Formation damage by fines migration during low-salinity water injection can greatly affect field-scale waterflooding projects. In this paper, we present the basic governing equations for single-phase flow with detachment, migration and straining of natural reservoir fines. We perform laboratory corefloods with low-salinity water injections and monitor the breakthrough particle concentration and pressure drop across the core. The analytical model for linear flow matches the laboratory data with high accuracy. The analytical model for radial flow predicts well behaviour from laboratory-tuned coefficients. The calculations show that fines migration during low-salinity water injection causes significant injectivity decline. For typical values of fines-migration model coefficients, injectivity index declines 2–8 times during 10−3 pore volumes injected and the radius of the damaged zone does not exceed a few metres. We present two field cases on waterflooding and low-salinity water injection. The radial model presents good agreement with well injectivity field data.
