A Study on a Copolymer Gelant With High Temperature Resistance for Conformance Control

Due to the limited temperature resistance, the deep conformance control technology of using the conventional hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) gel failed to enhance oil recovery in high-temperature heterogeneous oil reservoirs. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a gelant with high temperature resistance to meet the demands of increasing oil production and decreasing water cut in high-temperature heterogeneous oil reservoirs. In this paper, a copolymer is first synthesized by the method of inverse emulsion polymerization using 2-acrylamide-2-tetradecyl ethyl sulfonic acid (AMC16S), acrylamide (AM), and acrylic acid (AA). The developed copolymer has a highly branching skeleton and can resist temperature up to 100 °C. And then, a gelant with high temperature resistance and good shear resistance can be formed by mixing a certain proportion of the developed copolymer and polyethyleneimine (PEI). After the controllable gelation, a copolymer gel is formed and the formed gel can maintain the stable performance for a long time in the high-temperature environment. Experimental results show that the developed gelant can be applied in the conformance control of high-temperature heterogeneous oil reservoir.