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Huge volumes of produced water are being generated from oil & gas fields worldwide. If this produced water can be treated for reuse as low salinity injection water, it becomes a real game changer to promote sustainability in IOR/EOR projects. In this study, the low salinity treated produced water obtained from zero liquid discharge (ZLD) technology has been used to evaluate the potential of recycled produced water in polymer flooding, gel- and foam-based mobility control processes. Both static and dynamic tests were conducted at ambient and elevated temperatures using high salinity injection water (HSIW) and treated produced water (TPW). Rheometer was used to determine the viscosity characteristics of sulfonated polyacrylamide polymer solutions at 25oC and 75oC. Static glass bottles tests were conducted with gel solutions formulated using 3,000 ppm sulfonated polyacrylamide and 150 ppm Cr(III) crosslinker at 95oC to determine the gel strength. Foam half-life times were measured to assess the foam stability. Finally, a core flood was conducted to evaluate the incremental oil recovery potential of using treated produced water in polymer flooding. The results demonstrated that the polymer concentrations are reduced by about 8-times (from 2000 ppm to 250 ppm) to achieve the same viscosity in TPW as HSIW to significantly lower the polymer consumption requirements. The gelation times of the gel in HSIW was one to two hours, while that of the gel in TPW was one to two days. Such considerable elongation of gelation time obtained with treated produced water would favorably deliver the gel deep into reservoir to achieve more efficient conformance improvement. The foam generated using the treated produced water showed at least 10-times longer foam half-life than that produced using the high salinity injection water. The core flood results conducted using 250 ppm polymer in treated produced water showed about 18% total incremental oil recovery after high salinity water injection. These findings clearly demonstrate the promising potential of treated produced water in different IOR/EOR processes to lower chemical concentrations and achieve better mobility control/conformance improvement for higher oil recovery. This work, for the first time, evaluates the beneficial impact of treated produced water in different mobility control processes involving polymer, gels, and foams. The promising experimental results obtained suggest that the proposed method of using low salinity treated produced water not only increases oil recovery due to synergistic effects, but also establishes a new sustainability frontier in IOR/EOR projects due to produced water recycle/reuse.
Huge volumes of produced water are being generated from oil & gas fields worldwide. If this produced water can be treated for reuse as low salinity injection water, it becomes a real game changer to promote sustainability in IOR/EOR projects. In this study, the low salinity treated produced water obtained from zero liquid discharge (ZLD) technology has been used to evaluate the potential of recycled produced water in polymer flooding, gel- and foam-based mobility control processes. Both static and dynamic tests were conducted at ambient and elevated temperatures using high salinity injection water (HSIW) and treated produced water (TPW). Rheometer was used to determine the viscosity characteristics of sulfonated polyacrylamide polymer solutions at 25oC and 75oC. Static glass bottles tests were conducted with gel solutions formulated using 3,000 ppm sulfonated polyacrylamide and 150 ppm Cr(III) crosslinker at 95oC to determine the gel strength. Foam half-life times were measured to assess the foam stability. Finally, a core flood was conducted to evaluate the incremental oil recovery potential of using treated produced water in polymer flooding. The results demonstrated that the polymer concentrations are reduced by about 8-times (from 2000 ppm to 250 ppm) to achieve the same viscosity in TPW as HSIW to significantly lower the polymer consumption requirements. The gelation times of the gel in HSIW was one to two hours, while that of the gel in TPW was one to two days. Such considerable elongation of gelation time obtained with treated produced water would favorably deliver the gel deep into reservoir to achieve more efficient conformance improvement. The foam generated using the treated produced water showed at least 10-times longer foam half-life than that produced using the high salinity injection water. The core flood results conducted using 250 ppm polymer in treated produced water showed about 18% total incremental oil recovery after high salinity water injection. These findings clearly demonstrate the promising potential of treated produced water in different IOR/EOR processes to lower chemical concentrations and achieve better mobility control/conformance improvement for higher oil recovery. This work, for the first time, evaluates the beneficial impact of treated produced water in different mobility control processes involving polymer, gels, and foams. The promising experimental results obtained suggest that the proposed method of using low salinity treated produced water not only increases oil recovery due to synergistic effects, but also establishes a new sustainability frontier in IOR/EOR projects due to produced water recycle/reuse.
This study comprises an experimental investigation and comparison of different brine compositions for waterflooding applications in carbonate reservoirs. In particular, a novel zero liquid discharge (ZLD) brine, which is obtained from produced water treatment and features no significant salinity, is benchmarked against conventional high salinity injection water. Such a study is essential to promote produced water reuse in waterflooding projects and achieve improved oil recovery. A detailed characterization of interfacial properties as well as static and dynamic oil recovery tests were conducted using high salinity injection and treated produced water. To understand electrostatic interactions between interfaces, zeta-potentials of oil/brine emulsions and calcite nanoparticle/brine suspensions were measured at 25°C and 70°C. Furthermore, oil-brine interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angle measurements were carried out at reservoir conditions (70°C and 2200 psi). The contact angles of captive oil bubbles were examined on aged reservoir rock and crystalline calcite. Incremental hydrocarbon recovery was studied through a multi-stage Amott cell experiment and a high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) core flood at 70°C. The zeta-potential results indicate a generally negative effective charge at both the oil/brine and the calcite/brine interfaces. Additionally, an electric double layer (EDL) collapse with increasing salinity and temperature is observed for both interfaces. The reduction in zeta-potential magnitude is accompanied by a decrease in electrostatic repulsion between the two interfaces, promoting oil-wet behavior. This observation is confirmed by the contact angle results, which display a wettability transition from a water-wet state for ZLD treated produced water to an oil-wet state for high-salinity injection water. The incremental recovery from spontaneous imbibition also showed this wettability trend. ZLD water resulted in an oil recovery increment equal to the recovery by high salinity water imbibition. Finally, the core flood revealed the full potential of ZLD treated water, yielding an incremental oil recovery of 4-5% after high salinity water injection in a carbonate core. This work has demonstrated, for the first time, the potential of treated produced water for improved oil recovery in carbonates. Consistent trends were obtained from zeta potentials, contact angles, spontaneous imbibition, and core floods to confirm the wettability alteration capability of treated produced water to achieve incremental oil recovery. These findings would eventually promote produced water recycling/reuse and environmental sustainability in waterflooding projects.
The oil and gas industry consumes substantial volumes of fresh water and salts for various oilfield applications. At the same time, large volumes of various high-salinity brine streams are produced during the production of oil and gas. These produced water streams, not being utilized for any other applications such as reservoir reinjection for pressure maintenance, are becoming an increasing burden for the environment. From a societal and governance perspective, an economical Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) process coupled with mineral recovery is the most sustainable path to follow. Several existing water treatment technologies can be considered to obtain produced water ZLD. However, to meet the economic and environmental targets, a careful selection of technologies is adapted to achieve full recovery of water and minerals from a given produced water stream. A low temperature evaporation and crystallization dynamic vapor recovery is used for high salinity (up to 200,000 ppm TDS) produced water. The rejected brine from these processes is further treated to separate valuable minerals selectively. For the high salinity produced water, dynamic vapor recovery technology is proven to have a recovery efficiency of greater than 75%, generating less than 200 ppm TDS water for industrial and agricultural use. The reject stream (saturated salt solution) from this process is subjected to mineral recovery, resulting in the recovery of 99.3% pure NaCl as one of the first recovered salts. Several existing separation technologies are evaluated to recover additional valuable minerals (Calcium, Strontium, Magnesium, and Lithium products) from the reject stream of the NaCl recovery process. Lessons learned from other industrial brine treatment projects dealing with complex brines are carried over to the Oil and Gas applications to introduce the effective, reliable, and economical treatment of brines such as produced water. The revenue from the treated water and minerals can be more to offset the capital and operating costs. Thus, "any non-utilized Produced Water could be priced as positively valued feedstock instead of a zero or negatively valued waste product."
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