Modeling of Low Salinity Waterflooding in Petroleum Reservoirs
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2020-09-29
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Abstract
Oil production from reservoirs is traditionally categorized into three phases: primary, secondary, and tertiary (also known as Enhanced Oil Recovery, EOR). Per the US Department of Energy, utilizing primary and secondary methods of production can leave up to 75% of the oil in place. The way to further increase oil production is through EOR. Although more expensive to employ in a field, EOR can increase production from a well up to 75% recovery.Low Salinity Waterflooding (LSW) is a promising technique for improving oil recovery in petroleum reservoirs because of its relatively simple implementation, lower cost, and fewer environmental problems associated with this process compared to other EOR methods. Worldwide companies (including BP, Shell, Statoil, and Saudi Aramco) are involved in the research and development of this technique.Most studies on the subject have focused on the experimental and some on the theoretical aspects, with varying, sometimes contradictory conclusions. However, the optimum conditions that improve oil recovery by LSW flooding are still uncertain due to the lack of understanding of the underlying fluid-rock interaction mechanisms. There has been much modeling research on the modeling of the process in sandstone reservoirs in an attempt to understand these mechanisms and identify the main ones that maximize the recovery in order to design successful field applications. Most of these studies have concluded that the macroscopic mechanism for improved recovery in LSW is wettability alteration due to different microscopic rock-fluid and fluid-fluid interactions when low salinity water is introduced to the system. A few investigations have focused on the possibility of fine migration and its potential effect during LSW.In this thesis, I will review and model the mechanisms in oil reservoirs and focus on fine migration and its similarity to the polymer flooding and asphaltene flow and precipitation whose models exist in commercial reservoir simulators. Parts of this research will be integrated into a reservoir simulator to test and validate the ideas. At the end, I will extend my work into hybrid LSW processes and their optimization.
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Nikpoor, M. (2020). Modeling of Low Salinity Waterflooding in Petroleum Reservoirs (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.