Chen, ZhangxinLiu, Chang2020-11-242020-11-242020-11-17Liu, C. (2020). Experimental Analysis of Displacement Characteristics and Production Potential for Marginal Resources in Highly Developed Reservoirs (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112781Waterflooding has become a common method for improving oil recovery in conventional oil reservoirs all over the world. Indeed, because most of the earlier exploited oilfields with large reserves have entered a development stage where high water cuts are present, new replacement resources are crucial so that conventional oilfield development will continue to meet increasing worldwide energy demands. The term – a marginal resource refers to those layers that have resource identification but cannot meet the criteria to be considered true reserves under the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) standards. In this research, the properties and displacement characteristic are experimentally investigated and huge amounts of data, which was provided by CNPC, is analyzed to show the feasibility of economic production of marginal resources. First, a property data collection was analyzed, which can be used to have basic understanding of marginal resources. 104 cores are selected to finish six experiments to get more understanding about the uniqueness of properties. CT test results provided by CNPC are also analyzed to realize a correlation between clay mineral content and production efficiency. Finally, the feasibility of production is shown by a previous development test result. The test and analysis results show that compared to reserves layers, a marginal resource has abundant clay mineral, whose average is 5.5%, which results in a more water-wet rock and more formation damage during a displacement process. On the other hand, its producible oil amount is less than those from conventional sand reservoirs layers. A combined development plan passing a CNPC economy audit shows that the marginal resource can be economically produced.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Highly developed reservoirsMarginal resourceEngineering--Petroleummaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/38405