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Polymer injection into oil reservoirs stands as a primary technique for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), employing either natural or synthetic polymers that dissolve in water. Proper performance in salinity and reservoir temperature creates a limitation to replace natural material with common chemicals and this has led researchers to try to identify new material for this application. Continuing the efforts and overcoming the challenge, this research introduces and examines a high‐performance natural polymer extracted from garden cress seeds for this application. Several experiments were planned and executed based on the existing EOR standards and literature. Comprehensive analyses and viscosity measurements were performed to identify the behaviour of solutions and the effects of concentration, shear rate, salinity, and temperature. Essential tests such as wettability and polymer adsorption were also done by contact angle measurement and flooding into a sandstone plug, respectively. The produced polymer was able to effectively maintain the viscosification properties at temperatures up to 95°C. Similarly, increasing the salinity up to 140,000 ppm did not affect its efficiency and the viscosity value remained in the useful range. The viscosity of the mature solutions at 35°C after 30 h at concentrations of 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, and 1200 ppm was 8.61, 18.59, 31.27, 65.41, 95.38, and 149.75 mPa, respectively. At 1000 ppm and temperatures of 35, 55, 75, and 95°C, the viscosity was 95.38, 90.57, 86.73, and 84.72 mPa · s, respectively. At concentrations of 600, 800, and 1000 ppm, the wettability altered to intermediate‐wet, while at 1200 ppm, altered to water‐wet. Polymer injection caused an increase in recovery equal to 18.6%. The water cut increased with a little delay in the initial volumes of water injection at a high rate and reached its maximum. Then after the injection of 0.3 PV of polymer, there was a sharp and continuous drop until reaching 35% of the production fluid volume.
Polymer injection into oil reservoirs stands as a primary technique for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), employing either natural or synthetic polymers that dissolve in water. Proper performance in salinity and reservoir temperature creates a limitation to replace natural material with common chemicals and this has led researchers to try to identify new material for this application. Continuing the efforts and overcoming the challenge, this research introduces and examines a high‐performance natural polymer extracted from garden cress seeds for this application. Several experiments were planned and executed based on the existing EOR standards and literature. Comprehensive analyses and viscosity measurements were performed to identify the behaviour of solutions and the effects of concentration, shear rate, salinity, and temperature. Essential tests such as wettability and polymer adsorption were also done by contact angle measurement and flooding into a sandstone plug, respectively. The produced polymer was able to effectively maintain the viscosification properties at temperatures up to 95°C. Similarly, increasing the salinity up to 140,000 ppm did not affect its efficiency and the viscosity value remained in the useful range. The viscosity of the mature solutions at 35°C after 30 h at concentrations of 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, and 1200 ppm was 8.61, 18.59, 31.27, 65.41, 95.38, and 149.75 mPa, respectively. At 1000 ppm and temperatures of 35, 55, 75, and 95°C, the viscosity was 95.38, 90.57, 86.73, and 84.72 mPa · s, respectively. At concentrations of 600, 800, and 1000 ppm, the wettability altered to intermediate‐wet, while at 1200 ppm, altered to water‐wet. Polymer injection caused an increase in recovery equal to 18.6%. The water cut increased with a little delay in the initial volumes of water injection at a high rate and reached its maximum. Then after the injection of 0.3 PV of polymer, there was a sharp and continuous drop until reaching 35% of the production fluid volume.
Application of Enhanced oil recovery methods (EOR) in offshore oil fields are getting more popular with the advancement in technology and chemicals used. Polymer flooding is one of the most successful projects to improve water mobility by increasing the viscosity. Application of polymers promises to improve areal sweep efficiency and consequently recovery factor. However the main concern associated with injection of chemicals in offshore oil fields is the possibility of leakage and pollution of marine systems affecting biodiversity and environment. The following study focuses on rheological properties of three bio-polymers: Xanthan gum, Wulan gum and Potato starch in laboratory conditions as viscosifying agents. The study involved characterization of each polymer at different concentrations from 500 ppm to 5,000 ppm dosage. Sensitivity analysis on various reservoir temperatures were also performed from 25°C to 55°C to fit Kazakhstan reservoirs along with sea water salinity to simulate Kazakhstan reservoir conditions. Results from rheological studies showed that 3,000 ppm is considered as the optimum concentration from Xanthan and Wulan gums, Potato starch did not show any good results as viscosifying agent. Further temperature effect studies showed that both Xanthan and Wulan gums have a strong temperature resistance and does not experience dramatic viscosity drop at reservoir temperatures in a range of 8-14% of loss. However, salinity effect showed that Wulan gum tends to lose rheological properties in high salinity environment and high viscosity drop. Rheological studies showed that Xanthan gum is highly resistant to salinity and temperature changes, while Wulan is only temperature resistant. The obtained rheological data were correlated with the Ostwald–de Waele power-law model to characterize fluid flow parameters, shear thinning behavior and identify n, k values. The correlations affirmed the shear-thinning properties of Xanthan and Wulan gums, a critical attribute for effective oil displacement in offshore reservoirs Core flooding experiments were performed for each polymer at the optimum concentration, salinity and temperature. Carbonate cores were used to simulate reservoir conditions and assess the effectiveness of natural polymers in improving oil recovery. Core flooding experiments with Xanthan and Wulan gums showed incremental oil recovery of 30 and 20% respectively. In the context of Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea, these findings herald a promising future for enhanced oil recovery, leveraging the robustness of natural polymers in challenging offshore conditions. Overall, these polymers demonstrated impressive results in displacing oil under harsh offshore reservoir conditions
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) entails modifying the water-oil composition in the process of recovering oil (Charoentanaworakun et al., 2023, El-Masry et al., 2023). One of the main techniques is the injection of chemicals to increase oil recovery. This method is crucial to extract trapped oil from mature oilfields, increasing their effectiveness and lengthening their lifespan. One reason for the rise in water viscosity can be attributed to certain substances, including high molecular weight polymers, gels, and composites that undergo in-situ cross-linking, which can cause this effect. Increasing water viscosity can technically reduce water mobility, leading to better sweep efficiency (Arshad and Harwell, 1985, Abbas et al., 2020) Chemical EOR techniques improve oil recovery by modifying the injected water phase by changing the reservoir's fluid-fluid and/or fluid-rock interactions. Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) methods utilize a chemical mixture as the displacing agent, which prompts an increase in the capillary number or reduction in the mobility ratio. The primary goal of chemical EOR procedures is to affect one of the following variables: mobility (by utilizing polymer solutions with increased viscosity), rock wettability, and interfacial tension between two immiscible phases (by applying surfactants or alkalis to the displacing fluid). The suitability of the chemical as a recovery enhancer is evaluated via the following parameters: it should enhance the viscosity of water while allowing it to flow through porous media and displacing more hydrocarbons; it should be functional for a reasonable duration of time without degradation; inhibit water fingering and manage the front pattern. Therefore, discovering such chemicals is supported by rheological characterization at various salinities, temperatures, and chemical concentrations. While the primary phase is comparable to the subsurface settings, it demands a meticulous evaluation of the flow behavior during dynamic flooding (Druetta and Picchioni, 2020). Despite their efficiency and low cost, most of the chemicals harm the environment, which increases the focus on developing eco-friendly chemicals that can effectively replace commonly used polymers like hydrolysis polyacrylamide (HPAM). This has led to the exploration of various natural polymers such as Arabic gum, Xanthan Gum, and Guar Gum, with encouraging results as shown by the research conducted by Saha et al. (2019) and Dessbesell et al. (2020). However, one major challenge in their widespread application is their accessibility and ability to endure diverse reservoir conditions such as temperature and salinity, as highlighted in Bento and Moreno's (2016) study. Despite the potential of these natural gums, the industry still needs to improve its implementation process, and some valuable sources of natural materials have not yet been fully developed.
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