Evaluation of an alkali-polymer flooding technique for enhanced oil recovery in Trinidad and Tobago

Medica, Kyle; Maharaj, Rean; Alexander, David; Soroush, Mohammad

doi:10.1007/s13202-020-00981-7

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Subsequently, this causes an increase in resistance to flow and diversion to poorly swept regions, thereby improving the sweep efficiency. A similar result was observed for the effect of alkali on a biopolymer (xanthan gum) [ 30 , 106 ].…”

Section: Binary Combination Of Polymers and Other Additives For Eorsupporting

confidence: 80%

Application of Polymers for Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery: A Review

et al. 2022

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Polymers play a significant role in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) due to their viscoelastic properties and macromolecular structure. Herein, the mechanisms of the application of polymeric materials for enhanced oil recovery are elucidated. Subsequently, the polymer types used for EOR, namely synthetic polymers and natural polymers (biopolymers), and their properties are discussed. Moreover, the numerous applications for EOR such as polymer flooding, polymer foam flooding, alkali–polymer flooding, surfactant–polymer flooding, alkali–surfactant–polymer flooding, and polymeric nanofluid flooding are appraised and evaluated. Most of the polymers exhibit pseudoplastic behavior in the presence of shear forces. The biopolymers exhibit better salt tolerance and thermal stability but are susceptible to plugging and biodegradation. As for associative synthetic polyacrylamide, several complexities are involved in unlocking its full potential. Hence, hydrolyzed polyacrylamide remains the most coveted polymer for field application of polymer floods. Finally, alkali–surfactant–polymer flooding shows good efficiency at pilot and field scales, while a recently devised polymeric nanofluid shows good potential for field application of polymer flooding for EOR.

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Section: Binary Combination Of Polymers and Other Additives For Eorsupporting

confidence: 80%

Application of Polymers for Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery: A Review

et al. 2022

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“…In addition, due to the high viscosity of heavy oil and water-oil mobility ratio, the viscosity reducer flooding is not satisfied. In order to reduce this deficiency, researchers have proposed combined flooding systems such as viscosity reducer/polymer or viscosity reducer/alkali [34][35][36][37][38]. Polymer can increase the viscosity of injection water and reduce water-oil mobility ratio and thus expand sweep volume.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights into Enhanced Oil Recovery by Coupling Branched-Preformed Particle Gel and Viscosity Reducer Flooding in Ordinary Heavy Oil Reservoir

2023

Geofluids

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Viscosity reducer flooding has been successfully applied in tertiary oil recovery of ordinary heavy oil reservoirs. However, lowering interfacial tension or reducing oil viscosity, which is more critical for viscosity reducer to improve oil recovery of ordinary heavy oil, has not yet formed a unified understanding, which restricts the further large-scale application of viscosity reducer flooding for ordinary heavy oil reservoir. Moreover, when the dominant water flow channel is formed in the reservoir, the sweep efficiency decreases sharply and can affect oil recovery efficiency of viscosity reducer. Therefore, in this study, the concept of branched-preformed particle gel (B-PPG) coupling viscosity reducer flooding is proposed. The oil-water interfacial tension performance, emulsification ability, and viscosity reduction performance of three different viscosity reducers were evaluated. The enhanced oil recovery ability of viscosity reducers, B-PPG, and viscosity reducer/B-PPG composite systems was investigated by performing sand pack flooding experiments. The results show that the oil-water interfacial tensions of the three viscosity reducers S1, S2, and S3 are 0.432 mN·m-1, 0.0112 mN·m-1, and 0.0031 mN·m-1, respectively. S1 with the highest interfacial tension has the best emulsification and viscosity reduction performance, S2 is the second, and S3 is the worst. The lower the interfacial tension, the worse the emulsification stability. The sand pack flooding results show that the incremental oil recovery of viscosity reducer S2 flooding is the largest, 7.5%, followed by S1, 7.3%, and S3, 5.6%. The viscosity reducer S2 with moderate interfacial tension and emulsifying capacity has the best ability to improve the recovery of ordinary heavy oil. The incremental oil recovery of B-PPG is 12.7%, which is significantly higher than that of viscosity reducer flooding. Compared with viscosity reducing flooding, the viscosity reducer/B-PPG composite systems have better enhanced oil recovery capacity. The findings of this study can help for better understanding of enhancing oil recovery for ordinary heavy oil reservoir.

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