Chapter 13 - Water-Based EOR in Carbonates and Sandstones: New Chemical Understanding of the EOR Potential Using “Smart Water”

Abstract

Water flooding of oil reservoirs has been performed for a century in order to improve oil recovery for two reasons: (1) give pressure support to the reservoir to prevent gas production and (2) displace the oil by viscous forces. During the last 30 years, it was discovered that the wetting properties of the reservoir played a very important role for the efficiency of the water flood. Even though much work have been published on crude oil–brine–rock (CBR) interaction related to wetting properties, Professor N.R. Morrow, University of Wyoming, asked the audience the following question at the European enhanced oil-recovery (EOR) meeting in Cambridge, April 2011: Do we understand water flooding of oil reservoirs? If we are not able to explain why injection fluids of different ionic composition can have a great impact on displacement efficiency and oil recovery, the answer to Morrow’s question is NO. Researchers have to admit that we do not know the phenomena of water flooding well enough. The key to improve our understanding is to obtain fundamental chemical understanding of the CBR interaction by controlled laboratory studies, and then propose chemical mechanisms, which should be validated also from field experience. In this chapter, I have tried to sum up our experience and chemical understanding on water-based EOR in carbonates and sandstones during the last 20 years with a specific focus on initial wetting properties and possibilities for wettability modification to optimize oil recovery. Chemically, the CBR interaction is completely different in carbonates and sandstones. The proposed chemical mechanisms for wettability modification are used to explain field observations.