PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Volume 51, Issue 1, February 2024

http://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/petroleum-exploration-and-development

Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2024, 51(1): 164–171. RESEARCH PAPER

Miscibility of light oil and flue gas under thermal action

XI Changfeng1, 2, WANG Bojun1, 2, ZHAO Fang1, 2, HUA Daode1, 3, *, QI Zongyao1, 2, LIU Tong1, 2, ZHAO Zeqi1, 2,
TANG Junshi1, 2, ZHOU You1, 2, WANG Hongzhuang1, 2
1. State Key Laboratory of Enhanced Oil Recovery, Beijing 100083, China;
2. PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration & Development, Beijing 100083, China;
3. China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China

Abstract: The miscibility of flue gas and different types of light oils is investigated through slender-tube miscible displacement
experiment at high temperature and high pressure. Under the conditions of high temperature and high pressure, the miscible
displacement of flue gas and light oil is possible. At the same temperature, there is a linear relationship between oil displace-
ment efficiency and pressure. At the same pressure, the oil displacement efficiency increases gently and then rapidly to more
than 90% to achieve miscible displacement with the increase of temperature. The rapid increase of oil displacement efficiency
is closely related to the process that the light components of oil transit in phase state due to distillation with the rise of tem-
perature. Moreover, at the same pressure, the lighter the oil, the lower the minimum miscibility temperature between flue gas
and oil, which allows easier miscibility and ultimately better performance of thermal miscible flooding by air injection. The
miscibility between flue gas and light oil at high temperature and high pressure is more typically characterized by phase tran-
sition at high temperature in supercritical state, and it is different from the contact extraction miscibility of CO2 under conven-
tional high pressure conditions.

Key words: light oil; flue gas flooding; thermal miscible flooding; miscible law; distillation phase transition; minimum
miscible pressure; minimum miscible temperature

Introduction
Air injection development technology has the advan-
tages of low cost and wide application range, which is an
important research direction of tertiary oil recovery
technology. At present, a large number of laboratory
studies have been carried out on this technology in
China [1–4], and well group tests on air injection for light
oil development technology have been carried out in
Daqing, Baise, Shengli and other oilfields [5–8]. However,
due to the unclear understanding of the mechanism of air
injection development and the consideration of produc-
tion safety factors, most of the current laboratory re-
search and field tests focused on oxygen-reduced air
flooding and low-temperature oxidation in China [9–11]. A
number of air injection projects have also been imple-
mented in foreign countries, such as in Buffalo, Medicine
Pole and other reservoirs [12–15], but the research mainly
focused on the production rules and development dy-
namics. Some scholars have proposed the role of oxida-
tion heat effect, but have not conducted in-depth research
on its mechanism [16–17].
On the whole, the current research on air injection
technology for developing light oil mainly focuses on low
temperature oxidation characteristics [18–23], reaction
products of crude oil and air [3, 24–25], flue gas flooding
mechanism [26–29], development dynamic law [16–17] and so
on, but no deep understanding of the mechanism of air
injection to enhance oil recovery has been obtained, es-
pecially the mechanism of high temperature and thermal
effect to enhance oil recovery [30]. In view of these problems,
the authors have carried out one-dimensional thermal
oxidation flooding experiments to compare different
types of crude oil, such as heavy oil, light oil, volatile oil [31]
and condensate oil in the early stage. The experimental
results show that under high pressure, air injection into
light oil can also fully consume oxygen and produce flue
gas (containing about 85% N2 and 15% CO2), forming a
thermal oxidation front as stable as that generated by fire

Received date: 13 May 2023; Revised date: 22 Nov. 2023.

* Corresponding author. E-mail: 13520352959@163.com
Foundation item: Supported by the PetroChina Science and Technology Project (2023ZG18).
https://doi.org/10.1016/S1876-3804(24)60013-3
Copyright © 2024, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development Co., Ltd., CNPC (RIPED). Publishing Services provided by Elsevier B.V. on
behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 XI Changfeng et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2024, 51(1): 164–171
flooding heavy oil. Air injection is safe and effective to
develop light oil reservoirs. However, with the decrease of
heavy components and viscosity of crude oil, the charac-
teristics of the thermal oxidation front change signifi-
cantly: (1) The temperature of the thermal oxidation front
decreases significantly, from 500–700 C of heavy oil to
350–450 C of light oil, 260–300 C of volatile oil, and
220–250 C of condensate oil. The oxidized fuel also changes
from the solid coking of heavy oil to the heavy component
of residual liquid of light oil. (2) As the development
characteristics of viscosity reduction become weaker with
increasing temperature, the phase transition characteris-
tics of thermal distillation become more obvious [32]. Due
to the phase change of thermal distillation, most of light
oil, volatile oil and condensate oil are displaced to the
production well by the high-temperature thermal misci-
ble front composed of oil and flue gas. The final oil dis-
placement efficiency is more than 90%, which reaches the
oil displacement efficiency of miscible displacement.
Based on the analysis of the experimental results, it is
found that the supercritical miscible phase of crude oil
and flue gas took place in the thermal oxidation front in
light oil reservoirs during the process of flue gas flooding
through phase simulation calculation. Finally, the concept
of air thermal miscible flooding is proposed [31]. However,
whether the miscible phase between flue gas and crude
oil truly appears in the process of air thermal miscible
flooding has not been verified, and there are some prob-
lems to be solved such as unclear understanding of the
miscible law and characteristics. Based on the under-
standing of one-dimensional air thermal oxidation tube
displacement experiment and reasonable assumption of
flue gas composition from the thermal oxidation front
generated during air flooding light oil, and following the
miscible pressure experimental process for CO2 miscible
flooding in slender tube and upgrading the experimental
equipment. The miscible displacement experiments of
flue gas with different types of light oil under different
temperature and pressure conditions were carried out, to
investigate the thermal miscible law of flue gas and light
oil, deepen the understanding of the mechanism of heat
generation and oil displacement by air injection, and pro-
vide experimental and theoretical basis for thermal miscible
flooding by air injection in light oil reservoirs. The re-
search on the miscible mechanism of flue gas under high
temperature conditions is also of theoretical and practical
significance for expanding the theory of miscible flooding
and developing high-efficiency oil displacement/CO2 stor-
age technology through flue gas with low CO2 content.
1. Laboratory experiment on thermal miscible
mechanism of light oil
1.1. Materials
Three representative degassed crude oil samples were
 165 
selected for comparative study: (1) Conventional light oil
samples from the Moliqing Reservoir in Jilin Oilfield, NE
China. The viscosity of surface degassed crude oil is 7
mPas, the viscosity of underground crude oil is 2 mPas,
and the dissolved GOR (gas-to-oil ratio) is 80 m3/m3. (2)
Volatile oil samples of Kekeya Oil Field in the Tarim Basin,
NW China. The viscosity of surface degassed crude oil is 5
mPas, the viscosity of underground crude oil is 1 mPas,
and the dissolved GOR is 280 m3/m3. (3) Gas cap con-
densate oil sample of Kekeya Oil Field in the Tarim Basin.
The viscosity of surface degassing crude oil is 2 mPas, the
viscosity of underground crude oil is 0.7 mPas, and the
condensate oil content of the condensate gas reservoir is
500 g/m3.
Gases used in this experiment are industrial pure car-
bon dioxide and nitrogen, with a purity of more than 99%.
By controlling the injection speed of CO2 and N2, the flue
gas composed of 85% N2 and 15% CO2 is prepared.
1.2. Experimental devices
The experimental devices mainly include high tem-
perature resistant slender tube system, injection system,
temperature and pressure control system, and measure-
ment and tail gas treatment system (Fig. 1). (1) Slender
tube system. The inner diameter of the slender tube is 4
mm, the length is 2 084 cm, the particle size of quartz
sand filled inside the tube is 75 μm (200 mesh), and the
permeability is 1 500×10−3 μm2. (2) Injection system. The
system mainly includes a gas cylinder, a gas mass flow
controller, an ISCO pump, a high temperature and high
pressure piston container and other parts. Its main func-
tion is to ensure that the model is fully saturated with
crude oil in the experiment, to ensure the accurate con-
trol of the injected gas volume and the pipeline cleaning
work after the experiment. The accuracy of the gas mass
flow controller is 0.2%, and the accuracy of the ISCO
pump is 0.5%. (3) Temperature and pressure control
system. It mainly includes a constant temperature oven
and a back pressure regulating valve, which can provide
stable temperature, pressure and other experimental
conditions. The accuracy of the constant temperature
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the flue gas miscible dis-
placement experiment in slender tube.
 XI Changfeng et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2024, 51(1): 164–171

oven is controlled to be 1.0 C, and the accuracy of the
back pressure regulating valve is 0.01 MPa. (4) Meas-
urement and tail gas treatment system. It mainly includes
a pressure gauge, a gas flowmeter, a collection device
(measuring cylinder and electronic balance), a gas-liquid
separator and tail gas treatment device, which can ensure
the accurate collection of experimental data and the
safety of experimental personnel. The range of the elec-
tronic balance is 200 g, the sensitivity is 0.01 mg, the
accuracy of the pressure gauge is 0.25 grade, and the
accuracy of the gas flowmeter is 0.05 cm3.
1.3. Design and procedures
The main purpose of this experiment is to explore the
miscible law of different types of crude oil and flue gas
under the condition of heating up. For this purpose, a
total of 32 groups of 2 types experiments are designed
and completed. The experimental scheme in Table 1 takes
light oil from Moliqing Reservoir as the research object,
and studies the variation of the minimum miscibility
pressure of flue gas and the same conventional light oil
with temperature. The experimental scheme in Table 2
takes light oil from Moliqing Reservoir and volatile
oil/condensate oil from Kekeya Oil Field as the research
objects, and studies the minimum miscible temperature
of conventional light oil, volatile oil and condensate oil
with flue gas at the same pressure.
The specific steps of each group of experiments are as
follows.
(1) Clean the slender tube model and test pressure. The
slender tube model is kept at constant temperature of 50
C, and the slender tube model is cleaned with
petroleum ether until the fluid produced at the outlet of
the slender tube is all petroleum ether, so as to ensure
that the slender tube is completely cleaned. Then, use dry
high-pressure nitrogen to dry the inside of the slender
tube, and test pressure for 1 h. If the pressure drop is less
than 0.05 MPa, it means the model has a good sealing
performance.
(2) Saturate the slender tube model with crude oil. Af-
ter cleaning the tube model, the temperature and pres-
sure control system is adjusted to the experimental tem-
perature and pressure, and then slowly inject the crude
oil in the piston container into the slender tube model by
using the ISCO pump at 1 mL/min until the fluid pro-
duced at the outlet of the slender tube is all crude oil.
Now the slender tube model is fully saturated with crude
oil.
(3) Gas flooding. At the experimental temperature and
pressure, fully mix nitrogen with carbon dioxide in a gas
piston container at a volume ratio of 85 to 15, and then
inject the gas mixture to displace the crude oil in the
slender tube model at a constant rate of 0.2 mL/min.
When the cumulative injection is more than 1.2 PV and
no oil is produced, stop injecting.
(4) Calculate and measure experimental parameters. In
the process of gas displacement, record the volume and
weight of the produced fluid every 2 min, calculate oil
production rate and cumulative oil recovery, and the ex-
perimental data are recorded and sorted out.
2. Results and analysis
2.1. Slender-tube miscible displacement experiment
for Moliqing light oil

Table 1. Slender-tube miscible displacement experimental Fig. 2 shows the miscible displacement experimental
scheme for Moliqing light oil results of Moliqing light oil under pressure at 100, 250,
Crude oil Experimental Experimental 300, 350, 400 C. At the same temperature, with the in-
SN. Flue gas
sample pressure/MPa temperature/C crease of pressure, the oil displacement efficiency gradu-
Moliqing 15%CO2+ ally increases at 1.2 PV gas injection, and there is a
1 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 100
light oil 85%N2
Moliqing 15%CO2+
near-linear relationship between pressure and oil dis-
2 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 250 placement efficiency at 1.2 PV gas injection (Fig. 3), which
light oil 85%N2
Moliqing 15%CO2+ is the same as the conventional slender-tube CO2 dis-
3 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 300
light oil 85%N2
placement experiment. The miscible condition of crude oil
Moliqing 15%CO2+
4 15, 20, 25, 30 350 and injected gas is that the oil displacement efficiency
light oil 85%N2
Moliqing 15%CO2+ reaches 90% at 1.2 PV gas injection [33]. When the tem-
5 15, 20, 25 400
light oil 85%N2 perature is 100 C and the displacement pressure reaches
Table 2. Slender-tube miscible displacement experimental the upper limit of 40 MPa, the oil displacement efficiency
scheme for Moliqing light oil and Kekeya volatile/condensate is only 48.68% at 1.2 PV gas injection, which is far from
oil the miscible condition. When the temperature is 250 C
and the displacement pressure is 40 MPa, the oil dis-
Crude oil Experimental Experimental
SN. Flue gas placement efficiency is 71.01% at 1.2 PV gas injection, and
sample pressure/MPa temperature/C
250, 300, 350, 15%CO2+ the miscible condition is still not met. When the tem-
1 Moliqing light oil 20
400 85%N2 perature is 300 C and the displacement pressure is 40
Kekeya volatile 15%CO2+
2 20 250, 300, 350 MPa, the oil displacement efficiency is less than 90% at
oil 85%N2
Kekeya con- 15%CO2+ 1.2 PV gas injection, and the miscible condition is still not
3 20 150, 200, 250
densate oil 85%N2 met. At 350 C and 400 C, when the pressure is 24.5 MPa
 166 
 XI Changfeng et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2024, 51(1): 164–171

Fig. 2. Slender-tube miscible displacement experiment result for Moliqing light oil.

Fig. 3. Variation of oil displacement efficiency with pressure at 1.2 PV flue gas injection based on slender tube miscible
displacement experiment for Moliqing light oil under different temperatures.

and 19.5 MPa, respectively, the oil displacement efficiency
reaches 90% at 1.2 PV gas injection, which meets the
miscible condition. It can be concluded that with the
increase of temperature, flue gas and crude oil can be
miscible.
Fig. 4 shows the curves of oil displacement efficiency
and GOR at different temperatures and 25 MPa. Miscible
displacement is not achieved at 100, 250 and 300 C, re-
spectively at 25 MPa. At 100 C and 250 C, with 0.6–0.7
PV gas injection, a large amount of free gas begins to be
produced, and the GOR rises rapidly and resulting in gas
channeling. Miscible displacement was almost realized at
300 C, and free gas begins to be produced in large
quantities at 0.8 PV injection. At 350 C, the oil dis-
placement efficiency reaches 91% when 1.2 PV gas is in-
jected, realizing miscible displacement. At 350 C with 0.9
PV injection, free gas begins to be produced, and the oil
displacement efficiency reaches 88%. When the tem-
perature rises to 400 C, the miscible displacement effect
is further improved, and the displacement efficiency
reaches 97% at 1.2 PV gas injection. When 0.9 PV gas is
injected at 400 C, no free gas is produced, and the oil
displacement efficiency reaches 90%. When 1.0 PV gas is
injected at 400 C, free gas begins to be produced, and
the oil displacement efficiency reaches 95%. In general, at
the same pressure, the higher the temperature, the later
the free gas begins to be produced, the lower the GOR,
and the better the miscible displacement effect.

 167 
 XI Changfeng et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2024, 51(1): 164–171
Fig. 4. Variation curve of oil displacement efficiency and
GOR at 25 MPa under different temperatures based on
slender tube miscible displacement experiment for Moli-
qing light oil.
Fig. 5 shows the change curve of oil displacement effi-
ciency with temperature in the slender tube experiment
on Murray light oil at 25 MPa and 1.2 PV gas injection.
Obviously, under the same pressure, the change of oil
displacement efficiency with temperature is basically
divided into three stages: steady rise, rapid rise and slow
rise. For light oil, the main oil displacement mechanism
is the phase transition caused by light component distil-
lation in the process of high temperature flue gas flood-
ing. From Fig. 5, when the temperature is low (no higher
than 250 C), the displacement efficiency at 1.2 PV injec-
tion increased from 42.22% at 100 C to 51.04% at 250 C,
with an increase of only percentage points. However,
when the temperature further rose from 250 C to 350 C,
the displacement efficiency at 1.2 PV injection rapidly
increased to 91.79%, with an increase of nearly 41 per-
centage points. The principal cause that led to this phe-
nomenon is that at 25 MPa, phase transition caused by
distillation occurred in C2–C6 when the temperature was
below 250 C, and phase transition occurred in C7–C16
Fig. 5. Oil displacement efficiency changes with tem-
perature at 25 MPa and 1.2 PV gas injection in slender tube
miscible displacement experiment for Moliqing light oil.
 168 
when the temperature was 250–300 C [34]. The content of
C2–C6 in Moliqing oil is very low, so below 250 C, phase
transition is weak and it is difficult to achieve miscibility.
At 250–300 C, a large number of C7–C16 components un-
dergo distillation phase transition, and the interaction
with high-temperature supercritical nitrogen compressed
at extreme pressure can be realized. When the miscibility
of flue gas dominated by nitrogen with crude oil is real-
ized, the increase of oil displacement efficiency becomes
smaller with the increase of temperature.
2.2. Slender tube miscible displacement experiment
for Moliqing light oil and Kekeya volatile
oil/condensate oils
Studies have shown that coking occurs in the
one-dimensional fire flooding heavy oil experiment, and
the final displacement efficiency is generally less than
85% [35]. The main cause for this phenomenon is the high
content of macromolecular chain gum and asphaltene in
heavy oil. In the process of air injection development,
miscible displacement of heavy oil cannot be realized,
and the main development mechanism is to reduce the
viscosity of heavy oil by increasing temperature. There-
fore, the thermal miscible state and conditions of heavy
oil are not discussed in this paper.
In order to analyze the influence of temperature on the
miscibility of light crude oil, the minimum miscibility
temperature is defined as the minimum temperature
point at which the displacement efficiency reaches 90%
when 1.2 PV gas is injected in the slender tube displace-
ment experiment under certain pressure conditions. Ex-
perimental results show that the minimum miscible
temperature of Moliqing light oil, Kekeya volatile oil and
condensate oil at 20 MPa is about 390, 310, 220 C, re-
spectively (Fig. 6). The lighter components a crude oil
contains below C20 (Table 3), the lower the temperature
required to achieve miscibility at the same pressure. At
the same time, miscible displacement is easier to realize
to get better effects of air injection development.
In order to reduce the experimental workload and dif-
ficulty, all the oil samples used in the experiment are
Fig. 6. Oil displacement efficiency changes with tem-
perature at 20 MPa and 1.2 PV gas injection in the slender
tube miscible displacement experiment on Moliqing light
oil, Kekeya volatile oil and condensate oil.
 XI Changfeng et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2024, 51(1): 164–171
Table 3. Composition of experimental oil samples
Composition/%
Oil sample
C11 C11–C20 C21–C30 C31–C40 C40+
Moliqing light oil 8.22 34.15 27.15 12.27 18.21
Kekeya volatile oil 15.40 50.64 21.83 7.38 4.75
Kekeya condensate oil 40.30 59.47 0.23 0 0
degassed crude oil under the condition that the miscible
law of flue gas and light crude oil is not affected when
temperature rises. The content of CH4 is 70% and C2–C10 is
about 30% in the casing gas sample of Moliqing light oil,
those are about 80% and 20% in Kekeya volatile oil and
condensate oil. Some light components are lost in the
degassing process, so the content of light components in
the underground crude oil is higher than that in the ex-
periment in this paper, so miscibility is more likely to oc-
cur under reservoir conditions [31–32]. At 300 C and 350 C,
the minimum miscible pressure of Moliqing crude oil is
about 35.5 and 19.0 MPa, respectively, which is 5.0 and 5.5
MPa lower than that of degassed crude oil.
2.3. Discussion
Fig. 7 shows the minimum miscible pressure of CO2
changes with temperature obtained by foreign scholars [36].
It can be seen that the minimum miscible pressure of CO2
increases first with the increase of temperature and then
decreases with the increase of temperature.
Based on the regression and calculation of the misci-
bility experiment data of Moliqing light oil, the minimum
miscibility pressure at 100, 250, 300, 350, 400 C is about
123.9, 54.2, 40.5, 24.5, 19.5 MPa, respectively. The rela-
tionship between minimum miscible pressure and tem-
perature is obtained (Fig. 8). Obviously, when tempera-
ture rises to above 200 C, the miscible pressure of flue
gas with Moliqing light oil decreased obviously. This
phenomenon indicates that increasing temperature is an
effective way to promote the miscibility of crude oil. The
experimental results are different from the traditional
view that flue gas cannot be miscible with crude oil, and
Fig. 7. Minimum miscible pressure of CO2 changes with
temperature [36].
 169 
Fig. 8. Minimum miscible pressure of Moliqing light oil
and flue gas changes with temperature.
deepen the understanding of the miscible effect under
thermal action. In this experiment, limited by the tem-
perature and pressure of the experimental equipment,
the inflection point where the minimum miscible pres-
sure of flue gas increases first and then decreases with
the increase of temperature was not found. Theoretically,
the minimum miscible pressure of flue gas should have a
similar change law to that of CO2, so the inflection point
where the minimum miscible pressure changing with
temperature must exist. However, because the flue gas
used in this experiment is mainly nitrogen whose critical
temperature and critical pressure (−146.95 C, 3.39 MPa)
are more left than those of CO2 (31.1 C, 7.38 MPa) on the
saturation pressure vs. temperature curve, the inflection
point on the minimum miscible pressure vs. temperature
curve between nitrogen and crude oil should also theo-
retically shift to left. This conclusion needs further ex-
perimental and theoretical verification.
The mechanism and law of miscible displacement of
light crude oil with flue gas are quite different from those
of CO2. CO2 miscible displacement refers to achieving
contact, extraction and miscible phase at high pressure,
which shows more characteristics of single liquid phase.
The miscibility of light crude oil and flue gas reflects a
supercritical phase transition state at extreme tempera-
ture and pressure, which shows more characteristics of
gas phase transition. At present, more visualized experi-
ments should be conducted to study the characteristics
and microscopic mechanism of miscible components
between flue gas and light crude oil to further clarify the
phase transition mechanism of miscible components at
high temperature and high pressure.
The experimental results deepen the understanding of
the mechanism of air injection and thermal oxidation for
developing light oil. The results show that the main de-
velopment mechanism is distillation phase transition and
thermal miscibility. To develop low permeability and tight
reservoirs, instead of the traditional mechanism of inter-
facial tension and capillary pressure [37–38], the thermal
phase transition plays a role. The volume of light crude
 XI Changfeng et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2024, 51(1): 164–171
oil increases abruptly with temperature, and the crude oil
in micropores where gas cannot enter can be displaced
under thermal conduction and expansion effect. Oil sat-
uration can be reduced by thermal miscible gas flooding
and thermal sweep as much as possible, and the crude oil
in micro-pores that cannot be produced at normal
temperature is displaced. The recovery and development
benefit of low-permeability and tight reservoirs are
greatly improved.
3. Conclusions
The miscible displacement of flue gas and light oil can
be realized under high temperature and high pressure.
The minimum miscible pressure decreases greatly when
the temperature rises to a certain condition. At the same
pressure, with the increase of temperature, the displace-
ment efficiency of flue gas shows a trend of steady in-
crease, then rapid increase, and finally slow increase. The
stage where the oil displacement efficiency rapidly in-
creases with temperature is closely related to the distilla-
tion phase transition of light components of light oil. At
the same pressure, the higher the temperature after mis-
cibility, the better the miscibility of light oil and flue gas,
and the displacement efficiency continues increasing
with the increase of temperature.
At the same pressure, the minimum miscible tem-
perature of flue gas and light oil decreases with the in-
crease of the content of light components. This phe-
nomenon shows that the lighter components in crude oil,
the easier to achieve miscibility. Therefore, air injection
development is more suitable for light oil reservoirs with
more light components.
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