Oil recovery by imbibition from polymer solutions

Thesis/Dissertation · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1989

OSTI ID:6761623

Ghedan, S G

The success of a polymer flood in a water-wet fractured reservoir is dependent on the recovery of oil from the matrix blocks by the polymer solution imbibition. This thesis presents the results of an experimental and theoretical study investigating this problem. Two sets of experiments were performed, static and dynamic. The results of the static experiments, in which a matrix block was surrounded by the imbibing fluid, showed that the amounts of oil that ultimately could be recovered by the water and polymer solutions are practically equal. However, the rate of oil recovery by the polymer solutions is always less than that of the water. This delay in the oil recovery was found to be a function of the polymer solutions molecular weight, concentration, and salt content. The theoretical investigation of the experimental data found that the polymer retention and the high apparent viscosity were the causes for the delay. The dynamic experiments consisted of flooding oil-saturated fractured cores through the fracture by water and different polymer solutions. The oil recovery behavior in these experiments was found to be dependent not only on the rate of injected fluid imbibition from the fracture into the matrix blocks, but also on the operating injection rate and the displacement efficiency of the oil in the fracture by the injected fluid. It is also dependent on the amount of viscous forces that are generated by the injected fluid flow through the fracture. Under certain conditions, polymer flooding of the fractures gave greater oil recovery than water flooding, whereas under others it did not.

• Research Organization: Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6761623
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
ADDITIVES
DISPLACEMENT FLUIDS
DRILL CORES
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLOW RATE
FLUID INJECTION
FLUIDS
FOSSIL FUELS
FRACTURED RESERVOIRS
FUELS
INJECTION WELLS
MOLECULAR WEIGHT
OIL SATURATION
OIL WELLS
OIL YIELDS
PERFORMANCE
PERFORMANCE TESTING
PETROLEUM
POLYMERS
QUANTITY RATIO
RECOVERY
SALINITY
SATURATION
TESTING
VISCOSITY
WATERFLOODING
WELLS
YIELDS