Analysis of Enhancing Coalbed Methane Recovery and Improving Coal Mining Safety by CO2 Injection
Open Access
- 15 July 2021
- journal article
- Published by Petroleum Engineering School, Southwest Petroleum University in International Journal of Petroleum Technology
- Vol. 8, 34-42
- https://doi.org/10.15377/2409-787x.2021.08.3
Abstract
Coalbed methane (CBM) is produced before coal mining at the Qinshui Basin in China to utilize CBM and reduce CH4 volume fraction for coal mining. However, the volume fraction of CH4 often reaches the range between lower and upper explosion limits after CBM production, which is a great threat to coal mining safety. In previous work, we analyzed the feasibility of injecting CO2 into coalbeds to control CH4 volume fraction for mining safety and simultaneously enhancing CBM recovery. In this paper, we extended our work to propose a model to calculate the critical CO2 volume fraction for CO2 injection. We simplified the gas mixture during coal mining as the CO2/CH4/air mixture. The model of the critical CO2 volume fraction was then built based on the explosion limit formula for the CO2/CH4/N2 mixture. The formula for the critical CO2 volume was derived using the critical CO2 volume fraction. The model of the critical CO2 volume fraction was applied in a CBM reservoir at the South Shizhuang Block in the Qinshui Basin. The CO2 injection rate for this block was optimized to obtain the highest CBM recovery using the reservoir simulation method. Results show that the critical CO2 volume fraction is 7.97%, which makes the CH4 volume fraction out of the explosion limits. The optimum CO2 injection rate for this block is 8000m3/d which improves the CBM recovery up to 86.24%.Keywords
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