Low salinity waterflooding for a carbonate reservoir: Experimental evaluation and numerical interpretation

Nasralla, Ramez A.; Mahani, Hassan; Linde, H.A. van der; Marcelis, Fons; Masalmeh, Shehadeh K.; Sergienko, Ekaterina; Brussee, Niels; Pieterse, Sebastiaan G. J.; Basu, Saptarshi

doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2018.01.028

Cited by 81 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Furthermore, a more noticeable improvement in wettability of dolomite surfaces at elevated temperature was observed compared to limestone surfaces [25]. Lastly, it is suggested that the optimal brine concentration for LSW that produces the highest oil recovery varies in different layers of the same reservoir and is dependant on the rock mineralogy and properties [22].…”

Section: Rock Mineralogymentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The effect of salinity on wettability alteration of carbonate rocks was studied using both diluted brine (formation water or seawater) and tuned brine. There are several experimental results reported in the literature that (up to 20-times) diluted seawater showed higher potential to improved oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs compared to the formation water and seawater [22,43,80]. For example, Yousef and co-workers [38,66,68] enhanced oil recovery from a carbonate reservoir (composite limestone cores) by using synthetic seawater (57,600 ppm) and up to 100-times diluted seawater.…”

Section: Ionic Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was first shown that either altering the brine composition or reducing the salinity of injected brine below that of the initial formation water can lead to additional oil recovery for Berea sandstone [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Such results attracted many oil and gas companies, such as British Petroleum [13][14][15][16][17][18][19], Shell [20][21][22][23][24][25][26], ExxonMobil [27,28], Schlumberger [29][30][31], TOTAL [32,33], and Statoil [34,35] to investigate and further explore the potential and applicability of low salinity waterflooding (LSW) for improved oil recovery. LSW, also known as designer waterflood, advanced ion management, and smart waterflooding, injects brine with controlled ionic concentration and composition (also known as smart water or dynamic water) into the well [17,20,27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Low Salinity Waterflooding in Carbonate Reservoirs: Review of Interfacial Mechanisms

Derkani

Fletcher

Abdallah

et al. 2018

Colloids and Interfaces

152

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Carbonate rock reservoirs comprise approximately 60% of the world's oil and gas reserves. Complex flow mechanisms and strong adsorption of crude oil on carbonate formation surfaces can reduce hydrocarbon recovery of an oil-wet carbonate reservoir to as low as 10%. Low salinity waterflooding (LSW) has been confirmed as a promising technique to improve the oil recovery factor. However, the principal mechanism underpinning this recovery method is not fully understood, which poses a challenge toward designing the optimal salinity and ionic composition of any injection solution. In general, it is believed that there is more than one mechanism involved in LSW of carbonates; even though wettability alteration toward a more desirable state for oil to be recovered could be the main cause during LSW, how this alteration happens is still the subject of debate. This paper reviews different working conditions of LSW, previous studies, and field observations, alongside the proposed interfacial mechanisms which affect the colloidal interactions at oil-rock-brine interfaces. This paper provides a comprehensive review of studies on LSW in carbonate formation and further analyzes the latest achievements of LSW application in carbonates, which helps to better understand the challenges involved in these complicated multicomponent systems and potentially benefits the oil production industry.

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Section: Rock Mineralogymentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Ionic Concentrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Low Salinity Waterflooding in Carbonate Reservoirs: Review of Interfacial Mechanisms

Derkani

Fletcher

Abdallah

et al. 2018

Colloids and Interfaces

152

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show abstract

“…The effect of reservoir temperature comes through wettability and the acid number, the former increasing toward water wetness (Rao 1996), whereas the latter decreasing with increasing reservoir temperature (Shimoyama and Johns 1972), although a given higher reservoir temperature can be considered as favorable for LSWF. Nasralla et al's (2018) comprehensive experimental program on two different rock types from the same reservoir that evaluated the effect of salinity indicated that the optimum brine concentration is not the same since it is dependent on rock mineralogy and properties. For example, the two rock types studied by these authors differed in the permeability range from 2-20 mD to 20-1000 mD, whereas the porosities were in the same range of 12%-27%.…”

Section: Review Of Low-salinity Waterflooding In Carbonatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low-salinity-based enhanced oil recovery literature review and associated screening criteria

et al. 2019

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A thorough literature review is conducted that pertains to low-salinity-based enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This is meant to be a comprehensive review of all the refereed published papers, conference papers, master's theses and other reports in this area. The review is specifically focused on establishing various relations/characteristics or "screening criteria" such as: (1) classification/grouping of clays that have shown or are amenable to low-salinity benefits; (2) clay types vs. range of residual oil saturations; (3) API gravity and down hole oil viscosity range that is amenable for low salinity; (4) salinity range for EOR benefits; (5) pore sizes, porosity, absolute permeability and wettability range for low-salinity EOR; (6) continuous low-salinity injection vs. slug-wise injection; (7) grouping of possible low-salinity mechanisms; (8) contradictions or similarities between laboratory experiments and field evidence; and (9) compositional variations in tested low-salinity waters. A proposed screening criterion for low-salinity waterflooding is introduced. It can be concluded that either one or more of these mechanisms, or a combination thereof, may be the case-specific mechanism, i.e., depending on the particular oil-brine-rock (OBR) system rather than something that is "universal" or universally applicable. Therefore, every OBR system that is unique or specific ought to be individually investigated to determine the benefits (if any) of low-salinity water injection; however, the proposed screening criteria may help in narrowing down some of the dominant responsible mechanisms. Although this review primarily focuses on sandstones, given the prominence of carbonates containing ~60% of the world's oil reserves, a summary of possible mechanisms and screening criteria, pertaining to low-salinity waterflooding, for carbonates is also included. Finally, the enhancement of polymer flooding by using low-salinity water as a makeup water to further decrease the residual oil saturation is also discussed.

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“…One of the key aspects of low salinity waterflooding is its ability to accelerate oil production while not necessarily increasing the ultimate oil recovery, but this aspect has often been overlooked or misinterpreted (see (Nasralla et al, 2018) (Bartels et al, 2019)). The main idea behind this work was to systematically investigate whether there is a relation between brine salinity and the time scale or speed of recovery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonmonotonic Effects of Salinity on Wettability Alteration and Two‐Phase Flow Dynamics in PDMS Micromodels

Karadimitriou

Mahani

Steeb

et al. 2019

Water Resources Research

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The interaction between fluid‐fluid and solid‐fluid interfacial forces and surface roughness controls the wettability. The ionic strength is the most important factor that controls electrostatic forces. Thus, a modification of the ionic strength can potentially lead to a change of the wettability, as shown in recent experimental works related to low‐salinity waterflooding, which is an enhanced oil recovery technology. Despite the significant research published on this topic, for the first time, we present how a change of the ionic strength alters the wettability in a pore network micromodel made of silanized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). We visualized the invasion of brine in an elongated hydrophobic PDMS micromodel, initially saturated with Fluorinert. Under different injection rates and ionic strengths and using image processing, we quantified the contact angle distribution in the flow network, the recovery curve with time, the brine breakthrough time, and the temporal change of resident saturation. The results imply that there is an optimal range of salinity at which saturation change accelerates and the breakthrough saturation maximizes, which highlights the concept of optimal salinity in wettability alteration. Also, we observed a shift of the contact angle distribution toward a more water‐wet state. Given the nonmonotonic trend of the breakthrough saturation with brine salinity, as well as recovery time versus the ionic strength, we conclude that the induced surface roughness is not the primary drive behind the accelerated saturation change. Therefore, the recovery time difference can be primarily attributed to the local alterations of the wetting properties of the porous medium due to the change of the ionic strength.

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Low salinity waterflooding for a carbonate reservoir: Experimental evaluation and numerical interpretation

Cited by 81 publications

References 15 publications

Low Salinity Waterflooding in Carbonate Reservoirs: Review of Interfacial Mechanisms

Low Salinity Waterflooding in Carbonate Reservoirs: Review of Interfacial Mechanisms

Low-salinity-based enhanced oil recovery literature review and associated screening criteria

Nonmonotonic Effects of Salinity on Wettability Alteration and Two‐Phase Flow Dynamics in PDMS Micromodels

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