Events

Dr. Ryosuke Okuno will give a talk entitled "Oil Displacement in Three-Hydrocarbon-Phase Flow" as part of the Claude R. Hocott Graduate Seminar Series.  

Abstract:
Mixtures of oil with carbon dioxide or enriched-gas can exhibit multiphase behavior at relatively low reservoir temperatures, where the solvent-rich liquid phase coexists with the gaseous and oleic phases. Due to the complexity of phase behavior, there have been unanswered questions regarding oil displacement by three hydrocarbon-phases.

For example, slim-tube tests reported in the literature showed that displacement efficiencies were more than 90% when three hydrocarbon-phases were present during the displacements. Also, it was observed in heavy-oil displacements that oil recovery at a given throughputwas non-monotonic with respect to gas enrichment. Thus, oil recovery increased first, then decreased, and increased again with increasing gas enrichment.

These experimental observations cannot be fully explained by the existing gas injection theory that has been established for two-hydrocarbon-phase flow. This presentation shows recent findings in gas injection theory involving three hydrocarbon phases.

Bio:
Ryosuke Okuno has served as an Assistant Professor of Petroleum Engineering in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta since 2010. His research and teaching interests include enhanced oil recovery, thermal oil recovery, oil displacement theory, numerical reservoir simulation, thermodynamics, multiphase behavior, and applied mathematics. Okuno has seven years of industrial experience as a reservoir engineer with Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd., and is a registered Professional Engineer in Alberta, Canada. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Geosystem Engineering from the University of Tokyo, and a PhD degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Okuno is a recipient of the 2012 SPE Petroleum Engineering Junior Faculty Research Initiation Award. He is currently an Associate Editor for Journal of Natural Gas Science & Engineering.