Field Implementation of In-Depth Conformance Gel Treatment Prior to Starting an ASP Flooding Pilot

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed T. Al-Murayri ◽  
Abrahim Hassan ◽  
Naser Alajmi ◽  
Jimmy Nesbit ◽  
Bastien Thery ◽  
...  

Abstract Mature carbonate reservoirs under waterflood in Kuwait suffer from relatively low oil recovery due to poor volumetric sweep efficiency, both areal, vertically, and microscopically. An Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) pilot using a regular five-spot well pattern is in progress targeting the Sabriyah Mauddud (SAMA) reservoir in pursuit of reserves growth and production sustainability. SAMA suffers from reservoir heterogeneities mainly associated with permeability contrast which may be improved with a conformance treatment to de-risk pre-mature breakthrough of water and chemical EOR agents in preparation for subsequent ASP injection and to improve reservoir contact by the injected fluids. Each of the four injection wells in the SAMA ASP pilot was treated with a chemical conformance improvement formulation. A high viscosity polymer solution (HVPS) of 200 cP was injected prior to a gelant formulation consisting of P300 polymer and X1050 crosslinker. After a shut-in period, wells were then returned to water injection. Injection of high viscosity polymer solution (HVPS) at the four injection wells showed no increase in injection pressure and occurred higher than expected injection rates. Early breakthrough of polymer was observed at SA-0561 production well from three of the four injection wells. No appreciable change in oil cut was observed. HVPS did not improve volumetric sweep efficiency based on the injection and production data. Gel treatment to improve the volumetric conformance of the four injection wells resulted in all the injection wells showing increased of injection pressure from approximately 3000 psi to 3600 psi while injecting at a constant rate of approximately 2,000 bb/day/well. Injection profiles from each of the injection well ILTs showed increased injection into lower-capacity zones and decreased injection into high-capacity zones. Inter-well tracer testing showed delayed tracer breakthrough at the center SA-0561 production well from each of the four injection wells after gel placement. SA-0561 produced average daily produced temperature increased from approximately 40°C to over 50°C. SA-0561 oil cuts increased up to almost 12% from negligible oil sheen prior to gel treatments. Gel treatment improved volumetric sweep efficiency in the SAMA SAP pilot area.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed T. Al-Murayri ◽  
Abrahim A. Hassan ◽  
Deema Alrukaibi ◽  
Amna Al-Qenae ◽  
Jimmy Nesbit ◽  
...  

Abstract Mature carbonate reservoirs under waterflood in Kuwait suffer from relatively low oil recovery due to poor sweep efficiency, both areal and microscopic. An Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) pilot is in progress targeting the Sabriyah Mauddud (SAMA) reservoir in pursuit of reserves growth and production sustainability. SAMA suffers from reservoir heterogeneities mainly associated with permeability contrast which may be improved with a conformance treatment to de-risk pre-mature breakthrough of water and chemical EOR agents in preparation for subsequent ASP injection and to improve reservoir contact by the injected fluids. Design of the gel conformance treatment was multi-faceted. Rapid breakthrough of tracers at the pilot producer from each of the individual injectors, less than 3 days, implied a direct connection from the injectors to the producer and poses significant risk to the success of the pilot. A dynamic model of the SAMA pilot was used to estimate in the potential injection of either a high viscous polymer solution (~200 cp) or a gel conformance treatment to improve contact efficiency, diverting injected fluid into oil saturated reservoir matrix. High viscosity polymer injection scenarios were simulated in the extracted subsector model and showed little to no effect on diverting fluids from the high permeability streak into the matrix. Gel conformance treatment, however, provides benefit to the SAMA pilot with important limitations. Gel treatment diverts injected fluid from the high permeability zone into lower permeability, higher oil saturated reservoir. After a gel treatment, the ASP increases the oil cut from 3% to 75% while increasing the cumulative oil recovery by more than 50 MSTB oil over ASP following a high viscosity polymer slug alone. Laboratory design of the gel conformance system for the SAMA ASP pilot involved blending of two polymer types (AN 125SH, an ATBS type polymer, and P320 VLM and P330, synthetic copolymers) and two crosslinkers (chromium acetate and X1050, an organic crosslinker). Bulk testing with the polymer-crosslinker combinations indicated that SAMA reservoir brine resulted in not gel system that would work in the SAMA reservoir, resulting in the recommendation of using 2% KCl in treated water for gel formulation. AN 125 SH with S1050 produce good gels but with short gelation times and AS 125 SH with chromium acetate developed low gels consistency in both waters. P330 and P320 VLM gave good gels with slow gelation times with X1050 crosslinker in 2% KCl. Corefloods with the P330-X 1050 showed good injectivity and ultimately a reduction of permeability of about 200-fold. A P330-X 1050 was recommended for numerical simulation studies. Numerical simulator was calibrated by matching bulk gel viscosity increases and coreflood permeability changes. Numerical simulation indicated two of the four injection wells (SA-0557 and SA-0559) injection profile will change compared to water. Overall injection rate was reduced by the conformance treatment and was the corresponding oil rate. Total oil production from the center pilot production well (SA-0560) decreased with gel treatment but ultimately increased to greater rates


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 00123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Wachowicz-Pyzik ◽  
Anna Sowiżdżał ◽  
Leszek Pająk

Attaining the proper values of main production parameters of operating geothermal installation: outflow, temperature, water level in production well and required injection pressure in a well for reinjection may significantly reduce the costs of energy production. Lower production costs compensate high investment expenditures and reduce the energy prices down to an acceptable level, competitive in relation to conventional energy sources. In the research project, we used the TOUGH2 simulator to select configuration of geothermal doublet and to estimate the discharge of potential geothermal installation localized in the vicinity of Kalisz and based upon the existing Zakrzyn IG-1 well. Considering the measurements and other information gained during the drilling operations, the conceptual model was generated. In order to select the optimal configuration of the doublet, which would ensure the maximum yield, the analysis was carried out on the influence of production/injection wells spacing on production parameters. The optimization aimed to determine the minimum spacing which would guarantee that the injection well would not affect the temperature of fluid discharged from the production well within the presumed circulation time.


2018 ◽  
Vol 171 ◽  
pp. 04001
Author(s):  
Warut Tuncharoen ◽  
Falan Srisuriyachai

Polymer flooding is widely implemented to improve oil recovery since polymer can increase sweep efficiency and smoothen heterogeneous reservoir profile. However, polymer solution is somewhat difficult to be injected due to high viscosity and thus, water slug is recommended to be injected before and during polymer injection in order to increase an ease of injecting this viscous fluid into the wellbore. In this study, numerical simulation is performed to determine the most appropriate operating parameters to maximize oil recovery. The results show that pre-flushed water should be injected until water breakthrough while alternating water slug size should be as low as 5% of polymer slug size. Concentration for each polymer slugs should be kept constant and recommended number of alternative cycles is 2. Combining these operating parameters altogether contributes to oil recovery of 53.69% whereas single-slug polymer flooding provides only 53.04% which is equivalent to 8,000 STB of oil gain.


2015 ◽  
Vol 733 ◽  
pp. 59-62
Author(s):  
Yue Wang ◽  
Guang Sheng Cao ◽  
Gui Long Wang ◽  
Sheng Kun Sun ◽  
Xin Li

By using polymer solution with high viscosity, polymer flooding can enhance oil recovery by reducing the mobility ratio of displacing fluid and oil in formation. Therefore, the core of polymer flooding's ground transportation is to keep the viscosity of polymer solution unchanged. According to the process layout of polymer ground transportation, the experimental device was designed and manufactured to determine viscosity loss of pipelines and elbow. We obtained the viscosity loss variation law of the polymer solutions of different concentrations at different flow velocities when they flow through the pipeline and elbow. The experimental results showed that the viscosity of polymer solution will decrease after the polymer solution flow through pipelines and elbow, due to the shear effect. The higher the velocity, the more significant the viscosity loss.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1739
Author(s):  
María García-Camprubí ◽  
Carmen Alfaro-Isac ◽  
Belén Hernández-Gascón ◽  
José Ramón Valdés ◽  
Salvador Izquierdo

Micro-surface texturing of elastomeric seals is a validated method to improve the friction and wear characteristics of the seals. In this study, the injection process of high-viscosity elastomeric materials in moulds with wall microprotusions is evaluated. To this end, a novel CFD methodology is developed and implemented in OpenFOAM to address rubber flow behaviour at both microscale and macroscale. The first approach allows analyzing the flow perturbation induced by a particular surface texture and generate results to calculate an equivalent wall shear stress that is introduced into the macroscale case through reduced order modelling. The methodology is applied to simulate rubber injection in textured moulds in an academic case (straight pipe) and a real case (D-ring seal mould). In both cases, it is shown that textured walls do not increase the injection pressure and therefore the manufacturing process is not adversely affected.


Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Huang ◽  
Xiaohui Li ◽  
Cheng Fu ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
Haoran Cheng

Previous studies showed the difficulty during polymer flooding and the low producing degree for the low permeability layer. To solve the problem, Daqing, the first oil company, puts forward the polymer-separate-layer-injection-technology which separates mass and pressure in a single pipe. This technology mainly increases the control range of injection pressure of fluid by using the annular de-pressure tool, and reasonably distributes the molecular weight of the polymer injected into the thin and poor layers through the shearing of the different-medium-injection-tools. This occurs, in order to take advantage of the shearing thinning property of polymer solution and avoid the energy loss caused by the turbulent flow of polymer solution due to excessive injection rate in different injection tools. Combining rheological property of polymer and local perturbation theory, a rheological model of polymer solution in different-medium-injection-tools is derived and the maximum injection velocity is determined. The ranges of polymer viscosity in different injection tools are mainly determined by the structures of the different injection tools. However, the value of polymer viscosity is mainly determined by the concentration of polymer solution. So, the relation between the molecular weight of polymer and the permeability of layers should be firstly determined, and then the structural parameter combination of the different-medium-injection-tool should be optimized. The results of the study are important for regulating polymer injection parameters in the oilfield which enhances the oil recovery with reduced the cost.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A. Baloch ◽  
J.M. Leon ◽  
S.K. Masalmeh ◽  
D. Chappell ◽  
J. Brodie ◽  
...  

Abstract Over the last few years, ADNOC has systematically investigated a new polymer-based EOR scheme to improve sweep efficiency in high temperature and high salinity (HTHS) carbonate reservoirs in Abu Dhabi (Masalmeh et al., 2014). Consequently, ADNOC has developed a thorough de-risking program for the new EOR concept in these carbonate reservoirs. The de-risking program includes extensive laboratory experimental studies and field injectivity tests to ensure that the selected polymer can be propagated in the target reservoirs. A new polymer with high 2-acrylamido-tertiary-butyl sulfonic acid (ATBS) content was identified, based on extensive laboratory studies (Masalmeh, et al., 2019, Dupuis, et al., 2017, Jouenne 2020), and an initial polymer injectivity test (PIT) was conducted in 2019 at 250°F and salinity >200,000 ppm, with low H2S content (Rachapudi, et al., 2020, Leon and Masalmeh, 2021). The next step for ADNOC was to extend polymer application to harsher field conditions, including higher H2S content. Accordingly, a PIT was designed in preparation for a multi-well pilot This paper presents ADNOC's follow-up PIT, which expands the envelope of polymer flooding to dissolve H2S concentrations of 20 - 40 ppm to confirm injectivity at representative field conditions and in situ polymer performance. The PIT was executed over five months, from February 2021 to July 2021, followed by a chase water flood that will run until December 2021. A total of 108,392 barrels of polymer solution were successfully injected during the PIT. The extensive dataset acquired was used to assess injectivity and in-depth mobility reduction associated with the new polymer. Preliminary results from the PIT suggest that all key performance indicators have been achieved, with a predictable viscosity yield and good injectivity at target rates, consistent with the laboratory data. The use of a down-hole shut-in tool (DHSIT) to acquire pressure fall-off (PFO) data clarified the near-wellbore behaviour of the polymer and allowed optimisation of the PIT programme. This paper assesses the importance of water quality on polymer solution preparation and injection performance and reviews operational data acquired during the testing period. Polymer properties determined during the PIT will be used to optimise field and sector models and will facilitate the evaluation of polymer EOR in other giant, heterogeneous carbonate reservoirs, leading to improved recovery in ADNOC and Middle East reservoirs.


1990 ◽  
Vol 258 (1) ◽  
pp. G65-G72 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Sirois ◽  
G. L. Amidon ◽  
J. H. Meyer ◽  
J. Doty ◽  
J. B. Dressman

The influence of particle size, particle density, fluid viscosity, and fluid flow rate on the gastric emptying of nondigestible solids was investigated in five dogs with chronically placed fistulas. Six hundred and fifty particles of 13 different size and density combinations were administered simultaneously with 500 ml of either normal saline or low-, medium-, or high-viscosity polymer solutions. The canine stomach was found to discriminate between these solids on the basis of size and density at all levels of viscosity above saline. The observed patterns of emptying are consistent with the hypothesis that gastric emptying of nondigestible solids is governed in part by hydrodynamics and correlate well with the gastric-emptying coefficient (GEC), a dimensionless grouping of variables that takes the form GEC = (Dpy/Dp) [g(rho f - rho p)Dp2]/[eta (nu)] where [g(rho f - rho p)] is particle buoyancy consisting of fluid (rho f) and particle (rho p) densities and g, the gravitational constant; (Dp) is the particle diameter, (Dpy) the estimated pyloric diameter, eta the fluid viscosity, and (nu) the average linear velocity of fluid exiting the stomach.


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