Half-Century of Heavy Oil Polymer Flooding from Laboratory Core Floods to Pilot Tests and Field Applications

Abstract

Reservoir development is increasingly moving towards the heavy oil resources due to the rapid decline in conventional oil reserves. With the production of conventional low gravity crude oil being surpassed by heavy oil production in Alberta, the vast fields of heavy oil have been considered an emerging source of energy to the growing demands for oil and gas. Although the applications of thermal methods have been successful in many enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects, they are usually uneconomic or impractical in deep and thin pay zones reservoirs. Therefore, polymer flooding is a preferred EOR technique in such reservoirs.An application of polymer flooding in heavy oil reservoirs dates back to more than half a century ago. However, it has long been considered a suitable method for reservoirs with viscosities up to 100 centipoises only. Recently, this EOR technique has attracted great attentions and become a promising method for oil recovery from heavy oil reservoirs with viscosities ranging from several hundreds to several thousands of centipoises. The main reasons for such a widespread application of the technique in heavy oil reservoirs during the last two decades have been rises in oil prices, extensive use of horizontal wells and advances in the polymer manufacturing technology. This paper aims to review the advances and technological trends of polymer flooding in heavy oil reservoirs since the 1960s. Upon the review, complete data sets of the laboratory works, pilot tests and field applications are established. The database provides qualitative description and quantitative statistics regarding both scientific research and practical applications. Then suitable ranges of some crucial affecting reservoir properties and polymer characteristics for successful field applications are examined. Finally, new screening criteria are developed specifically for heavy oil reservoirs based on an analysis of the data. The criteria are compared with the previously established ones. The outcome of this paper can be used as guidelines for screening, planning, design and eventually implementation of future projects.

Historical and recent observations in polymer floods: An update review

“…Saboorian-Jooybari, Dejam and Chen (2015) also presented a review of polymer injection in heavy oil reservoirs. This study can be divided in three major areas: a historical review of core floods, review and analysis of field cases and revisiting screening criteria for polymer flooding.…”

Formation and stability of water‐in‐oil nano‐emulsions with mixed surfactant using in‐situ combined condensation‐dispersion method

“…NEs are stable against flocculation or coalescence but are unstable against Ostwald ripening. The main applications of NEs are in the following fields: nano‐reactors; enhanced oil recovery (EOR); alternative fuel; pharmaceutical; food industry; cosmetics; and drug delivery systems . Recently, the manufacturing of tailored made nanofluid (nano‐emulsion) with custom made functional behaviours (i.e., ionic nature, physical shape and size, and charge density) has enabled the development of a new generation of fluid defined as smart fluid for drilling and stimulation related applications .…”

Anisotropy in Thermal Recovery of Oil Shale—Part 1: Thermal Conductivity, Wave Velocity and Crack Propagation

“…If the anisotropy of temperature conduction in oil shale strata is neglected, the conduction range of temperature will be wrongly predicted, thus affecting the effective exploitation of the formation. The anisotropy of the conduction of the temperature also affects other thermodynamic engineering, such as the thermal recovery of heavy oil [10][11][12].…”