Skauge, A.; Zamani, N.; Gausdal Jacobsen, J.; Shaker Shiran, B.; Al-Shakry, B.; Skauge, T. Polymer Flow in Porous Media: Relevance to Enhanced Oil Recovery. Colloids Interfaces2018, 2, 27.
Skauge, A.; Zamani, N.; Gausdal Jacobsen, J.; Shaker Shiran, B.; Al-Shakry, B.; Skauge, T. Polymer Flow in Porous Media: Relevance to Enhanced Oil Recovery. Colloids Interfaces 2018, 2, 27.
Skauge, A.; Zamani, N.; Gausdal Jacobsen, J.; Shaker Shiran, B.; Al-Shakry, B.; Skauge, T. Polymer Flow in Porous Media: Relevance to Enhanced Oil Recovery. Colloids Interfaces2018, 2, 27.
Skauge, A.; Zamani, N.; Gausdal Jacobsen, J.; Shaker Shiran, B.; Al-Shakry, B.; Skauge, T. Polymer Flow in Porous Media: Relevance to Enhanced Oil Recovery. Colloids Interfaces 2018, 2, 27.
Abstract
Polymer flooding is one of the most successful chemical EOR methods, and is primarily implemented to accelerate oil production by sweep improvement. However, other benefits have extended the utility of polymers. During the last decade, it has been evaluated for an increasing number of fields, both offshore and onshore. This is a consequence of improved polymer properties, which extends the use to HTHS (high temperature high salinity) conditions and of improved understanding of flow mechanisms such as for heavy oil mobilization. A key issue in understanding polymer performance is to control and predict in-situ porous medium rheology. The first part of this paper reviews recent developments in understanding polymer flow in porous medium. Especially, polymer in-situ rheology and injectivity is discussed. The second part of this paper reports polymer flow experiments using the most applied polymer for EOR processes, HPAM (partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide). The experiments address high rate near-wellbore behavior (radial flow) as well as reservoir rate steady state flow (linear flow) and discuss differences observed in terms of flow conditions. In addition, impact of oil on polymer rheology was investigated, and compared to single-phase polymer flow in Bentheimer sandstone rock material. Presence of oil leads to a reduction in apparent viscosity.
Keywords
polymer flow; polymer in-situ rheology in porous medium; theoretical analysis; experimental results, linear and radial flow
Subject
Engineering, Energy and Fuel Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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