Critical Review of Polymer Flooding in Daqing Field and Pelican Field: Case Studies of the World’s Largest Polymer Flooding in Light and Heavy Oil Reservoirs, Respectively

Abstract

Aim: Polymer flooding is a promising chemical enhanced oil recovery. Originally it was thought that polymer flooding was not economical. The polymer flooding in Daqing field China has proved otherwise. After that, it was thought that polymer flooding could only be successful in light oil reservoirs, but then polymer flooding was implemented in Pelican field in Canada on a large scale and recorded success.
 Methodology: The methodology employed was to review polymer flooding from inception, beginning from the work of Kingsley Detling in 1944 who got a patent in the USA to late 1970’s, thus early history of polymer flooding was a good insight for this paper. The mechanism of polymer flooding was also captured; improving the mobility ratio of water with a water soluble polymer is what helps for better sweep efficiency. The successful polymer flooding in Daqing field China has made many companies to understand this technology and go for polymer flooding. Polymer flooding of Daqing field has helped China’s oil and gas industry. Polymer flooding is now used to recover heavy oil especially for deep reservoirs with thin pay zone. Pelican field in Canada has carried out the largest polymer flooding implementation in the world and has proven that polymer flooding can be used for heavy oil and given a new screening parameter for polymer flooding. 
 Results: This review has captured the critical aspects of polymer flooding both in light oil reservoirs-Daqing field, China and heavy oil reservoirs-Pelican field, Canada.
 Conclusion: This review has proven that polymer flooding is a promising Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery technology in both light oil and heavy oil reservoirs and it is used to increase the ultimate recovery of some fields and could help any country to remain relevant in the oil and gas sector. Using polymer flooding to recover heavy oil proves more efficient and more economical. Because, polymer flooding does not require a lot of heat as in thermal flooding, there is reduction in global green house gas effect.
 Recommendation: It is recommended that companies use polymer flooding to recover their oil from light oil reservoirs and most importantly increase production and recovery in heavy oil fields.

Synthesis and performance evaluation of a novel zwitterionic quaternary copolymer for enhanced oil‐recovery application

“…Polymer flooding was an important and extensively used technique for improving oil recovery in the mid-later period of oilfield development. [1][2][3][4][5][6] However, there are still many challenges in practical applications, such as reduced long-term stability at high-temperature and in high-salinity brines, as well as limited propagation in low-permeability rocks. 7 Especially, the most widely used partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) 8,9 with the advantages of simple synthesis, controllable molecular weight, and improved water flooding development efficiency still had poor shear-resistance, temperature and salt resistance, suffering viscosity loss in the presence of reservoir brines and elevated temperature conditions.…”

“…Polymer flooding was an important and extensively used technique for improving oil recovery in the mid‐later period of oilfield development 1–6 . However, there are still many challenges in practical applications, such as reduced long‐term stability at high‐temperature and in high‐salinity brines, as well as limited propagation in low‐permeability rocks 7 .…”

Combining Thermal Effect and Mobility Control Mechanism to Reduce Water Cut in a Sandstone Reservoir in Kazakhstan

“…Here, polymer injection has significantly augmented the recovery factor by more than 20% of OOIP for the flooded region, equal to 3.0 billion barrels. Additionally, this process achieves a low water-to-oil ratio, enhancing its effectiveness [ 6 ]. The polymer concentration is kept higher in the bulk phase owing to the expected decrease in in situ polymer concentration due to wettability alteration and polymer adsorption on the rock surface.…”

The Effect of Shear on the Properties of an Associated Polymer Solution for Oil Displacement

“…Such action mechanisms make polymer flooding technology the main tool to improve oil recovery in the later stages of water-driven development. By 2022, polymer flooding technology had been under development in China for over 70 years and is widely applied in major oilfields [ 3 , 4 ]. Although polymer flooding technology has achieved remarkable success, this technology has problems that need to be solved urgently.…”