Offshore Polymer Flooding Optimization Using Surrogate-Based Methodology

Abstract

A surrogate-based optimization methodology was employed to optimize the offshore polymer flooding process based on a three-level Box-Behnken design and response surface method. The design variables selected in this study were polymer concentration, injection rate, and duration, and the performance measure was incremental net present value (NPV). Sensitivity analysis was performed and a quadratic model equation was fitted to the samples using the least-squares method and 0.98 of R 2 adj meant a good fit. Optimization was performed using the constructed model and verified by numerical simulations. The possible range of maximum incremental NPV was studied using Monte Carlo simulations. The results showed that the methodology is effective and efficient and will be used as guidance for future petroleum engineering optimization.

Viscosity Loss and Hydraulic Pressure Drop on Multilayer Separate Polymer Injection in Concentric Dual-Tubing

“…Despite the existing challenges, many researchers have studied the advances and technological method for polymer flooding in heavy oil reservoir [12][13][14] and the field application shows that the polymer flooding of heavy oils could result in incremental recoveries ranging from 7.5 to 25% OOIP [15]. Moreover, due to high demand for energy, polymer flooding has been successfully applied in offshore oil production in China [16][17][18][19]. As the development of the oil field, the main objectives of polymer flooding turns into type II formation, which has strong vertical heterogeneity between layers, and the physical properties between the high-permeability and low-permeability layer differ greatly [20][21][22].…”