An Evaluation of Water-Soluble Polymers For Secondary Oil Recovery - Parts 1 and 2

1979 ◽  
Vol 31 (05) ◽  
pp. 553-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miklos T. Szabo
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Water Soluble Polymers ◽  
Soluble Polymers ◽  
Secondary Oil Recovery

Review of characterization methods for water-soluble polymers used in oil sand and heavy oil industrial applications

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 460-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomeng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
Environmental Fate ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Oil Sand ◽  
Characterization Methods ◽  
Water Soluble Polymers ◽  
Soluble Polymers ◽  
Terrestrial Animal

Water-soluble polymers have been used in many applications in the oil sand and heavy oil industries, including drilling, enhanced oil recovery, tailings treatment, and water treatment. Because they are water soluble, residual polymer can remain with the aqueous phase, potentially leading to environmental impacts. Investigating the environmental fate of these water-soluble polymers is particularly important as they may be toxic to aquatic biota or terrestrial animal life. However, since polymers are somewhat complex because of their high molecular weight, there are many challenges in their measurement, especially in complex matrices. In this paper, polymers used in oilfield applications, particularly in the oil sand or heavy oil industries, are reviewed and various analytical methods for polymer characterization are compared.

Flow of Hydrophobically Modified Water-Soluble-Polymer Solutions in Porous Media: New Experimental Insights in the Diluted Regime

SPE Journal ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (01) ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Dupuis ◽  
David Rousseau ◽  
René Tabary ◽  
Bruno Grassl
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Polymer Concentration ◽  
Adsorbed Layer ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Water Soluble Polymer ◽  
Improved Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Soluble Polymers ◽  
Resistance Factors ◽  
Soluble Polymers ◽  
Hydrophobically Modified

Summary The specific molecular structure of hydrophobically modified water-soluble polymers (HMWSPs), also called hydrophobically associative polymers, gives them interesting thickening and surface-adsorption abilities compared with classical water-soluble polymers (WSPs), which could be useful in polymer-flooding and well-treatment operations. However, their strong adsorption obviously can impair their injectivity, and, conversely, the shear sensitivity of their gels can be detrimental to well treatments. Determining for which improved-oil-recovery (IOR) application HMWSPs are best suited, therefore, remains difficult. The aim of this work is to bring new insight regarding the interaction mechanisms between HMWSPs and rock matrix and the consequences concerning their propagation in reservoirs. A consistent set of HMWSPs with sulfonated polyacrylamide backbones and alkyl hydrophobic side chains together with an equivalent WSP was synthesized and fully characterized. HMWSP and WSP solutions were then injected in model granular packs. As expected, with HMWSPs, high resistance factors (or mobility reductions, Rm) were observed. Yet, within the limit of the injected volumes, the effluent showed the same viscosity and polymer concentration as the injected solutions. A first significant outcome concerns the specificities of the Rm curves during HMWSP injections. Rm increases took place in two steps. The first corresponded to the propagation of the viscous front, as observed with WSP, whereas the second was markedly delayed, occurring several pore volumes (PV) after the breakthrough. This result is not compatible with the classical picture of multilayer adsorption of HMWSPs but suggests that injectivity is controlled solely by the adsorption of minor polymeric species. This hypothesis was confirmed by reinjecting the collected effluents into fresh cores; no second-step Rm increases were observed. Brine injections in HMWSP-treated cores revealed high residual resistance factors (or irreversible permeability reductions, Rk), which can be attributed to the presence of thick polymer-adsorbed layers on the pore surface. Nevertheless, Rk values strongly decreased when increasing the brine-flow rate. This second significant outcome shows that the adsorbed-layer thickness is shear-controlled. These new results should lead to proposing new adapted filtration and injection procedures for HMWSPs, aimed, in particular, at improving their injectivity.

scholarly journals THE USE OF OIL-SOLUBLE POLYMERS TO ENHANCE OIL RECOVERY IN HARD TO RECOVER HYDROCARBONS RESERVES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudad H Al-Obaidi ◽  
Patkin AA ◽  
Chang WJ
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Salt Content ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Heterogeneous Structure ◽  
Water Soluble Polymers ◽  
Soluble Polymers ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Effective Development

Currently, the share of new fields in many places over the world, which are at the initial stage of development, is constantly growing.Fields often have a complex heterogeneous structure with hard-to-recover reserves, therefore, for their effective development, it is necessary to use completely new approaches, including improving existing methodsof enhanced oil recovery.In this work, experimental verification of a new technology using oil-soluble polymers and comparing it with technology based on the use of water-soluble polymers has been performed. In laboratory conditions, a newtechnology for polymer flooding at an early stage of development using oil-soluble polymers was developed and experimentally confirmed. The new technology has made it possible to increase the degree of reservesrecovery by an average of 30% compared to existing methods of enhanced oil recovery and to solve a number of problems arising from the use of water-soluble polymers. Such problems are the freezing of aqueouspolymer solutions in winter and the poor solubility of polymers in formation waters with a high salt content. The use of new technology can also reduce energy costs by 25%.

Water-soluble polymers in enhanced oil recovery

1990 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Morgan ◽  
Charles L. McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Water Soluble Polymers ◽  
Soluble Polymers

Flow of Hydrophobically Modified Water-Soluble Polymers in Porous Media: Controlled Resistance Factors vs. Flow-Induced Gelation in the Semidilute Regime

SPE Journal ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (04) ◽  
pp. 1196-1206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Dupuis ◽  
David Rousseau ◽  
René Tabary ◽  
Bruno Grassl
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Membrane Filtration ◽  
Water Soluble ◽  
Mobility Control ◽  
Throat Radius ◽  
Water Soluble Polymers ◽  
Resistance Factors ◽  
Soluble Polymers ◽  
Hydrophobically Modified

Summary The associative properties of hydrophobically modified water soluble polymers (HMWSPs) are attractive for improved oil recovery (IOR) because of both their enhanced thickening capability, compared with classical water-soluble polymers (for mobility-control applications), and their permeability-reduction, or plugging, ability (for well-treatment applications). In previous works, we have studied the injectivity of HMWSP made of sulfonated polyacrylamide backbones and alkyl side chains in the dilute regime and have shown, in particular, that it was largely governed by adsorption. In this paper, we report new experimental data on the injectivity of the same class of HMWSP solutions in the semidilute regime. From membrane filtration tests at imposed flow rate, we have first observed the formation of a filter cake made of HMWSP physical gel, which remained largely permeable to polymers. Our observations are compatible with the creation of channels within the gel. This leads to a gel-filtration process, entailing modifications of the solution's viscosimetric properties, which can be explained by a rearrangement of the intra- and interchain hydrophobic bonds in the solution. The second part of our work consisted of injectivity tests in model granular packs. We have performed comparative experiments in porous media with variable permeabilities, but at the same shear rate in the pore throats. Results show that, above a critical permeability kC, or a critical pore-throat radius rpC, HMWSP injection led to stable resistance factors, with values close to the solution's viscosity, and that, at less than kC or rpC the very high resistance factors observed suggest that flow-induced gelation of the HMWSP takes place. Furthermore, resistance factors measured over the core internal sections are compatible with an in-depth formation of the gel. These insights could be of use for designing HMWSP better suited to mobility-control operations and for tuning HMWSP-injection conditions for profile/conformance-control operations.

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