Oil displacement mechanisms of viscoelastic polymers in enhanced oil recovery (EOR): a review

By B. Wei, L. Romero-Zerón, Denis Rodrigue. Journal of Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology, 2014

205 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Polymer flooding has proved economically and technically successful in numerous enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects, which can often increase oil recovery from 12 to 15 % of the original oil in place. When a reservoir is flooded with viscous polymer solution, the mobility ratio between the displacing fluid (i.e., water) and the displaced fluid (i.e., oil) becomes more favorable if compared to conventional water flooding. Therefore, the volumetric sweep efficiency and correspondingly the overall oil recovery are effectively improved. Currently, there is a widespread idea that polymer flooding is inefficient in improving the microscopic oil displacement (at pore scale). However, recent research based on laboratory studies and pilot field testing has proved otherwise. It seems that the viscoelastic properties of polymeric systems indeed improve the microscopic displacement efficiency of residual oil. This paper reviews and emphasizes the recovery mechanisms that have been proposed to explain oil displacement by polymer flooding within oil reservoirs. The aim of this review is to provide a synopsis of polymer flooding which is rapidly emerging as a popular and advantageous EOR process.

Subfields: Mechanical Engineering, Ocean Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5ce7680ee3313e45dff603785581bf36fc00d606

Citations in the corpus

• An overview of chemical enhanced oil recovery: recent advances and prospects (2019, unknown): “The increased resistance of the polymer to water diverts subsequently injected water into unswept or poorly swept (low permeable) regions of the reservoir through segregation of flow pathways and layer formation on pore wall by the adsorbed polymer, thereby, resulting in a higher oil recovery [42].”