Methods for separating oil and/or gas mixtures

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9777566-B2
Application number	US-201514920253-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 22, 2015
Priority date	Mar 18, 2011
Publication date	Oct 3, 2017
Grant date	Oct 3, 2017

Abstract

A method for producing oil, comprising injecting water and a solvent into a formation; producing a mixture comprising water, solvent, oil, and gas from the formation; separating the mixture into a first stream comprising oil, water, and a first portion of the solvent, and a second stream comprising gas and a second portion of the solvent, and exposing the second stream to water to remove the second portion of the solvent from the gas.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for producing oil, comprising:
injecting water and a solvent into a formation;
producing a mixture comprising water, solvent, oil, and gas from the formation;
separating the mixture into a first stream comprising oil, water, and a first portion of the solvent, and a second stream comprising gas and a second portion of the solvent,
exposing the second stream to water to remove the second portion of the solvent from the gas and obtaining a mixture comprising water and solvent, and
injecting the mixture comprising water and solvent into the formation.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising separating oil from the first stream to form a third stream comprising water and the first portion of the solvent.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising exposing the third stream to gas to remove the first portion of the solvent from the water.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising converting at least a portion of the produced oil or produced gas into a material selected from the group consisting of transportation fuels, heating fuels, lubricants, chemicals, and polymers.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the water injected into the formation further comprises a water soluble polymer adapted to increase a viscosity of the mixture.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising reducing the bubble point of oil in the formation with the solvent.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising increasing the swelling factor of oil in the formation with the solvent.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising reducing the viscosity of oil in the formation with the solvent.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the formation is an underground formation.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the underground formation has a temperature of at least 100 degrees centigrade as measured prior to injection of water and solvent into the formation.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the underground formation has a permeability from 0.0001 to 15 Darcies.

Assignees

• Shell Oil Co

Inventors

• Matzakos Andreas Nicholas

Classifications

• E21B43/34 Primary

  Arrangements for separating materials produced by the well · CPC title

• C10G2400/04

  Diesel oil · CPC title

• C10G2400/10

  Lubricating oil · CPC title

• E21B43/20

  Displacing by water · CPC title

• C10G1/047

  Hot water or cold water extraction processes · CPC title