Effect of exposure time and crude oil composition on low-salinity water flooding

McMillan, Marcia; Rahnema, Hamid; Romiluy, Johnson; Kitty, Fitzgerald J.

doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2016.07.090

Cited by 68 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The first stage involved brine flooding. The pressure drop for this stage closely matched previous water flooding studies 134 , 135 and was not impacted by the magnetic field. The second stage involved the injection of a nanofluid or a polymer solution and corresponded to high pressure drops, especially for the Fe 3 O 4 NPs, for both the heavy and light oils.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

Conformance Control in Oil Reservoirs by Citric Acid-Coated Magnetite Nanoparticles

et al. 2021

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Reservoir conformance control methods may significantly improve enhanced oil recovery technologies through reduced water production and profile correction. Excessive water production in oil and gas reservoirs leads to severe problems. Water shutoff and conformance control are, therefore, financially and environmentally advantageous for the petroleum industry. In this paper, water shutoff performance of citric acid-coated magnetite (CACM) and hematite nanoparticles (NPs) as well as polyacrylamide polymer solution in a heterogeneous and homogeneous two-dimensional micromodel is compared. A facile one-step technique is used to synthesize the CACM NPs. The NPs, which are reusable, easily prepared, and environmentally friendly, are characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, and X-ray diffraction. The results confirm uniform spherical Fe 3 O 4 NPs of an average diameter of 40 nm, well coated with citric acid. CACM NPs provide a high pressure drop coupled with an acceptable resistance factor and residual resistance factor owing to NP arrangement into a solid-/gel-like structure in the presence of a magnetic field. A resistance factor and a residual resistance factor of 3.5 and 2.14, respectively, were achieved for heavy oil and the heterogeneous micromodel. This structure contributed to an appreciable plugging efficiency. CACM NPs respond to ∼1000 G of magnetic field intensity and display a constant resistance factor at intensities between 4500 and 6000 G. CACM NPs act as a gel, forming a solid-/gel-like structure, which moves toward the magnetic field and thereby shuts off the produced water and increases the oil fraction. The findings of this study suggest the ability to shut off water production using specially designed magnetic field-responsive smart fluids. The application would require innovative design of field equipment.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 86%

Conformance Control in Oil Reservoirs by Citric Acid-Coated Magnetite Nanoparticles

et al. 2021

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“…interfacial tension change, visco-eleastic effects) nor the non-equilibrium effects (e.g. multi-ion exchange, double layer expansion) 10,20,26,63 , as the main purpose of this study is not to derive an expression between salinity and contact angle. The primary objective is to investigate the dynamics of two-phase flow induced by wettability alteration.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel insights into pore-scale dynamics of wettability alteration during low salinity waterflooding

Aziz

Niasar

Martínez-Ferrer

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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Low salinity waterflooding has proven to accelerate oil production at core and field scales. Wettability alteration from a more oil-wetting to a more water-wetting condition has been established as one of the most notable effects of low salinity waterflooding. To induce the wettability alteration, low salinity water should be transported to come in contact with the oil-water interfaces. Transport under two-phase flow conditions can be highly influenced by fluids topology that creates connected pathways as well as dead-end regions. It is known that under two-phase flow conditions, the pore space filled by a fluid can be split into flowing (connected pathways) and stagnant (deadend) regions due to fluids topology. Transport in flowing regions is advection controlled and transport in stagnant regions is predominantly diffusion controlled. To understand the full picture of wettability alteration of a rock by injection of low salinity water, it is important to know i) how the injected low salinity water displaces and mixes with the high salinity water, ii) how continuous wettability alteration impacts the redistribution of two immiscible fluids and (ii) role of hydrodynamic transport and mixing between the low salinity water and the formation brine (high salinity water) in wettability alteration. To address these two issues, computational fluid dynamic simulations of coupled dynamic two-phase flow, hydrodynamic transport and wettability alteration in a 2D domain were carried out using the volume of fluid method. The numerical simulations show that when low salinity water was injected, the formation brine (high salinity water) was swept out from the flowing regions by advection. However, the formation brine residing in stagnant regions was diffused very slowly to the low salinity water. The presence of formation brine in stagnant regions created heterogeneous wettability conditions at the pore scale, which led to remarkable two-phase flow dynamics and internal redistribution of oil, which is referred to as the "pull-push" behaviour and has not been addressed before in the literature. Our simulation results imply that the presence of stagnant regions in the tertiary oil recovery impedes the potential of wettability alteration for additional oil recovery. Hence, it would be favorable to inject low salinity water from the beginning of waterflooding to avoid stagnant saturation. We also observed that oil ganglia size was reduced under tertiary mode of low salinity waterflooding compared to the high salinity waterflooding.

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“…This optimum value depends on the preheating method as well as the reservoir and fluid properties. Even the capillary pressure can intensify the effect of gas injection rate by dispersion phenomenon which has been recently addressed in the literature [14,24,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]. Mass transfer and gravity drainage are the dominant mechanisms in Vapex process which act side by side.…”

Section: Sensitivity Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Study of Single Well Vapor Extraction Process

Rahnema

McMillan

et al. 2016

Journal of Petroleum Engineering

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Vapor extraction (Vapex) is an emerging technology to produce heavy oil and bitumen from subsurface formations. Single well (SW) Vapex technique uses the same concept of Vapex process but only with one horizontal well. In this process solvent is injected from the toe of the horizontal well with oil production at the heel section. The main advantage of SW-Vapex process lies in the economic saving and applicability in problematic reservoirs, where drilling of two horizontal wells is impractical. The performance of SW-Vapex seems to be comparable with dual horizontal Vapex process using proper optimization schemes. This study is grouped into two sections: (i) a screening study of early time operating performance of SW-Vapex and (ii) a sensitivity analysis of the effect of the reservoir and well completion parameters. Simulation results show that solvent injection rate can be optimized to improve oil production rate. Higher injection rates may not necessarily lead to increase in production. This study confirms that SW-Vapex process is very ineffective in reservoirs with high oil viscosity (more than 1,500 cp) and thin formations (less than 10 m).

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Effect of exposure time and crude oil composition on low-salinity water flooding

Cited by 68 publications

References 32 publications

Conformance Control in Oil Reservoirs by Citric Acid-Coated Magnetite Nanoparticles

Conformance Control in Oil Reservoirs by Citric Acid-Coated Magnetite Nanoparticles

Novel insights into pore-scale dynamics of wettability alteration during low salinity waterflooding

Numerical Study of Single Well Vapor Extraction Process

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