Experimental study of polymer injection enhanced oil recovery in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media using glass-type micromodels

• Published in: Journal of petroleum exploration and production technology Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 627 - 637
• Main Authors: Hosseini, Seyed Javad, Foroozesh, Jalal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.03.2019; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Crude oil; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Energy Systems; Enhanced oil recovery; Flooding; Flow pattern; Flow rates; Flow velocity; Geology; Glass; Glass-type micromodel; Heavy petroleum; Industrial and Production Engineering; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Injection; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Offshore Engineering; Oil fields; Oil recovery; Original Paper - Production Engineering; Outcrops; Polymer flooding; Polymer injection; Polymers; Porous media; Recovery; Sandstone; Sedimentary rocks; Stability; Sweep efficiency; Viscosity; Water flooding; Sweep efficiency; Polymer injection; Glass-type micromodel
• ISSN: 2190-0558; 2190-0566
• DOI: 10.1007/s13202-018-0492-x

In water flooding process, volumetric sweep efficiency and oil recovery can be enhanced using polymer to increase the viscosity of water. As a result, polymer flooding has higher recovery as compared to water flooding due to front stability and reduction of fingering problem. In this research work, a set of polymer flooding runs were carried out using glass-type micromodels. The micromodels were fabricated to have homogeneous and heterogeneous flow patterns. They were positioned horizontally and saturated with a heavy crude oil sample taken from an Iranian oil field before starting the injection. Three commercial polymers were used in this study. Whole process was photographed continuously with a high-resolution camera to monitor the displacement of polymer solution in the micromodels. As a part of this study, the effect of different parameters including polymer solution concentration, injection flow rate and heterogeneity on performance of polymer flooding was investigated. On top of the regular homogeneous and heterogeneous flow patterns used in this study, a heterogeneous flow pattern mimicking sandstone reservoirs was created based on the image of a thin section of a sandstone (outcrop) and polymer front movement was observed during injection.