Numerical simulation and laboratory evaluation of alkali–surfactant–polymer and foam flooding

Abstract

Tertiary recovery techniques such as alkali–surfactant–polymer flooding (henceforth ASP) and foam flooding have been widely administered in production operations of oil reservoirs which have led to the higher value of oil recovery factor, especially in heavy-oil reservoirs. The objective of this extensive study is to provide a comparative study between numerical simulation which was used by the commercial software implicit pressure and explicit composition (henceforth IMPEC) and experimental investigation for different injectivity scenarios of foaming agent and ASP solution after water and gas flooding on the oil recovery enhancement. To do this, simulation parameters for each scenario were considered in the simulator to investigate the results of each scenario on the oil recovery enhancement. Due to the presence of a gas phase in the realistic performances, the experiments were performed in the presence of three-phase fluids to match the results with the operational circumstances. Moreover, regarding the lack of information about the considerable influence of in situ gas which is in the trapped and continuous phase, the dissolved gas is taken into the evaluation. To validate the simulation analysis, an experimental investigation was performed for different scenarios and selected the optimum injectivity scenario. Consequently, regarding the presence of gas phase, ASP flooding after gas and water flooding had the maximum oil recovery factor and was considered as the optimum technique to produce initial oil in place. The reason for this phenomenon is elaborated to the more feasibility of gas phase which had led to the more mobilization of the oleic phase in the porous medium.