PE6705 WATER FLOODING AND ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY L T P C

3 0 0 3

OBJECTIVE:
To enable the students to understand the basics of oil recovery methods in oil & gas Industry.
UNIT I 9
Enhanced oil recovery methods – Definition – Schematic representation of enhanced oil Recovery –
Techniques involved in EOR – Chemical flooding – Hydrocarbon or Gas injection – Thermal recovery
methods.
UNIT II 9
Chemical oil recovery methods – Polymer, surfactant/polymer and alkaline flooding – Carbon dioxide (CO 2)
flooding.
UNIT III 9
Thermal recovery – fire flooding – steam flooding – mechanism of hydrocarbon miscible flooding
-mechanism of nitrogen and flue gas flooding – mechanism of CO 2 flooding – Mechanism of
surfactant/polymer flooding – Mechanism of alkaline flooding – Mechanism of steam flooding.
UNIT IV 9
Criteria for gas injection - Criteria for chemical methods – criteria for thermal methods. Microbial EOR
methods (MEOR).
UNIT V 9
Laboratory design for EOR – Preliminary test – Water analysis – Oil analysis – Core testing – Viscosity
testing.
TOTAL : 45 PERIODS
OUTCOMES:
Students will be able to get the clear idea, better understanding and can get introduced with different types of
recovery methods which are employed in the oil and gas Engineering.

TEXT BOOKS:
1. Von Pollen. H.K. and Associates. Inc., “Fundamentals of Enhanced oil Recovery” – Penn Well publishing
co., Tulsa (1980)
2. Latil.M. et al., “Enhanced oil recovery” – Gulf publishing co. Houston (1980)

REFERENCE:
1. Standard Hand Book of Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering” – 2 nd Edition 2005-William C.Lyons & Gary
J.Plisga-Gulf professional publishing comp (Elsevier).
 Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is the process of recovering oil not already extracted from an oil reservoir
through primary or secondary recovery techniques. Those techniques rely on natural or enhanced
pressures to force oil out of the ground.
 Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude
oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a
reservoir's oil, compared to 20% to 40% using primary and secondary recovery. According to the US
Department of Energy, there are three primary techniques for EOR: thermal, gas injection, and chemical
injection. More advanced, speculative EOR techniques are sometimes called quaternary recovery.

 EOR Classification:
Enhanced Oil Recovery

Fig 2
What is Enhanced Oil Recovery?
In a conventional reservoir drilled with conventional
methods, the expected initial extraction rate of available
hydrocarbons maybe as much as 15% – leaving 85+% of
hydrocarbons in the reservoir.
 Pump jacks and initial gas injection or thermal
recovery can increase that capture to the 25-30%
range.
 By applying EOR techniques you can extract another
10-15% of the initially available hydrocarbons.

These additional hydrocarbons to flow through to the well

head can be done by two major ways:
 Increase Pressure: EOR is sometimes referred to as
“water-flooding” in a nod to this technique, where
large quantities of liquid (or gas) are pumped into the
formation in order to encourage the release and
migration of hydrocarbons towards the producing
well.
 Increase Permeability: To increase permeability we
treat the reservoir in such a way as to widen the
pathways, so that the hydrocarbons will have an
easier time flowing through the reservoir and into the
target producing well.
 Hydraulic Fracturing is an example of a
technique that increases permeability, although
for EOR there are a number of other methods
including adding heat, solvents, and other
chemical treatments.
  Of course as with most oil field innovation, nowadays we do a little of both in most cases, and in fact
almost always add something to decrease viscosity as well – by adding heat or surfactants into the
equation.
Fig 1

What is a Producing well?

The typical method for EOR is to send your liquid or gas or stimulant through some designated wells – injection
wells, or “flooders” – and use that pressure to drive hydrocarbons to designated wells for production Fig 1.

What is Flooding?
This discussion of techniques is very high-level, and is not designed to take into account the reality of heterogeneous
rock structures and the numerous of considerations like hydrocarbon gravity, temperature, and pressure that exist
underground.
When the “five-spot” water floods (so named because the layout of four injection wells around 1 recovery well
resembled the 5 spot side of a gaming die) were originally practiced in the 1920s, excess saline water or brine
produced from the drilling operation was used for injection, but over time a variety of other substances have been
introduced.
 Water floods – H2O is generally available in quantity and inexpensive, but most effective if treated to be
compatible with the existing reservoir’s “connate” water, and can damage the existing rock. Water flooding
has been practiced since the 1920s.
 Connate Water: In geology and sedimentology, connate fluids are liquids that were
trapped in the pores of sedimentary rocks as they were deposited. These liquids are
largely composed of water, but also contain many mineral components as ions in
solution.
 Steam floods – Thermal injection can provide even more recovery boost as well as make the hydrocarbons
less viscous (eg; makes them flow more easily).
 Miscible floods – One of the most common types of EOR is Miscible Flooding, where you use water to
balance out the voided pressure within the reservoir and then flood gas, normally CO 2 or Nitrogen, into the
reservoir. The solvent properties of the gas encourage more oil recovery. As a side benefit, injecting CO 2 into
these reservoirs effectively helps remove it from the atmosphere.
 Image Source: http://petrowiki.org/Miscible_flooding
 Flooding with hydrocarbons – Some reservoirs have been flooded with hydrocarbons – methane or diesel
for example – with strong results.
 Additional solvents and surfactants – Very rarely is one technique used to the exclusion of all others, and in
many cases additional chemicals are incorporated into the flood to aid in recovery, notably by reducing
viscosity or surface tension and further easing the flow of the hydrocarbons.
Other techniques
Operators aren’t restricting their Enhanced Oil Recovery strategies to these methods, of course.
 Stacked fracking– operators in areas with lots of different hydrocarbon bearing formations – like the Permian
Basin – have experimented with fracking vertical wells. This allows them to get additional recovery from the
tight “source” rock zones while still focusing their primary effort (and economies) on the reservoir rock within
the play area.
 Fracking — otherwise known as hydraulic fracturing (a term that sounds decidedly more
menacing) — is the process by which shale deposits are forced open. Notably, these deposits
generally hold gas reserves (fracking is mostly used to access crude oil; however, it can be
used for petroleum and other substances as well). In short, it is a process we use to retrieve
contents hidden beneath Earth’s surface. Fracking is accomplished by using a drill to
stimulate horizontal, vein-like tunnels that branch into a normal (vertical) well.
 Acid – Using Hydrochloric (HCl) or hydrofluoric (HF) acid is an effective means of increasing the
permeability in certain rock structures.
Water Flooding: