Polymer retention and inaccessible pore volume in North Sea reservoir material

Lund, T.; Bjørnestad, Eva Ø.; Stavland, Arne; Gjøvikli, N.B.; Fletcher, Alistair; Flew, Steve; Lamb, Sean

doi:10.1016/0920-4105(92)90005-l

Cited by 15 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Note that in corefloods conducted in Brent sandstone reservoir cores by Lund et al (1992) using a xanthan biopolymer, the retention of polymer was found to be critically dependent on the cleaning procedure. On the other hand, IPV was insensitive to the cleaning procedure, as well as the oil saturation, temperature and clay content which is in full agreement with the findings of this work.…”

Section: Polymer Behavior In Water-wet and Oil-wet Berea Sandstone Comentioning

confidence: 98%

Experimental Investigation of Polymer Flow through Water- and Oil-Wet Berea Sandstone Core Samples

Hatzignatiou

Moradi

Stavland

2013

EAGE Annual Conference &Amp; Exhibition Incorporating SPE Europec

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Polymer behavior under different wettability conditions is investigated through coreflood experiments conducted on cores with different wettabilities, but of the same pore structure. Berea core samples are used in the experiments with the wettability of one core altered to oil-wet conditions. A series of polymer and water floodings are performed with the polymer properties in porous media calculated and the formation wettability evaluated based on the measured laboratory data.The effect of wettability on polymer behavior in porous media is the main focus of this work. In the first part of this study, the bulk rheology of a hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) dissolved in two synthetic brines of different salinities is studied. A Carreau-type model is fitted on the experimentally measured data and the effect of salinity on the rheological properties of the HPAM polymer is investigated. A power-law model is also developed for the same experimental data.For the core flooding experiments, a new setup is implemented in which, instead of measuring manually the core effluent concentrations during the polymer flooding, a capillary tube is connected to the core outlet. Using the notion of the intrinsic viscosity, a formula is derived to estimate the polymer concentration from the pressure drop recorded across a capillary tube mounted at the core effluent. In addition, basic properties related to polymer flow in porous media, such as polymer adsorption, inaccessible pore volume, and apparent viscosity are evaluated for the cores and both wetting conditions.From the bulk and coreflood experiments conducted in this work, several important findings are reported. The examined polymer solutions display both upper Newtonian and shear thinning flow regimes in our bulk rheology investigation, with the effect of brine salinity on polymer viscosities to be significant. From the core flooding experiments, both polymer shear thickening and degradation flow regimes are observed on the water-wet core sample. The oil recovery factors and oil recovery vs. time profiles for the Berea oil-and water-wet core samples vary significantly and in accordance to the expected wetting conditions of the cores. The Berea water-wet core has the highest value of polymer retention, inaccessible pore volume (IPV) and permeability reduction factor (RRF) compared to the oil-wet core sample. The results displayed in this work confirm that the formation wettability has a significant effect on the polymer behavior in porous media.

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Section: Polymer Behavior In Water-wet and Oil-wet Berea Sandstone Comentioning

confidence: 98%

Experimental Investigation of Polymer Flow through Water- and Oil-Wet Berea Sandstone Core Samples

Hatzignatiou

Moradi

Stavland

2013

EAGE Annual Conference &Amp; Exhibition Incorporating SPE Europec

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“…Solutions were prepared at high pH and the results are representative for non-gelling solutions of basic silicate. The experimental procedure has been described earlier (Lund et al 1992), and adsorption and desorption values are calculated by mass balance. Silicate concentration and temperature were varied and results are presented in Figs 4 and 5.…”

Section: Adsorption Of Silicatementioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory evaluation and field tests of a silicate gel system intended for use under North Sea conditions

Kristensen

Lund

Титов³

et al. 1995

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This paper describes results from laboratory experiments and field tests, using basic Na-silicate. The work described has been performed as a part of the programme to qualify chemical systems for large-scale in-depth permeability modification processes in the North Sea.Gelling properties of basic silicate solutions have been measured as a function of pH, silicate concentration and temperature. The gelation times decrease with decreasing pH and increasing concentration. Increasing temperature will also give shorter gelation times. Adsorption of silicate is found to be linearly increasing with increasing silicate concentration.The rock buffer capacity is found to be strongly dependent on mineralogy. As an example, kaolinite has a buffer capacity more than ten times higher than other minerals. Both adsorption and buffer capacity will strongly influence the composition and gelation properties of the silicate solution in an in-depth treatment.In total, three field tests have been performed. The test area was chosen on the basis of Gullfaks reservoir data. From a one well formation test, field information was obtained on silicate adsorption and buffer capacity. The field results confirmed the laboratory data. The other two field pilots were run to obtain information on an optimum injection scheme for injection of silicate solutions into reservoirs with brines with high salinity and hardness. A preflush of fresh water was found to condition the critical reservoir parameters and allow for good injectivity of the basic silicate solution. The potential of water shut-off treatments of high watercut producers was examined in two well tests. The wells produced before treatment at a watercut of 96%. In one of the wells the watercut was reduced to less than 10% at the same fluid production rate and the watercut has been lower than 20% for more than eight months after treatment.

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“…However, the physics of polymer flow in porous media is very rich and complex so that this apparent viscosity also includes a variety of other important, often even predominant, phenomena. These include non-Newtonian rheology, retention mechanisms (Huh et al 1990), thermochemical or mechanical degradation of polymer chains (Gao 2013;Maerker 1975) or inaccessible pore volume (Lund 1992). Due to the combined effects of these phenomena, µ app includes rock geometrical and structural effects and may be very different from the bulk viscosity µ bulk , with apparent thinning or thickening effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polymer Flow Through Porous Media: Numerical Prediction of the Contribution of Slip to the Apparent Viscosity

et al. 2017

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OATAO is an open access repository that collects the work of Toulouse researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible. This is an author-deposited version published in : http://oatao.univ-toulouse.fr/ Eprints ID : 18221 Abstract The flow of polymer solutions in porous media is often described using Darcy's law with an apparent viscosity capturing the observed thinning or thickening effects. While the macroscale form is well accepted, the fundamentals of the pore-scale mechanisms, their link with the apparent viscosity, and their relative influence are still a matter of debate. Besides the complex effects associated with the rheology of the bulk fluid, the flow is also deeply influenced by the mechanisms occurring close to the solid/liquid interface, where polymer molecules can arrange and interact in a complex manner. In this paper, we focus on a repulsive mechanism, where polymer molecules are pushed away from the interface, yielding a so-called depletion layer in the vicinity of the wall. This depletion layer acts as a lubricating film that may be represented by an effective slip boundary condition. Here, our goal is to provide a simple mean to evaluate the contribution of this slip effect to the apparent viscosity. To do so, we solve the pore-scale flow numerically in idealized porous media with a slip length evaluated analytically in a tube. Besides its simplicity, the advantage of our approach is also that it captures relatively well the apparent viscosity obtained from core-flood experiments, using only a limited number of inputs. Therefore, it may be useful in many applications to rapidly estimate the influence of the depletion layer effect over the macroscale flow and its relative contribution compared to other phenomena, such as nonNewtonian effects.

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Polymer retention and inaccessible pore volume in North Sea reservoir material

Cited by 15 publications

References 2 publications

Experimental Investigation of Polymer Flow through Water- and Oil-Wet Berea Sandstone Core Samples

Experimental Investigation of Polymer Flow through Water- and Oil-Wet Berea Sandstone Core Samples

Laboratory evaluation and field tests of a silicate gel system intended for use under North Sea conditions

Polymer Flow Through Porous Media: Numerical Prediction of the Contribution of Slip to the Apparent Viscosity

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