Title:
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Phase behaviour modelling of water-hydrocarbon in high temperature petroleum reservoirs
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Development of high pressure-high temperature (RPHT) reservoirs is increasingly
being pursued world wide to exploit hydrocarbon from deep formation. Due to their
extreme conditions (can be up to 2000e and 16000 psia), composition of RPHT fluids
can be considerably different from that of conventional reservoirs, particularly the
concentration of heavy hydrocarbons in the vapour phase can be quite high. Also, at
high temperature the amount of water dissolved in the reservoir hydrocarbon phase
could be significant and should be taken into account in detennining the phase and
volumetric properties of the fluids.
In this study, a model based on equations of state (BOS) was developed to predict phase
behaviour of RPHT fluids in the presence of water. The conventional mixing rule was
modified by adding a non-random element in the attractive term of EOS. This
modification was required to describe the interaction between non-polar (hydrocarbon)
and polar (water) compounds. The developed phase behaviour model with the added
term to the conventional mixing rules was evaluated for predicting the phase behaviour
of hydrocarbon mixtures in presence of water.
The conventional (random) interaction parameters (kij) and the non-random interaction
parameter of the asymmetric term (lpi) for water-hydrocarbons were determined by
matching the solubility data of hydrocarbon-water binary systems in vapour-liquid
equilibrium for light and in liquid-liquid equilibrium for intermediate and heavy
hydrocarbons. A method based on the Krichevsky-Kasarnovsky equation was
developed to correct the effect of pressure on fugacity of the solute in the liquid phase in
liquid-liquid equilibrium. The determined binary interaction parameters (BIP) were
generalised by correlating them with critical properties and the molecular weight of
hydrocarbons.
The reliability of the model was evaluated against measured data, not used in its
development, over a wide range of pressure and temperature and compared with those
of leading models reported in the literature. The model could reliably predict the
presence of free water phase and the effect of pressure on the liquid water phase at high
temperatures. It also reliably predicted the effect of water on saturation pressure of
tested synthetic reservoir fluids. However, it failed to accurately reproduce the effect of
addition of water on the volumetric behaviour of the liquid hydrocarbon phase.
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