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Experimental Investigation of Polymer Flooding for more Heavy Oil Recovery; Comparing to the Thermal EOR Method

Ashoorian, Sefatallah | 2013

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 45249 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical & Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Ayatollahi, Sahab; Masihi, Mohsen
  7. Abstract:
  8. Heavy oil reservoirs are becoming more important as the oil price increase and more light oil reservoirs are being depleted. Thermal oil recovery, especially steam flooding is considered as the most efficient EOR technique for heavy oil reservoirs that stays on the top of the recent EOR field experiences. However this method is not applicable in some reservoir conditions like deep reservoirs or reservoirs with thin pay zones.
    Due to sever viscous fingering during water flooding heavy oil reservoirs, a large amount of oil would remain untouched in the reservoir. Polymer flooding could be a potential method for enhanced oil recovery by improving sweep efficiency. However there haven’t been numerous studies on the technical and the economic aspects of this project. The use of this chemical technique for more oil recovery from heavy oil reservoirs is the main target of this study. A set of experimental tests has been performed to find the best polymer formulation for improving the mobility ratio. Salinity, temperature and the shear rate are some of the critical parameters which their effects on the polymer solution viscosity were examined. Using the most appropriate condition, several core flooding tests have been performed with satisfactory oil recovery efficiency.
    At last a synthetic model is developed and the function of water flooding, polymer flooding and the steam injection were investigated through reservoir simulation. Using simulation outputs the NPV value as an important economic criterion and technical parameters for these three procedures were discussed. According to the simulation and economical results polymer flooding can be used as an efficient and economic method for recovering heavy oil
  9. Keywords:
  10. Recovery Factor ; Heavy Oil ; Polymer Flooding ; Economic Analysis ; Net Present Value ; Enhanced Oil Recovery ; Thermal Method

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