Experimental study of the effect of a porous medium on phase changes in gas-condensate systems

It is shown experimentally that gas-condensate behavior in porous media is considerably different than in a PVT cell. Gas-condensate phenomena were studied in sands having surface areas of 563, 1,307 and 3,415 sq cm/cu cm. When a PVT cell, containing condensate but not sand, was depleted under certain conditions, 83.6% condensate was recovered. When the experiment was repeated with sand in the cell, condensate recoveries were 77.0; 64.8; and 59.9% for sands having surface areas of 563, 1,307, and 3,415 sq cm/cu cm respectively. It was also found that (1) the greater the amount of heavy hydrocarbons in the condensate, the greater the effect of porous media on recovery; (2) as temperature increases, the influence of porous media on phase phenomena decreases; and (3) the greater the potential recoverable condensate in the initial mixture, the greater the effect of sand on the composition of the produced liquid.