What is heavy oil polymer flooding?
Nonthermal Recovery of Heavy Oil Polymer flooding is an EOR method that uses polymer solutions to increase oil recovery by decreasing the water/oil mobility ratio by increasing the viscosity of the displacing water. In the process, the volumetric sweep is improved and the oil is more effectively produced.
What is ASP flooding?
Alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding is a Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) method whereby alkali, surfactant and polymer are injected as the same slug. Alkaline chemicals generate soap when reacting with crude oil, which reduces surfactant adsorption to grain surfaces.
What is chemical flooding in EOR?
Enhanced Oil Recovery Chemical flooding relies on the addition of one or more chemical compounds to an injected fluid either to reduce the interfacial tension between the reservoir oil and the injected fluid or to improve the sweep efficiency of the injected fluid.
What is surfactant flooding?
Surfactant flooding is an important technique used in enhanced oil recovery to reduce the amount of oil in pore space of matrix rock. Surfactants are injected to mobilize residual oil by lowering the interfacial tension between oil and water and/or by the wettability alteration from oil-wet to water-wet.
What is polymer in EOR?
Polymer is the material that plays an important role in the application of EOR technology, especially surfactant and hydrogel polymers. The most common polymer used for this application is polyacrylamide group.
What is chemical flooding?
Chemical flooding is an important tertiary oil recovery technology that can improve oil recovery by adding various chemicals in the injected water. For chemical flooding, the chemical agents used in polymer flooding, surfactant flooding, alkaline flooding, and combination flooding are described.
What is alkaline surfactant polymer?
Alkali-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) flooding is an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique usually performed as a supplement to water-flooding. ASP is a modified form of Surfactant-Polymer (SP) flooding. This soap naturally emulsifies the oil into the water of the injection slug, improving oil recovery.
What is used for chemical EOR methods?
There are three primary techniques of EOR: gas injection, thermal injection, and chemical injection. Gas injection, which uses gases such as natural gas, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide (CO2), accounts for nearly 60 percent of EOR production in the United States.
Which one is chemical flooding process?
Chemical-flooding methods include polymer flooding, micellar–polymer flooding or surfactant–polymer flooding, and alkaline or caustic flooding. Polymer flooding is designed to improve the mobility ratio and fluid flow patterns of a displacement process by increasing the viscosity of the injected aqueous phase.
How are surfactants used in oil and gas?
The addition of surfactant can reduce the interfacial tension between oil and water, promote emulsification, reduce the solubility of oil and water, increase the rock absorption of crude oil and reduce the viscosity of crude oil. Generally speaking, the surfactant picked by crude oil is greatly increased.
How is Polymer Flooding used to recover oil?
Polymer flooding has been used for more than 40 years to effectively recover the remaining oil from the reservoir, up to 30% of the original oil in place. Due to decreased water production and enhanced oil production, the total cost of using the polymer flooding technique is less than that of water flooding.
Which is better water flooding or polymer flooding?
Due to decreased water production and enhanced oil production, the total cost of using the polymer flooding technique is less than that of water flooding. The polymer flooding efficiency ranges from 0.7 to 1.75 lb of polymer per barrel of incremental oil production. [3]
Are there any laboratory tests for Polymer Flooding?
Although a lot of laboratory tests were conducted to study polymer flooding, most of them have been concentrating on conventional oils. In spite of their importance, polymer flooding in heavy oil reservoirs has not attracted much experimental attention in the literature.
Why is it important to add polymer to waterflood?
Adding a water-soluble polymer to the waterflood allows the water to move through more of the reservoir rock, resulting in a larger percentage of oil recovery. Polymer gel is also used to shut off high-permeability zones. In the process, the volumetric sweep is improved and the oil is more effectively produced.