2013-04 - European IOR Low Salinity Polymer
2013-04 - European IOR Low Salinity Polymer
2013-04 - European IOR Low Salinity Polymer
net/publication/262487554
CITATIONS READS
11 1,305
2 authors:
All content following this page was uploaded by Arne Skauge on 07 September 2014.
SUMMARY
Low salinity waterflooding has received increasing attention. However, the increased oil recovery by low
salinity is in most cases very limited. Combining low salinity with other EOR methods has been our focus
in recent years.
The combined effect of brine chemistry and added surfactant on oil recovery was addressed by Alagic and
Skauge in recent publications. Their results show incremental recoveries of 20-30% OOIP from low
salinity surfactant (LS-S) injection. The low salinity surfactant solutions used showed type II- phase
behaviour with the crude oil used in the tests.
We have in this study made core flood experiments to study the combined effect of low salinity and
polymer injection. The polymer used is HPAM and the concentration of polymer has been very low. The
change in injection brine viscosity is therefore very small, but the impact on oil recovery is significant.
The results also show the benefit of secondary low salinity flooding in combination with polymer injection
compared to tertiary injection.
Improved oil recovery by change from high salinity- to low salinity- waterflooding (LS) has received
great attention in the last 10-15 years (Morrow and Buckley, 2011). Numerous papers have been
presented in the literature dealing with and discussing the mechanism of possible enhanced oil
recovery by low salinity injection.
The low salinity effect (LSE) seems to be consistent better when LS is injected in a secondary mode
compared to tertiary injection, see review by Morrow and Buckley, 2011. Also combination of LS
with surfactant or polymer show increased recovery in secondary mode, Alagic and Skauge 2010,
Shaker and Skauge, 2013.
Wettability has in many papers been discussed as a key parameter for the LSE. However, the shift in
wettability is not well documented. Wettability tests before and after shift in salinity are rare, and
most indications are based on end point water relative permeability or the shape of the oil production
curve. Tang and Morrow (1999) showed that properties of the crude oil and the rock and the presence
of connate water all play an essential role in the sensitivity of oil recovery to brine composition.
Tang and Morrow (1999) performed displacement test on four different core materials, Berea,
Bentheimer, Clashach and reservoir cores. The Berea sandstone was tested also tested in clean fired
and acidized mode. Both refined and crude oil was used in the study and different brines with various
salinities ranging. It was observed a significant improvement in oil recovery for reservoir cores when
low salinity brine was injected instead of high salinity water. Another important result was that the
Berea cores that were fired and acidized, to stabilize fines, then oil recovery was insensitive to brine
salinity. It was also observed fines in the effluent indicating that fines migration may be a key factor
in the LSE. Oil recovery was only marginally improved in the more clay free sandstones cores like
Bentheimer and Clashach.
Among other mechanisms that have been suggested for explaining LSE during the last 10 years, are in
addition to fines migration, impact of alkaline flooding (McGuire et al, 2005), multicomponent ion
exchange (Lager et al, 2007), microscopically diverted flow (Skauge, 2008), double-layer expansion
(Ligthelm et al, 2009) and pH driven wettability change (Austad et al, 2010).
Injection of low salinity brine can give rise to a moderate improvement in oil recovery compared to
traditional high salinity waterflooding. This paper adds on results for secondary versus tertiary LS,
present data for water wet and non-water wet rock, and results using outcrop sandstones with different
clay content. Most important this study focuses on the large benefit of combined LS and polymer
and/or linked polymer solution (LPS) flooding especially on a secondary LS mode. LPS refers to
nano-sized (50-100 nm) polymer particles (Aarra et al 2005).
Experimental
Ion Concentration
(ppm)
Na+ 11156
Ca2+ 471
Mg2+ 1330
Cl- 20129
HCO3- 139
SO42- 2743
K+ 350
TDS 36318
Polymer and Linked Polymer Solutions. The polymer solution was prepared by dissolving the
calculated amount of Flopaam 3630S (SNF Floerger) polyacrylamide with a hydrolysis degree of 25-
30% and molecular weight of 20 million Dalton in low salinity water. The polymer solutions were
prepared in concentrations of 300 ppm and 1000 ppm. Linked polymer solution (LPS) was prepared
by adding Aluminium citrate (AlCit) crosslinker to polymer solution at a polymer to Aluminium ratio
of 30:1.
Oils. A North Sea stock tank oil (filtered) used as a crude oil for aging of core plugs and as the oil
phase in flow experiments. Compared to the viscosity of sea water and low salinity water, the
viscosity of this crude oil is considerably high and therefore to get more effective displacement in
flow experiments, the crude oil was diluted by addition of Xylene to reach a favorable viscosity.
Some of the properties of the injection fluids used in this experimental work are given in Table 2 at 22
°C.
Core Material. Core plugs from outcrop Berea (low permeable) and Bentheimer (high permeable)
sandstone were used in this study. Mineralogy measurements by X-ray diffraction (XRD) showed that
the Berea samples contain 7.9% clay minerals including 3.2% of kaolinite, while the clay content in
Bentheimer core was only 3.2% with no kaolinite (Table 3). Core plugs mounted in core holder were
placed in heat cabinet at 110 °C and were aged by injection of crude oil for different aging times in
order to get wettability state other than strongly water wet condition. The more detailed procedure of
wettability alteration of Berea and Bentheimer core plugs could be fined in Shaker and Skauge, 2012.
Displacement Experiments. Each two core plugs with approximately similar physical properties and
similar wettability states were mounted together in a longer core holder and confining pressure of 20
bars was applied. Seven displacement experiments are compared and discussed in this paper, four
experiments on Berea and three experiments on Bentheimer core plugs. In each group of core
samples, the aim was to investigate oil recovery potential of different injection fluids (SSW, LS,
polymer, and LPS) in different wettability conditions (i.e. strongly water wet, weakly water wet, and
intermediate-wet conditions). Furthermore, Berea core S6-S7 was selected to examine secondary
mode low salinity injection followed by polymer flooding at intermediate wettability condition. The
experiments were conducted at room condition (22 °C). All flow experiments started with flow rate of
0.1 cc/min and then flow rate increased to 0.2, 0.5, and 1.0 cc/min to eliminate capillary end effect as
much as possible. In some experiments, before LPS/polymer flooding, low salinity water was injected
at higher flow rates (e.g. 4-5 cc/min) to investigate possible extra oil production due to application of
higher flow rates. In each flow rate water was injected until no more oil was produced and pressure
difference across the cores was stabilized. The differential pressure across the core plugs was
continuously recorded by data gathering system during the flooding experiments. The physical
properties of composite core plugs used in this study are shown in Table 4.
Table 4 Physical Properties of Composite Core Plugs (S for Berea and B for Bentheimer cores).
a
Core L D PV Porosity Swi Kw Ko@Swi Ko@Swi
ID (cm) (cm) (ml) (%) (%PV) (mD) (mD) (mD)
S3-S4 12.34 3.73 25.80 19.13 21 100.07 125.73 77.20
S5-S8 12.16 3.73 24.60 18.51 31 86.13 95.02 76.74
S6-S7 12.44 3.72 25.39 18.78 22 101.02 127.72 93.93
b
S9-S10 11.90 3.72 25.01 19.28 22 98.38 120.26 -
B2-B4 11.88 3.70 32.72 25.60 34 2263.55 1910.40 1571.51
B8-B9 11.76 3.75 31.25 23.99 13 2007.28 1778.42 1489.53
b
B10-B11 9.99 3.73 26.06 23.81 11 2227.52 2121.17 -
a
Oil permeability after aging
b
Unaged cores
The design of the experiments in this study was such that to investigate EOR potential of combined
low salinity polymer flooding on different porous media with different physical properties, notably
different wettability states and permeabilities. Therefore, 4 displacement experiments were performed
on low permeable Berea samples (~100 mD) and 3 experiments were conducted on high permeable
Bentheimer samples (~ 2 Darcy). The core plugs were aged so that to establish different wettability
conditions of strongly water wet, weakly water wet and intermediate wet conditions. The cores were
Figure 1 shows the oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate as a
function of injected pore volumes for strongly water wet Berea composite core S9-S10 during tertiary
mode low salinity injection. The oil recovery profile for this core is typical profile for water wet
systems where almost no oil produced (no two phase production) after breakthrough even when the
injection rate was increased. The oil recovery factor at the end of SSW flooding was 51% OOIP and
injection of low salinity water did not change recovery factor. After tertiary low salinity injection in
this core, 300 ppm linked polymer solution (LPS) was injected when the residual oil saturation was
0.38 PV. No more oil production was observed with LPS injection even though the core experienced a
considerably higher pressure differential than it was during low salinity injection. This shows that the
trapping of oil during waterflooding is strong enough so that higher pressure buildup due to polymer
flooding could not mobilize and connect the trapped oil droplets.
Composite core S5-S8 was aged for one week and from spontaneous water imbibition the wettability
state for this core was considered as weakly water wet. As previous experiment, the flooding sequence
was initiated with SSW injection and followed by low salinity water injection and then by 300 ppm
LPS/polymer flooding. Figure 2 gives the experimental result for this core. The recovery factor from
normal waterflooding reached to about 64% OOIP. No oil was produced from tertiary mode low
salinity injection. The incremental oil recovery from 300 ppm LPS/polymer flooding was 5.6% OOIP.
The pressure buildup in the system was much lower than pressure buildup in strongly water wet core
during different flooding schemes, showing less water wetness of the porous media due to one week
aging with crude oil.
70 200
180
60 SSW LS LPS
50 140
120
40
100
30
80
20 60
40
10
20
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Injection rate Differential Pressure
Figure 1 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for strongly
water wet Berea composite core S9-S10 during tertiary mode low salinity injection.
90 90
SSW LS 300 ppm Polymer
80 80
LPS
Recovery Factor (% OOIP)
70 70
50 50
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Differential Pressure Injection rate
Figure 2 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for weakly
water wet Berea composite core S5-S8 during tertiary mode low salinity injection.
Figure 3 shows the recovery profile for the intermediate-wet composite core S3-S4 in tertiary mode
low salinity water-LPS. The oil recovery factor for this core at the end of SSW injection was about
64.4% OOIP. Tertiary mode low salinity injection started after SSW. No oil production observed
during lower injection rates. However a marginal oil production (about 0.4% OOIP) was observed at
rate of 1 cc/min where the recovery factor reached to 64.8% OOIP at the end of LS injection. After
low salinity injection, the core was subjected to injection of 300 ppm LPS at different rates to
examine the effect of high viscous force in reducing of residual oil saturation as well as to examine
whether oil recovery increases with increase in injection rate or not. The increased recovery factor
from this sequence was about 4.3% OOIP.
As Figure 3 shows, the attempt during this experiment was to investigate if increase in differential
pressure due to bump in injection rate of LPS/polymer results in higher oil recovery or not. Therefore
the injection rate of linked polymer solution was sequentially increased from 0.1 cc/min to 0.4 cc/min.
consequently, the differential pressure increased from 10 psi to 60 psi. The results however showed
that the oil production during LPS flooding is not very much dependent on polymer injection rate and
consequent differential pressure buildup. Furthermore, the calculated capillary number is on the order
of 10^-6 or below for all cores in this study and at different rates and injection fluid sequences. The
critical capillary number for this system is on the order of 10^-5. Thus the added viscosity by LPS
(2.2 cP), 300 ppm polymer (2.6 cP) and/or 1000 ppm polymer (7.5 cP) may not enough to mobilize
the capillary trapped oil. Therefore the increased oil recovery could be mainly attributed to improved
microscopic sweep efficiency (Aarra et. a. 2005) due to LPS/polymer propagation in porous media.
90
LS LPS 120
Recovery Factor (% OOIP)
80
60
80
50
60
40
30 40
20
20
10
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Differential Pressure Injection rate
Figure 3 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for
intermediate wet Berea composite core S3-S4 during tertiary mode low salinity injection.
Composite Berea core S6-S7 in intermediate-wet condition was selected to study the possible
increased oil recovery by combined low salinity water injection-polymer flooding in secondary mode.
The results showed higher oil recovery of about 13% OOIP in secondary mode low salinity injection
in core S6-S7 compared to tertiary mode in core S3-S4. The final oil recovery reached to more than
78% OOIP (Figure 4) leaving residual oil saturation of 17% PV compared to the residual oil
saturation in core S3-S4 which was 28% PV after SSW flooding. After low salinity injection, core S6-
S7 at considerably low residual oil saturation of 0.17 PV was injected with 300 ppm polymer
followed by injection of 300 ppm LPS at a constant injection rate of 0.1 cc/min. The increased oil
recovery was about 12% OOIP. The residual oil saturation was reduced to a very low value of 0.08
PV. The comparison of recovery profile of core S6-S7 during secondary mode low salinity injection
with recovery profile of core S3-S4 in tertiary mode low salinity injection is shown in Figure 5.
As discussed before, the increased differential pressure due to introducing 300 ppm polymer solution
(2.6 cP) could not be main contributor to more than 50% reduction in residual oil saturation. This is
because, the pressure differential in this experiment increased less than 2 times following the polymer
flooding compared to low salinity flood. While in other experiments in this study, for example cores
s9-S10 and S3-S4, considerable increase in pressure gives no significant change in residual oil
saturation. Therefore it seems that pressure buildup is not necessary condition for increased oil
recovery in this study.
The observations from this study also indicate that both 300 ppm polymer solution and 300 ppm LPS
solution have more or less similar potential to mobilize residual oil saturation under experimental
conditions of this study.
30
50 20
40
15
30
10
20
5
10
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Differential Pressure Injection rate
Figure 4 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for
intermediate wet Berea composite core S6-S7 during secondary mode low salinity injection.
100 3
300 ppm polymer/LPS
90
2.5
80
Recovery Factor (% OOIP)
40
1
30
20
0.5
10
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
S3-S4: 4-weeks aged Berea, Tertiary mode Low sal S6-S7:4-weeks aged Berea, Secondary mode Low sal
Figure 5 Comparison of recovery profile of core S6-S7 during secondary mode low salinity injection
with recovery profile of core S3-S4 in tertiary mode low salinity injection.
In two experiments, after normal low salinity flooding scheme, it was decided to inject low salinity
water at considerably high flow rates to show if higher rate and consequent higher differential
pressure is responsible for extra oil production.
Figures 6 and 7 show that applying further viscous force by introducing higher injection rate does not
significantly help further mobilization and production of trapped oil. Similar to Berea cores,
contribution of LPS/Polymer flooding to increased oil recovery in strong and weak water wet samples
was much lower than it was in intermediate wet core B2-B4. Injection of linked polymer solution
(LPS) with a flow rate of 0.1 cc/min in core B2-B4, did not produce any oil, but increasing the rate to
1 cc/min resulted in significant production of oil. The oil production continued furthermore by
injection of 1000 ppm polymer solution with rate of 1 cc/min, increasing the recovery factor of this
core from 65% OOIP at the end of low salinity injection to 78% OOIP at the end of polymer flooding.
The summary of the oil recovery data is given in Table 5.
80 50
SSW LS LPS 300 ppm Polymer
45
70
40
Recovery Factor (% OOIP)
60
40 25
20
30
15
20
10
10
5
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Differential Pressure Injection rate
Figure 6 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for strongly
water wet Bentheimer composite core B10-B11 during tertiary mode low salinity injection.
120
50
20
40
10 20
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Differential Pressure Injection rate
Figure 7 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for weakly
water wet Bentheimer composite core B8-B9 during tertiary mode low salinity injection.
100 10
90 9
SSW LS LPS 1000 ppmPolymer
80 LS 8
Recovery Factor (% OOIP)
60 6
50 5
40 4
30 3
20 2
10 1
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
Volume Injected (PVinj)
Recovery Factor Differential Pressure Injection rate
Figure 8 The oil recovery profile, differential pressure across the core and injection rate for
intermediate wet Bentheimer composite core B2-B4 during tertiary mode low salinity injection.
The results from this experimental work shows that addition of small amount of polymer (e. g. 300
ppm) to the injection low salinity water, which gives very small change in viscosity of injection fluid,
could result in increased oil recovery both in secondary mode and tertiary mode low salinity injection.
The results also show that wettability state of porous media is a key parameter to the EOR response
for combined low salinity polymer flooding, where in very strong water wet cases, increased oil
recovery by low salinity flooding is limited, while the higher oil recoveries were obtained with
intermediate wet cores. Also as Table 5 shows, secondary mode low salinity polymer flooding (core
S6-S7) gives considerably higher oil recovery compared to tertiary low salinity polymer flooding
(core S3-S4). The reason for increased oil recovery by applying combined low salinity polymer could
be related to less polymer retention in low salinity environment, and therefore the improvement of the
stability of low salinity flood which improves efficient banking of oil due to favourable mobility ratio
and/or inaccessible pore volumes, thereby increasing the displacement efficiency.
Conclusions
Based on the results obtained in this study following conclusions could be drawn:
Low salinity water flooding in tertiary mode gave very little additional oil recovery both in Berea and
Bentheimer core plugs at the experimental conditions of this study. However, more intermediate wet
cores showed some stronger response to low salinity flood with respect to oil recovery.
Considerable increased oil recovery in secondary mode was observed with low salinity flood in Berea
sample compared to high salinity flood.
Combined low salinity polymer flood gave significant extra oil both in Berea and Bentheimer core
material.
Similar to the low salinity effect, secondary LS also gave a better response for the polymer flood.
Based on experimental results, higher differential pressure during polymer flooding not necessarily
gives higher oil recovery. Polymer increased oil recovery even though the viscosity change, from a
capillary desaturation point of view, is not enough to mobilize capillary trapped oil. Therefore,
additional oil recovery could be attributed to improved microscopic sweep efficiency or alternatively
a combined effect with low salinity oil mobilisation.
Acknowledgements
The financial support from Norwegian Research Council, PETROMAKS program is acknowledged.
Abbreviations
References
Aarra, M., Bjørsvik, M., Høiland, H., Skodvin, T., Standnes, D. and Skauge, A. [2005] Linked
Polymer Solutions for Improved Recovery by Waterflooding. Paper C20 for the 13th European
Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Budapest, Hungary, April 25-27, 2005.
Alagic, E. and Skauge, A. [2010] Combined Low Salinity Brine Injection and Surfactant Flooding in
Mixed−Wet Sandstone Cores. Energy and Fuels. DOI:10.1021/ef1000908. 24. 3551- 3559.
Alagic, E., Spildo, K., Skauge, A. and Solbakken J. [2011] Effect of crude oil aging on low salinity
and low salinity surfactant floodin. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 78(2), August
2011, 220-227.
Austad, T., RezaeiDoust, A. and Puntervold, T. [2010] Chemical mechanism of low salinity water
flooding in sandstone reservoirs. Paper SPE 129767-PP, presented at the Improved Oil Recovery
Symposium, Tulsa, OK, April 24-28, 2010.
Ligthelm, D.J., Gronsveld, J., Hofman, J.P., Brussee, N.J., Marcelis, F. and van der Linde, H.A.
[2009] Novel waterflooding strategy by manipulation of injection brine composition. Paper SPE
119835 presented at the 2009 SPE EUROPEC/EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2009.
McGuire, P.L., Chatham, J.R., Paskvan, F.K., Sommer, D.M. and Carini, F.H. [2005] Low salinity oil
recovery: An exciting new EOR opportunity for Alaska’s North Slope. Paper SPE 93903 presented at
the 2005 SPE Western Regional Meeting, Irvine, CA, 2005.
Morrow, N. and Buckley, J. [2011] Improved Oil Recovery by Low-Salinity Waterflooding. Journal
of Petroleum Technology. 63, 106-112.
Shiran, B.S. and Skauge, A. [2013] Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) by Combined Low Salinity Water-
Polymer Injection. Energy and Fuels, in press.
Shiran, B.S. and Skauge, A. [2012] Wettability and Oil Recovery by Low Salinity Injection. SPE-
155651, paper prepared for presentation at the Improved Oil Recovery Symposium held in Muscat,
Oman April 15-18, 2012.
Skauge, A. [2008] Microscopic diversion - A new EOR technique. In: The 29th IEA Workshop &
Symposium, Beijing, China, 2008.
Tang, G.Q. and Morrow, N.R. [1999] Influence of brine composition and fines migration on crude
oil/brine/rock interactions and oil recovery. Journal of Petroleum science and Engineering, 24, 99-
111.