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Previous chapters have explained the motivation for injecting gases into oil reservoirs to recover oil. The gases are steam [thermal enhanced oil recovery (EOR), Chapter 11] or CO2 or hydrocarbon gases (solvent methods, Chapter 7). These EOR processes can be quite efficient at displacing oil from regions in which the steam or solvent contacts (or sweeps) the oil. However, in the field, volumetric sweep efficiency is often poor with these processes because of permeability variations in the formation and the low viscosity (or, more specifically, high mobility) and low density of the gas. Gas sweeps rapidly along high-permeability streaks or moves rapidly to the top of the formation and reaches a production well. Once such a path is saturated with gas, the high mobility of the gas ensures that most of the subsequently injected gas follows that path. See the discussion in Chapter 6 about the effects of heterogeneity, mobility ratio, and gravity.

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