Enhance Oil Recovery Using Polymer Flooding

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are usually introduced after exhausting the primary and secondary recovery methods to maintain oil production at maximum levels. Polymer flooding is one of the most important EOR methods to improve water-oil mobility ratio and, as a result, increases sweep efficiency and oil recovery. In this project the polymer properties were optimized with respect to the given reservoir conditions. The optimization of the polymer included sample screening, model fitting, and preparation of the desired polymer solution. The rheological properties were given most of the attention in this research due to the fact that the viscosity of the polymer was the key to controlling sweep efficiency. The prepared polymer solutions were evaluated for their adsorption behavior, thermal stability, and their resistance to mechanical degradation. The research provided a comprehensive experimental methodology for polymer solution optimization for use in polymer flooding.