W. E. Brigham’s research while affiliated with Stanford Medicine and other places

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Publications (162)


In-Situ Combustion
  • Chapter

January 2007

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1 Read

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4 Citations

William E. Brigham

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Volume V: Reservoir Engineering and Petrophysics is an essential reference for reservoir engineers. Learn how to acquire and interpret data that describe reservoir rock and fluid properties; understand and predict fluid flow in the reservoir; estimate reserves and calculate project economics; simulate reservoir performance; and measure the effectiveness of a reservoir management system.


Fluid Flow in Various Patterns and Implications for EOR Pilot Flooding

June 2004

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9 Reads

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2 Citations

SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

When the mobility ratio is unity, it is possible to define exact equations for the breakthrough behavior of miscible or immiscible displacements in any balanced homogeneous pattern. It is necessary to do this if one wishes to calculate the produced concentration history of any tracer flowing through a pattern. This concentration history is calculated with a superposition integral, the nature of which varies depending only on the geometry of the pattern. The heart of this calculation depends only on the pattern-breakthrough history, the mixing characteristics, a/a, and any adsorption or reaction of the tracer. The breakthrough fractional-flow, or water-cut, histories are shown in Fig. 1³ for unit-mobility-ratio displacements in five-spot, inverted seven-spot, direct line-drive, and staggered line-drive patterns at d/a ratios of 1:1. These pattern geometries are standard and are illustrated elsewhere.⁴ The line-drive patterns at greater d/a ratios show similar results.¹ These breakthrough curves have shapes that resemble each other, with earlier or later breakthrough times indicating the relative efficiency of each pattern. Morgan⁵ concluded that all water-cut curves collapse into a single curve for a dimensionless pore volume, PVD, defined as where Vp is the pore volume injected and VpBT is the pore volume injected at breakthrough. The resulting correlated fractional flow or water-cut curve is shown in Fig. 2 for M=1.³ where fD is the fractional flow or water cut of displacing fluid at the producer. Eq. 2 has a maximum error of 2% in fD for all cases in which fD is greater than approximately 0.1. For very early parts of the curve, the correlation is nearly vertical, and the deviation is larger.¹


Upgrading of crude oil via in situ combustion

August 2003

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145 Reads

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170 Citations

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

Crude oil upgrading is of major economic importance. Heavy crude oils exist in large quantities in the western hemisphere, but are difficult to produce and transport because of their high viscosity. Some crude oils contain compounds such as sulfur and/or heavy metals causing additional refining problems and costs. In situ upgrading could be a very beneficial process for leaving the unwanted elements in the reservoir and increasing API gravity.In situ combustion has long been used as an enhanced oil recovery method. For heavy oils, numerous field observations have shown upgrading of 2° to 6° API for heavy oils undergoing combustion [Ramey, H.J., Jr., Stamp, V.V., Pebdani, F.N., 1992. Case History of South Belridge, California, In Situ Combustion Oil Recovery, SPE 24200, Proc. 9th SPE/DOE EOR Symposium, Tulsa, April 21–24.]. During in situ combustion of heavy oils, temperatures of up to 700 °C can be observed at the combustion front.This paper describes the changes caused by the various reactions occurring during combustion with emphasis on the upgrading potential for various oil types. We will first describe the in situ combustion process with an examination of the temperature changes and chemical reactions that can either upgrade or degrade the oil in terms of its API gravity and viscosity. In the second part, we present results from three combustion tube runs aimed at sulfur removal. We will end by discussing possible in situ upgrading strategies using combinations of in situ combustion and other improved recovery methods.


Table 3 .1: Scanner settings.
CT Measurements of Two-Phase Flow in Fractured Porous Media
  • Article
  • Full-text available

August 1999

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94 Reads

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8 Citations

This report describes the design, construction, and preliminary results of an experiment that studies imbibition displacement in two fracture blocks. Multiphase (oil/water) displacements will be conducted at the same rate on three core configurations. The configurations are a compact core, a two-block system with a 1 mm spacer between the blocks, and a two-block system with no spacer. The blocks are sealed in epoxy so that saturation measurements can be made throughout the displacement experiments using a Computed Tomography (CT) scanner. Preliminary results are presented from a water/air experiment. These results suggest that it is incorrect to assume negligible capillary continuity between matrix blocks as is often done.

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SURPI Heavy Oil Research Program, Twenty-Second Annual Report, SUPRI TR117

August 1999

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13 Reads

The goal of the Stanford University Petroleum Research Institute is to conduct research directed toward increasing the recovery of heavy oils. Present, SUPRI is working in five main directions: (1) Flow Properties Studies - To assess the influence of different reservoir conditions (temperature and pressure) on the absolute and relative permeability to oil and water and on capillary pressure; (2) In-Situ Combustion - To evaluate the effect of different reservoir parameters on the in-situ combustion process. This project includes the study of the kinetics of the reactions; (3) Steam with Additives- To develop and understand the mechanisms of the process using commercially available surfactants for reduction of gravity override and channeling of steam; (4) Formation Evaluation - To develop and improve techniques of formation evaluation such as tracer tests and pressure transient tests; and (5) Field Support Services - To provide technical support for design and monitoring of DOE sponsored or industry initiated field projects.


SUPRI Heavy Oil Research Program Twenty-First Annual Report, SUPRI TR111

August 1999

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2 Reads

The goal of the Stanford University Petroleum Research Institute is to conduct research directed toward increasing the recovery of heavy oils. Present, SUPRI is working in five main directions: (1) Flow Properties Studies - To assess the influence of different reservoir conditions (temperature and pressure) on the absolute and relative permeability to oil and water and on capillary pressure; (2) In-Situ Combustion - To evaluate the effect of different reservoir parameters on the in-situ combustion process. This project includes the study of the kinetics of the reactions; (3) Steam with Additives- To develop and understand the mechanisms of the process using commercially available surfactants for reduction of gravity override and channeling of steam; (4) Formation Evaluation - To develop and improve techniques of formation evaluation such as tracer tests and pressure transient tests; and (5) Field Support Services - To provide technical support for design and monitoring of DOE sponsored or industry initiated field projects.


A Study of the Effect of Mobility Ratios on Pattern Displacement Behavior and Steamlines to Infer Permeability Media, SUPRI TR115

August 1999

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4 Reads

Pattern geometry plays a major role in determining oil recovery during secondary and enhanced oil recovery operations. Although simulation is an important tool for design and evaluation, the first step often involves rough calculations based upon areal sweep efficiencies of displacements in homogeneous, two-dimensional, scaled, physical models. These results are available as a function of the displacement pattern and the mobility ratio, M. The mobility ratio is simply the mobility of the displacing phase over that of the displaced, or resident, phase. Because it is possible to compute sweep efficiency analytically when the displacing and displaced phase have the same mobility, scaled physical model results have been verified for unit mobility ratios.


RESEARCH OIL RECOVERY MECHANISMS IN HEAVY OIL RESERVOIRS

June 1999

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7 Reads

The United States continues to rely heavily on petroleum fossil fuels as a primary energy source, while domestic reserves dwindle. However, so-called heavy oil (10 to 20{sup o}API) remains an underutilized resource of tremendous potential. Heavy oils are much more viscous than conventional oils. As a result, they are difficult to produce with conventional recovery methods such as pressure depletion and water injection. Thermal recovery is especially important for this class of reservoirs because adding heat, usually via steam injection, generally reduces oil viscosity dramatically. This improves displacement efficiency. The research described here was directed toward improved understanding of thermal and heavy-oil production mechanisms and is categorized into: (1) flow and rock properties; (2) in-situ combustion; (3) additives to improve mobility control; (4) reservoir definition; and (5) support services. The scope of activities extended over a three-year period. Significant work was accomplished in the area of flow properties of steam, water, and oil in consolidated and unconsolidated porous media, transport in fractured porous media, foam generation and flow in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media, the effects of displacement pattern geometry and mobility ratio on oil recovery, and analytical representation of water influx. Significant results are described.


Effect of Temperature on Heavy-Oil/Water Relative Permeabilities

March 1999

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14 Reads

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28 Citations

SPE Reprint Series

In the first part of this study, the accuracy of the JBN technique for the determination of heavy oil/water relative permeabilities, and the effect of temperature on relative permeabilities is examined by giving numerical as well as experimental examples. Using the JBN technique leads to a false temperature dependence of relative permeability curves. In the second part, we present unsteady state relative permeability experiments with initial brine saturation at differing temperatures conducted using South Belridge sand and heavy oil. A new three step experimental technique and an analysis procedure were developed to test the effect of temperature on relative permeabilities. In this technique, an ambient temperature unsteady-state relative permeability run is conducted in the first stage, and following that the temperature is increased twice (i.e. 122°F and 150°F). Two phase saturation profiles along the sand pack are measured using a CT scanner. A commercial black oil simulator, coupled with a global optimization code is then used to estimate two phase relative permeabilities. Experimental saturation profiles, differential pressure and recovery data collected from both the ambient and higher temperature data are used in the numerical model. It has been observed that a single set of relative permeability curves can represent both the ambient and high temperature parts of the experiment. This suggests that relative permeability is not a function of temperature at least for the system tested.



Citations (60)


... Boundary conditions remain the same. Several papers have solved this equation in a general form (Kucuk and Brigham, 1979;Riley et al., 1991). After separating the arguments, they solve simultaneously two equations by use of the Mathieu functions. ...

Reference:

Analytical model of 2D leakoff in waterflood-induced fractures
Analytic Solutions for Elliptical Finite-Conductivity Fractures
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • October 1991

... He screened amongs different surfactants, measured their mechanical, chemical and thermal stabilities and tested them in porous medium. In 1991, Demiral et al. [15] conducted a CT imaging of steam foam test on a 2D physical model. Hirasaki [2] elaborated on mechanisms in steam foam application. ...

CT Imaging of Steam and Steam/Foam Laboratory Experiments
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • October 1991

... Brigham et al. were among the earliest researchers to apply X-ray CT to monitor the progress of multiphase displacement inside porous media (Liu et al., 1990;Demiral et al., 1991;Liu et al., 1992). They showed the critical importance of measuring the evolution of fluid phase saturation in situ for interpretation of experiments. ...

Analysis of Transient Foam Flow in 1-D Porous Media With CT
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • April 1990

... Steam distillation of crude oil in porous media has been identified as a main process to perform function of the reduction of residual oil saturation behind the hot water front over a steam flood process. As residual oil saturation basically depends on composition at a certain steam injection pressure or temperature, the residual oil in the steam zone has a high content of heavy fractions [22]. ...

STEAM DISTILLATION AND OIL QUALITY CHANGE DURING THERMAL OIL RECOVERY
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • March 1992

... However, considerable controversy exists with some authors (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) suggesting that temperature does not play a role in the relative permeability of heavy oil systems, while others (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) claiming that there are strong temperature effects. ...

Effect of Temperature on Heavy Oil/Water Relative Permeabilities
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • March 1999

... According to the literature, previous researchers [3,10,14,24,28,31,32] only put oil production and pressure drop from the water flooding in the objective function of history match for unsteady-state relative permeability measurements; however, here a new objective function including oil production, pressure drop, and water to oil relative permeability ratio data is defined. As claimed by Esmaeili et al. [9], this new objective function should lead to a better prediction of relative permeability curve characteristics. ...

Effect of Temperature on Heavy-Oil/Water Relative Permeabilities
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • September 1998

... Air "gas containing oxygen" is injected through a central vertical well into the reservoir and when contact with oil, ignition is initiated creating a combustion front that propagates through the reservoir as shown in figure 5. A group pf produced wells are used to produce the oil after reducing its viscosity by heating and shows an increase of API 2 to 6 [7], [30], [54][55][56][57][58]. Figure 6 shows that the reservoir can be divided into six zones [60]: ...

Experimental and Simulation Studies of Laboratory In-Situ Combustion Recovery
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • April 1986

... Hearn (1971) generated the first upscaled dynamic relative permeability curves for stratified porous media under the assumption of complete crossflow between the layers (vertical equilibrium). All following analytical approaches (e.g., Pande et al. 1987) ignored frontal advance theory (Buckley and Leverett 1942), assuming that saturation changes only at the saturation front. El-Khatib (2001) was the first to consider the effect of the rarefaction wave from frontal advance theory in his study of non-communicating stratified media. ...

Frontal Advance Theory for Flow in Heterogeneous Porous Media
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • April 1987

... After reactions, the content of saturates and aromatics is increased, while that of resin and asphaltenes is decreased. If appropriate catalysts can be introduced into a reservoir to modify the tendency of oil to deposit fuel, ISC can be made feasible for a wider range of crude oils and reservoirs [124][125][126][127]. ...

IN SITU COMBUSTION WITH METALLIC ADDITIVES
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • March 1992

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C.J. Baena

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R.J. Holt

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[...]

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C. Tavares

... The prediction of foam behavior in porous media relies on proper modeling of the mobility reduction validated by experiments. For the experiments where co-injection of gas and surfactant solution is considered, i.e., pre-generation of foam, one can use the saturation profiles, surfactant concentration profiles, the effluent water cut and the experimental pressure drop for the validation of models (Khatib et al. 1988;Falls et al. 1989;Persoff et al. 1991;Friedmann et al. 1991;Liu et al. 1992;Fergui et al. 1998;Carretero-Carralero et al. 2007;Du et al. 2011). A detailed summary of the literature on foam models can be found in Ma et al. (2014). ...

Displacement by Foam in Porous Media
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • October 1992