Abstract
This work evaluates an approach to improve the enhanced heavy oil recovery performance of hydrophobic associating polymer. A polymeric system based on water-soluble hydrophobic associating polymer (WSHAP) and cyclodextrin (CD) polymer was proposed in this work. Addition of CD polymer to WSHAP forms interpolymer bridges by inclusion of CD groups with hydrophobic tails, and thereby the network structure is strengthened. The proposed system offers good viscoelasticity, pronounced shear thinning, and interesting viscosity-temperature relations. Sand pack tests indicated that the proposed system can build high resistance factor during the propagation in porous media, and its moderate adsorption phenomenon was represented by the thickness of the adsorbed layer. The relationship between effective viscosity and oil recovery increment indicated that the proposed system can significantly reduce the residual oil saturation due to the “piston-like” propagation. The overall oil recovery was raised by 5.7 and 24.5% of the original oil in place compared with WSHAP and partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM), respectively.
Highlights
About 15–30% of the original oil in place (OOIP) is produced by the natural energy of reservoirs
When we evaluate the permanent reduction in the permeability of porous media, residual resistance factor (RRF) is utilized
This work evaluated the performance of the HAP-CDE polymeric system in enhanced heavy oil recovery compared to the other two polymers
Summary
About 15–30% of the original oil in place (OOIP) is produced by the natural energy of reservoirs. Additional 10–20% oil recovery of OOIP can be produced by water injection after primary production [1,2,3]. One of the major problems associated with water injection is unfavorable mobility ratio between the displacing and the displaced phases, which leads to the injection water to finger or channel through reservoirs, resulting in poor sweep efficiency. This problem is more serious in reservoirs with high viscosity oil. Sweep efficiency can be effectively improved by a low concentration polymer solution. Polymer flooding has been proved to be an efficient method for improving oil recovery
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