Foamy oil is an oil-continuous foam that contains dispersed gas bubbles produced at the wellhead from heavy oil reservoirs under solution gas drive. The nature of the gas dispersions in oil distinguishes foamy oil behavior from conventional heavy oil. The gas that comes out of solution in the reservoir does not coalesce into large gas bubbles nor into a continuous flowing gas phase. Instead, it remains as small bubbles entrained in the crude oil, keeping the effective oil viscosity low while providing expansive energy that helps drive the oil toward the producing. Foamy oil accounts for unusually high production in heavy oil reservoirs under solution-gas drive.
Thus, foamy oil is formed in solution gas drive reservoirs when gas is released from solution as the reservoir pressure declines. It has been noted that the oil at the wellhead of these heavy-oil reservoirs resembles the form of foam, hence the term foamy oil. The gas initially exists in the form of small bubbles within individual pores in the rock. As time passes and pressure continues to decline, the bubbles grow to fill the pores. With further declines in pressure, the bubbles created in different locations become large enough to coalesce into a continuous gas phase. Once the gas phase becomes continuous (i.e., when gas saturation exceeds the critical level)—the minimum saturation at which a continuous gas phase exists in porous media —traditional two-phase (oil and gas) flow with classical relative permeability occurs. As a result, the production gas–oil ratio (GOR) increases rapidly after the critical gas saturation has been exceeded.
