Effect of Adding Surfactant Slug to Polymer Flooding in Cross flow Multi-layered Reservoir [ READ ]
U. Hassan, M.B. Adamu, M.K. Abba and A.A. Shamsuddeen
Natural reservoir energy recovers less than one third of the original oil in place (OOIP) leaving substantial part of the oil in the reservoir. Due to high energy demand and difficulties in exploring and developing new oil fields; several enhanced oil recovery methods are being developed in order to optimise production in marginal oil fields. In an effort to understand the effect of adding surfactant slug to polymer flooding in a cross flow multi-layered reservoir, a simulation study was carried out for polymer flood and surfactant/polymer flood at different water cuts of 30%, 50% and 65% in order to compare and predict the incremental oil recovered by each of the two enhanced oil recovery methods. The polymer slug consists of water, calcium, alcohol, tracers and was injected at the rate of 112ft3/day for 1500 days at the different water cuts. Both the polymer and the surfactant floods were carried out for a period of 1500 days using one injection well and one production well. The simulation results show that polymer flooding on the average can recover about 27% of the original oil in place while surfactant-polymer flooding can recover up to 45% of the original oil in place (OOIP). This shows that adding surfactant to polymer can increase oil recovery by about 18% on the average for both single and multi-layer reservoirs provided there is communication at the contact planes.
U. Hassan, M.B. Adamu, M.K. Abba and A.A. Shamsuddeen
Natural reservoir energy recovers less than one third of the original oil in place (OOIP) leaving substantial part of the oil in the reservoir. Due to high energy demand and difficulties in exploring and developing new oil fields; several enhanced oil recovery methods are being developed in order to optimise production in marginal oil fields. In an effort to understand the effect of adding surfactant slug to polymer flooding in a cross flow multi-layered reservoir, a simulation study was carried out for polymer flood and surfactant/polymer flood at different water cuts of 30%, 50% and 65% in order to compare and predict the incremental oil recovered by each of the two enhanced oil recovery methods. The polymer slug consists of water, calcium, alcohol, tracers and was injected at the rate of 112ft3/day for 1500 days at the different water cuts. Both the polymer and the surfactant floods were carried out for a period of 1500 days using one injection well and one production well. The simulation results show that polymer flooding on the average can recover about 27% of the original oil in place while surfactant-polymer flooding can recover up to 45% of the original oil in place (OOIP). This shows that adding surfactant to polymer can increase oil recovery by about 18% on the average for both single and multi-layer reservoirs provided there is communication at the contact planes.
