Laboratory Investigation and Simulation Modeling of Polymer Flooding in High-Temperature, High-Salinity Carbonate Reservoirs

Abstract

Polymer flooding is one of the most commonly employed improved oil-recovery techniques. However, its successful application is related to favorable reservoir conditions and geology. In addition, its application in high-temperature, high-salinity (HT-HS) carbonate reservoirs is still a challenging task. A series of laboratory core-flood experiments have been performed at reservoir conditions (temperature of 120 °C and salinity of 167 g/L) on carbonate outcrop core samples to evaluate the flow behavior of polymer injection. A baseline with continuous polymer injection is established initially, and the experimental data are then history-matched to generate the relative permeability curves for the process using commercial software. Various parameters including reservoir permeability, polymer-slug size, polymer initiation time, and flow rate are varied to determine the optimum flooding conditions. All of the simulation results are then revalidated with the experimental results. Encouraging results are obtained...