Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques to Develop Mature Oilfields

Abstract

Enhanced recovery of residual deposits from the mature fields with steadily increasing water cut is considered one of the most important tasks in oil field development. This is particularly relevant for terrigenous deposits of minor oil fields under the third and fourth stages of development, when the water cut may grow but fail to reach the expected stabilization asymptote, thereby bringing the issue of economic feasibility of further operation into discussion. Efforts to solve these problems through the conventional techniques of cyclic injection (huff ‘n’ puff process), inflow/conformance control, filtration flow modification, and polymer flooding are generally unsuccessful. The paper reviews information on methods of steadying oil production, reducing water cut and preventing its growth, as well as on a set of measures to improve the efficiency of developing the Zarechnoye field in the Republic of Tatarstan.