A Study on Evaluation and Optimization of Gel Flooding in Liaohe Oil Field

Abstract

There are many challenges during water injection such as the early breakthrough of injecting water, increasing of water production, and the rapid decline of oil rate. These problems are often faced during water flooding application, and many oil field around the world are experiencing these kinds of problems. Liaohe oil field, is not spared of this problem related to the excessive production of water. Therefore, due to this circumstance, conformance treatment has been applied to solve this problem in that oil field. Gel treatment is one of the viable solution to mitigate sweep conformance problems, decrease the excessive production of water and improve oil recovery. Before, gel treatment in Liaohe oil field especially in Hai1 block, laboratory study under field conditions was carried out to determine the chemical parameters of the gel injection. Thus, we also brought a simulation approach in this research. Therefore, a brief study on gel flooding treatment has been presented and investigated in Hai 1 block of Liaohe oil field in this paper. Three well patterns such as five point, seven point and nine point, were developed for water flooding and gel flooding. Step by step for each scenario, based on the reservoir parameters and fluid properties of the actual oil field, the injection rate and the liquid production rate have been optimized including well pattern. The results of the simulation showed that seven spot is the best well pattern and it is suitable for the model established in this research. In addition, after two years of gel injection, the excessive production of water decreases from 98 to 84% and the ultimate oil recovery increases up to 34% for gel flooding compare to 28% obtained during water flooding.