Fatah A (2022) The Effect of Silica Dissolution on Reservoir Properties during Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) Flooding. J Petrochem Eng 2(1):29-36
Fatah A (2022) The Effect of Silica Dissolution on Reservoir Properties during Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) Flooding. J Petrochem Eng 2(1):29-36
Fatah A (2022) The Effect of Silica Dissolution on Reservoir Properties during Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) Flooding. J Petrochem Eng 2(1):29-36
Fatah A (2022) The Effect of Silica Dissolution on Reservoir Properties during Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) Flooding. J Petrochem Eng 2(1):29-36
Abstract
Chemical flooding is one of the effective methods to recover large volumes of oil from sandstone formations after primary depletion. However, silica dissolution often occurs during Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) flooding, affecting the petro-physical properties of the formation. To address this issue, samples from Berea sandstone formations were treated with various brine solutions, through static tube tests and core flooding experiments. Analytical tests such as DR/2800 spectrophotometer and scanning electron microscope were used to evaluate the silica solubility and the alteration in mineral content. The results indicated that the silicate contents decreased after the saturation due to silica solubility in the solution. Increasing brine salinity to 40,000ppm and introducing Magnesium and Calcium ions to the solution, reduces the silicate contents by 5.03 % and 7.32 %. Moreover, saturating the samples with ASP solution, further reduced the silicate contents by 14.86 %. This reduction is associated with a relative increase in silica solubility and pH of the solution. Silica dissolution affects the pore microstructure, which resulted in increasing the porosity and pore volume after the core flooding. The injection of the ASP solution increased the porosity by 5.83%, thus the pore volume increased from 17.72 to 18.76cc. This is associated with the high silica solubility and the increase of solution pH in the ASP solution. The permeability of the samples generally reduced after the core flooding, due to the silica solubility. However, injecting the ASP solution, resulted in a major reduction of the permeability by more than 75%. These changes in the petro-physical properties can lead to severe formation damage, and affect hydrocarbon production. This study assists in understanding the impact of silica dissolution during ASP treatment and addresses the factors involved. Efficient utilization of chemical flooding can help mitigating silicate scaling within the formation, and extend field productivity.
Keywords
Silica dissolution; Silica solubility; Chemical EOR; Porosity; Permeability
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.
