. Figure 11(a) and (b) respectively show the images for the tem-
perature distribution of flue gas assisted SAGD process along with wells and perpendicular
to wells at different times.
From 4000 min to 4600 min, due to the flue gas had relatively low density and weak heat-
transfer capability, and can firstly enter along the pore, reducing the seepage resistance of
steam, the loss of steam along the way was also decreased and the heat exchange with the
reservoir was more sufficient (Chen et al., 2020). Furthermore, nitrogen density was rela-
tively low, which resulted in the diffusion coefficient was high, and the interfacial tension
between nitrogen and heavy oil was small (Yuan et al., 2018), therefore, nitrogen readily
expands longitudinally, the steam chamber was developed laterally again. The swept zone
and saturation temperature zone encroached to the sides gradually, as shown in Figure 11
(a1) and (b1). Conventional SAGD technique merely uses gravity drainage from natural
drive mechanisms, while flue gas-assisted SAGD effectively utilizes nitrogen to replenish
reservoir energy and form a thermal barrier at the top, and makes use of carbon dioxide that
can diffuse and dissolve into the oil (Davarpanah and Mirshekari, 2019), which is a good
combination of gravity drive, gas cap drive, and solution drive (Davarpanah and
Mirshekari, 2018).
From 4600 min to 600 min, flue gas had accumulated at the top of the model to play a
critical role in preventing heat loss, improving the heat utilization rate of steam, and forcing
steam to migrate to both sides (Fatemi, 2010; Gao et al., 2009). As shown in Figure 11(a2),
flue gas gathering at the top tended to drive steam expands laterally, which promoted the re-
development of the steam chamber laterally, which resulted in the horizontal sweep of steam
was extended and the area of the hot zone was further enlarged. At 8000 min, the steam
chamber basically no longer expanded, compared with SAGD stage, the final degree of oil
production along the horizontal well section was further increased, as shown in Figure 11
(a3). Furthermore, flue gas had the property of non-condensate gas, what can be known

Figure 11. Changes of temperature field in the flue gas assisted SAGD experiment. (a) Profiles of tem-
perature distribution along wells. (a1) 4600 min (a2) 6000 min. (a3) 8000 min. (b) Profiles of temperature
field perpendicular to wells. (b1) 4600 min. (b2) 8000 min.
1178 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

from Dalton’s partial pressure law that the flue gas would reduce the partial pressure of
steam (Li et al., 2019), the steam pressure that maintained the steam chamber development
was decreased, therefore, the temperature inside this model decreased by about 10 C.
Combined with the previous oil production performance and temperature distribution, it
was obvious that the steam chamber developed laterally again by injecting flue gas, and the
oil drainage effect was improved, which effectively prolonged the production time of SAGD
and enhanced oil recovery factor.
Through this 3D experimental investigation, it could be concluded that steam huff and
puff preheating effectively formed a thermal connection between two wells and provided a
good foundation for subsequent SAGD. In addition, by comparing three development
methods, steam huff and puff could not fully utilize the heat of steam, and the steam
extension range was greatly limited. The existence of a steam chamber allowed the steam
to expand fully to enhance oil recovery factor obviously in process of SAGD, however, the
steam heat loss seriously affected the development effect of SAGD. The flue gas injection
not only reduced steam heat loss and water cut to promote the steam chamber lateral
re-development, but also increased the degree of reservoir exploitation around the horizon-
tal wells.

Component analysis of produced oil

To study the change of oil composition in different stages, a total of 13 groups of samples
were measured at different times by asphaltene measuring equipment. Four representative
groups were selected for component analysis to determine the proportion of asphaltic, resin,
aromatic, and saturate contents. Changes in component content are shown in Table 5.
According to Table 5, the content of aromatic was the highest, followed by was resin and
saturate, and the content of asphaltene was the lowest, among which the content of light
component aromatic was more than 39% and that of heavy component resin than more
than 32%. There was a tendency that the content of heavy components (resin and asphal-
tene) decreased gradually at each stage of heavy oil production, while the content of light
components (saturate and aromatic) increased.
The analysis suggested that the temperature of the reservoir gradually increased to reduce
the viscosity of heavy oil, during steam huff and puff and SAGD stage, the light components
(saturated and aromatic) in heavy oil had smaller viscosity and stronger flow capacity,
which were more easily produced. Therefore, not only the content of light components
was increased, but also the content of heavy components was decreased. Meanwhile, the
temperature in the steam huff and puff stage was lower than that in the SAGD stage, and

Table 5. Sample component ratio.

Original The third cycle of SAGD Flue gas assisted

Stage Component stage (%) huff and puff stage (%) stage (%) SAGD stage (%)

Asphaltene 10.07 5.7 9.89 9.74

Resin 32.52 32.47 32.28 32.09
Aromatic 39.36 39.27 39.41 39.53
Saturate 18.05 18.25 18.42 18.64
SAGD: steam assisted gravity drainage.
Tao et al. 1179

the fluidity of the light component in heavy oil was relatively weak, so the content of light
components in the steam huff and puff stage was lower than that in SAGD stage. The steam
chamber was promoted and the remaining oil was heated adequately in the process of flue
gas assisted SAGD production. The density of heavy oil was decreased by injecting CO2 in
high pressure and high temperature. CO2 could diffuse and dissolve in the oil layer with
steam, reducing the viscosity of heavy oil (Davarpanah and Mirshekari, 2020; Hu et al.,
2020), making the cementation recombine into a dispersed phase, and extraction of the light
components by CO2 was gradually enhanced (Wang et al., 2020), so that more light com-
ponents were produced and the heavy components were reduced.

Conclusion
Based on the 3D large scaled physical experimental study of flue gas assisted SAGD, the
following conclusions can be drawn:

1. As a new technology, flue gas assisted SAGD has a promising application prospect. The
3D large scaled physical experiment was successfully performed in this paper, the results
indicate that flue gas injection prolongs production time effectively and restricts increase
of water cut, significantly improving the performance of SAGD. The final recovery is
improved by about 5.7% after injecting flue gas.
2. Steam huff and puff preheating effectively forms a thermal connection between two wells;
the steam swept area is limited because of heat loss in the period of SAGD and heating
along horizontal wells are uneven especially; Flue gas can gather at the top of model to
reduce steam heat loss and drive steam extend laterally, not only promoting the steam
chamber lateral development, but also increasing the degree of reservoir exploitation
around the horizontal wells, and the thermal utilization of steam is improved effectively.
3. The addition of flue gas in SAGD can product foam oil because of carbon dioxide
dissolution, and can further reduce heavy components of heavy oil (Resin and
Aromatic), improving flow property of heavy oil.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous referees for their valuable comments and
suggestions.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: The research was supported by the Jiangsu Industry-University-Research
Cooperation Project for study on cold recovery and stimulation technology of non-hydrocarbon gas
(N2/CO2) heavy oil with multi-effect chemical agent (NO.BY2019068) and the Province Key Scientific
and Technological Project for the camellia saponin extraction and CO2 saponin foam with highly
mineralize of China (No. KYCX20_2577).
1180 Energy Exploration & Exploitation 39(4)

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