New Recovery Method for Carbonate Reservoirs through Tuning the Injection Water Salinity: Smart WaterFlooding

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali A. Yousef ◽  
Salah Hamad Al-Salehsalah ◽  
Mohammed Saleh Al-Jawfi
Keyword(s):  
Carbonate Reservoirs ◽  
Water Salinity ◽  
Recovery Method ◽  
Injection Water

Enhanced Waterflood for Carbonate Reservoirs - Impact of Injection Water Composition

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Gupta ◽  
Griffin Griffin Smith ◽  
Lu Hu ◽  
Thomas Willingham ◽  
Mauro Lo Cascio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbonate Reservoirs ◽  
Water Composition ◽  
Injection Water

Successful in the Lab, Not as Effective in the Field? Uncertainties in the Field Observations of Low Salinity Water Flooding in Sandstone and Carbonate Reservoirs-A Critical Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Navpreet Singh ◽  
Hemanta Kumar Sarma
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Carbonate Reservoirs ◽  
Water Flooding ◽  
Water Salinity ◽  
Field Scale ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Low Salinity Water ◽  
Salinity Water

Abstract Low salinity waterflooding has been an area of great interest for researchers for almost over three decades for its perceived "simplicity," cost-effectiveness, and the potential benefits it offers over the other enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. There have been numerous laboratory studies to study the effect of injection water salinity on oil recovery, but there are only a few cases reported worldwide where low salinity water flooding (LSW) has been implemented on a field scale. In this paper, we have summarized the results of our analyses for some of those successful field cases for both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. Most field cases of LSW worldwide are in sandstone reservoirs. Although there have been a lot of experimental studies on the effect of water salinity on recovery in carbonate reservoirs, only a few cases of field-scale implementation have been reported for the LSW in carbonate reservoirs. The incremental improvement expected from the LSW depends on various factors like the brine composition (injection and formation water), oil composition, pressure, temperature, and rock mineralogy. Therefore, all these factors should be considered, together with some specially designed fit-for-purpose experimental studies need to be performed before implementing the LSW on a field scale. The evidence of the positive effect of LSW at the field scale has mostly been observed from near well-bore well tests and inter-well tests. However, there are a few cases such Powder River Basin in the USA and Bastrykskoye field in Russia, where the operators had unintentionally injected less saline water in the past and were pleasantly surprised when the analyses of the historical data seemed to attribute the enhanced oil recovery due to the lower salinity of the injected water. We have critically analyzed all the major field cases of LSW. Our paper highlights some of the key factors that worked well in the field, which showed a positive impact of LSW and a comparative assessment of the incremental recovery realized from the reservoir visa-a-vis the expectations generated from the laboratory-based experimental studies. It is envisaged that such a comparison could be more meaningful and reliable. Also, it identifies the likely uncertainties (and their sources) associated during the field implementation of LSW.

Could Atomic-Force Microscopy Force Mapping Be a Fast Alternative to Core-Plug Tests for Optimizing Injection-Water Salinity for Enhanced Oil Recovery in Sandstone?

SPE Journal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (03) ◽  
pp. 0720-0729 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.. Hassenkam ◽  
M. P. Andersson ◽  
E.. Hilner ◽  
J.. Matthiesen ◽  
S.. Dobberschütz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atomic Force Microscopy ◽  
Double Layer ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Salinity ◽  
Core Material ◽  
Force Microscopy ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Atomic Force ◽  
Force Mapping ◽  
Injection Water

Summary Core tests demonstrated that decreasing the salinity of injection water can increase oil recovery. Optimizing injection-water salinity, however, would offer a clear economic advantage for several reasons. Too-low salinity risks swelling of the clays that would lead to permanent reservoir damage, but evidence of effectiveness with moderate-salinity solutions would make it less difficult to dispose of produced water. The goal is to define boundary conditions so injection-water salinity is high enough to prevent reservoir damage and low enough to induce the low-salinity (LS) effect, while keeping costs and operational requirements at a minimum. Traditional core-plug testing for optimizing conditions has some limitations. Each test requires a fresh sample; core-testing requires sophisticated and expensive equipment; and reliable core-test data require several months because cores must be cleaned, restored, and aged before the tests can begin. It is also difficult to compare data from one core with results from another because no two cores are identical, making it difficult to distinguish between effects resulting from different conditions and effects resulting from different cores. Gathering statistics is limited by the time required for each test and the fact that core material is in short supply. Thus, our aim was to explore the possibility of a less-expensive, faster alternative by probing the fundamental chemical mechanisms behind the LS effect. We developed a method that uses atomic-force microscopy (AFM) to investigate the relationship between the wettability of pore surfaces and water salinity. We functionalize AFM tips with organic molecules and use them to represent tiny oil droplets of nonpolar molecules, and we use sand grains removed from core plugs to represent the pore walls in sandstone. We bring our “oil”-wet tip close to the sand-grain surface and measure the work of adhesion between the tip and the surface. Repeated probing of the surface with the tip produces data that one can convert to maps of adhesion, and we can estimate contact angle. Adhesion work is proportional to wettability and is directly correlated with the salinity of the fluid in contact with the tip and the particle surface. From our measurements, the threshold values for the onset of the LS response are 5,000 to 8,000 ppm, which benchmark remarkably well with observations from core-plug tests. From a mechanistic perspective, the correlation between salinity and adhesion provides evidence for the role of electrical-double-layer (EDL) expansion in the LS response; expansion of the double layer decreases oil wettability. Because AFM experiments can be performed relatively quickly on very little material, they give the possibility of testing salinity response on many samples throughout a reservoir and for gathering statistics. Our approach provides a range of data that one can use to screen conditions to maximize the value of the core-plug testing and to provide extra data that would be too time consuming or too expensive to gather with traditional methods alone. Thus, AFM force mapping is an excellent complement to traditional core-plug testing.

A Fast Alternative to Core Plug Tests for Optimising Injection Water Salinity for EOR

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Hassenkam ◽  
M. Andersson ◽  
E. Hilner ◽  
J. Matthiesen ◽  
S. Dobberschutz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Salinity ◽  
Injection Water

A Novel Hybrid Enhanced Oil Recovery Method by Smart Water-Injection and Foam-Flooding in Carbonate Reservoirs

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anas. M. Hassan ◽  
Mohammed Ayoub ◽  
Mysara Eissa ◽  
Hans Bruining ◽  
Abdullah Al-Mansour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Injection ◽  
Carbonate Reservoirs ◽  
Recovery Method ◽  
Smart Water ◽  
Foam Flooding
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