Abstract
The polymer retention during polymer flooding causes reduction in pore throat size which can be detrimental to oil recovery. Especially, in low permeability reservoir unlikely in high permeability system, EOR effect of polymer flooding would not excel comparing to water flooding because of the polymer adsorption onto grain surface. This phenomenon is more significant as higher concentration of polymer solution is injected. In this study, we investigated oil recovery process during polymer flooding for a quarter of 2D 5-spot pattern of low permeability sandstone slab, in which the injected polymer solution flows in different shear rates corresponding to streamlines. The results showed that the ultimate recovery was 1.9 times higher in concentration of 1,000 ppm case than 0 ppm. The polymer adsorption layer formed during the flooding reduced the effective permeability of 1,000 ppm polymer solution. Therefore, it facilitated the oil flow and the stage of water-cut reaching 99% was slackened off.
Highlights
Polymer flooding is a mature technology of chemical EOR method that increases the sweep efficiency and the oil recovery by injecting viscous polymer solution
We investigated the EOR effect corresponding to polymer concentration by considering the polymer adsorption onto the grain surface and the entrapment of polymer in the low permeability system
After solutions were injected for 67 hours, the effective permeability of 1,000 ppm polymer solution was calculated to be 1.05 mD which was relatively lower than 0 ppm having 4.36 mD
Summary
Polymer flooding is a mature technology of chemical EOR method that increases the sweep efficiency and the oil recovery by injecting viscous polymer solution. To understand the mechanisms that enable water permeability reduction, several experimental studies have investigated the resulting effect of polymer adsorption [1,2,3,4,5]. Cordova et al [6] showed polymer adsorption reduced the water permeability regardless of the wettability and relatively facilitated the oil flow.
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