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Enhanced Oil Recovery PE 510: Dr. Mohamed El-Houni

This document discusses various enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods used to improve oil recovery efficiency beyond primary and secondary recovery. It covers conventional waterflooding techniques and challenges like viscous fingering caused by unfavorable mobility ratios between injected water and displaced oil. Other topics include factors affecting areal sweep efficiency like injection patterns, permeability variations, and wettability effects on capillary pressure and displacement. The goal of EOR methods is to either reduce mobility ratios between fluids or act on capillary and interfacial forces to improve displacement efficiency.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
93 views

Enhanced Oil Recovery PE 510: Dr. Mohamed El-Houni

This document discusses various enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods used to improve oil recovery efficiency beyond primary and secondary recovery. It covers conventional waterflooding techniques and challenges like viscous fingering caused by unfavorable mobility ratios between injected water and displaced oil. Other topics include factors affecting areal sweep efficiency like injection patterns, permeability variations, and wettability effects on capillary pressure and displacement. The goal of EOR methods is to either reduce mobility ratios between fluids or act on capillary and interfacial forces to improve displacement efficiency.
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY

PE 510
EOR METHODS

DR. MOHAMED EL-HOUNI

FALL 2013
Methods to Improve Recovery Efficiency

DISCOVERY

Conventional
Oil Recovery Natural Flow Artificial Lift

Methods to Improve
Recovery Efficiency

Enhanced Oil Recovery Production/Injection Control

Strategic Wellbore Placement


The Intent of EOR Methods:

Improve sweep efficiency by reducing the


mobility ratio between injected and in-
place fluids,
Eliminate or reduce the capillary and
interfacial forces and thus displacement
efficiency,
Act on both phenomena simultaneously
Waterflooding

Wettability:
When two immiscible phases are placed in contact with a
solid surface, one of the phases is usually attracted to the
surface more strongly than the other phase. This phase is
identified as the wetting phase while the other phase is the
non-wetting phase. Wettability is explained quantitatively
by examining the force balances between two immiscible
fluids at the contact line between the two fluids (water and
oil) and the solid. Contact angle, is the principal measure
of wettability for a smooth, homogeneous surface.
Waterflooding
Wettability:
Laboratory experiments have proved that rock
wettability affects oil displacement. The term
wettability can be defined as "the tendency of one
fluid to spread or to adhere to a solid surface in the
presence of other immiscible fluids".
Wettability refers to interaction between fluid and solid phases.
Reservoir rocks (sandstone, limestone, dolomite, etc.) are the solid surfaces
Oil, water, and/or gas are the fluids
Waterflooding

CONTACT ANGLE
Oil
ow
Oil q Water Oil

os ws os
Solid The contact angle, q, measured through
the denser liquid phase,
AT = adhesion tension, dynes/cm) defines which fluid wets the solid surface.

q = contact angle between the oil/water/solid interface measured through the water, degrees

os = interfacial energy between the oil and solid, dynes/cm

ws = interfacial energy between the water and solid, dynes/cm

ow = interfacial energy (interfacial tension) between the oil and water, dynes/cm
Waterflooding

Interfacial Tension:
The energy per unit area (force per unit
distance) at the surface between phases.
IFTs between oil and water are usually 10 to
30 dyne/cm at 25 oC. The IFT between a liquid
and its vapor is referred to as surface tension.
Waterflooding

Capillary Pressure:
The concept of capillary pressure as
characteristics of a porous rock evolved from
the representation of capillary phenomena in
capillary tubes. The capillary phenomena are
predictable from the analysis of the forces at
the contact line between the interface and the
solid surface.
Waterflooding

Capillary pressure:
may be defined as the pressure difference
across a curved interface between two
immiscible fluids. By convention, the Pc term
is positive for unconfined immiscible fluid
pairs, where Pc is defined as the pressure
difference between the non- wetting and the
wetting phase.
Flood Patterns Affect Areal Sweep
Efficiency & Injectivity
Factors Affect Areal Sweep Efficiency

The flooding pattern formed by injection and


production wells is the primary factor in
determining the pressure distribution within a
reservoir and, accordingly, the path which
injected water will follow in travelling from the
injection well to the producing well.
Staggered Line Drive Pattern
Staggered Line Drive Pattern

INJECTION WELL

PRODUCTION WELL
Regular 5 Spot Pattern
Regular 5 Spot Pattern

INJECTION WELL

PRODUCTION WELL
Regular 7 Spot Pattern
Regular 7 Spot Pattern

INJECTION WELL

PRODUCTION WELL
Regular 9 Spot Pattern
Regular 9 Spot Pattern

INJECTION WELL

PRODUCTION WELL
Other Factors Affect Sweep
Efficiency

Fractures
Directional Permeability
Areal Permeability Variations
Selection of Waterflood Pattern

A good waterflood pattern should meet the


following criteria:
Provide desired oil production rate.
Provide sufficient water injection capacity to yield
desired oil production rate.
Maximize oil recovery with minimum water
production.
Selection of Waterflood Pattern
Selection of Waterflood Pattern

Take advantage of reservoir non-uniformities such


as fractures, permeability trends, dip, etc.
Be compatible with existing well pattern and
require a minimum of new wells.
Be compatible with flooding operations of other
operators on adjacent leases.
Viscous Fingering
Viscous Fingering
INJECTION
WELL

PRODUCING
WELL
Viscous Fingering
A problem often encountered in the
displacement of oil by water is the viscosity
contrast between the two fluids. The adverse
mobility ratios that result promote fingering of
water through the more viscous crude oil and
can reduce the oil recovery efficiency.
Displacement Sweep Efficiency

The local displacement efficiency was defined as:

ED = Volume of oil mobilized


Volume of contacted oil

ED is a function of
Mobility ratios
Wettability
Dip angle
Displacement Sweep Efficiency

All sweep efficiencies can be increased by


decreasing the mobility ratio by either:

Lowering oil viscosity or Krwi.e steam flooding


Increasing water viscosity or Kro.i.e polymer flooding
MOBILITY AND MOBILITY RATIO
Mobility of a fluid is defined as the ratio of the
permeability of the formation to a fluid,
divided by the fluid viscosity:
= k /

Where:
= mobility, md/cp
k= effective permeability of reservoir rock to a given fluid, md
= fluid viscosity, cp
MOBILITY AND MOBILITY RATIO
When multiple fluids are flowing through the
reservoir, relative permeabilities must be used
along with viscosities of the fluids. By
convention, the term mobility ratio is defined as
the mobility of the displacing fluid divided by the
mobility of the displaced fluid. For waterfloods,
this is the ratio of water to oil mobilities. Thus the
mobility ratio, M, for a waterflood is:
MOBILITY AND MOBILITY RATIO

M= krw/w / kro/o
= krwo / krow
where krw and kro, are relative permeabilities to water and oil, respectively,
o is oil viscosity and w is water viscosity.

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