Deformable Microgel for Enhanced Oil Recovery in High-Temperature and Ultrahigh-Salinity Reservoirs: How to Design the Particle Size of Microgel to Achieve Its Optimal Match with Pore Throat of Porous Media

Abstract

Summary Conformance control treatment in high-temperature and ultrahigh-salinity reservoirs for easing water/gas channeling through high-permeability zones has been a great challenge. In this work, we propose a deformable microgel that can be used at more than 373.15 K and ultrahigh-salinity conditions (total dissolved solids  > 200 kg/m3, Ca2+ + Mg2+ > 10 kg/m3) and present a method for choosing the suitable particle size of the microgel to achieve an optimal match with the pore throat of the core. First, the particle size distribution of the microgel was analyzed to decide d50, d10, and d90 (diameter when cumulative frequency is 50, 10, and 90%, respectively). Coreflooding experiments were conducted under different permeability conditions from 20 to 900 md to investigate the migration and plugging patterns of the microgel by analyzing and fitting injection pressure curves together with the change in the morphology of the produced microgel analyzed by a microscope. The migration and plugging patterns were divided into three patterns: complete plugging; plugging—passing through in a deformation or broken state—deep migration; and inefficient plugging—smoothly passing through—stable flow. The second pattern can be further divided into three subpatterns as strong plugging, general plugging, and weak plugging. Finally, on the basis of five patterns, we build a quantitative matching relation between the particle size distribution of microgel and the pore-throat size of cores by defining three matching coefficients α = d10/d, β = d50/d, γ = d90/d (d is the average pore-throat diameter). The effectiveness of this quantitative matching relation was verified by evaluating the plugging ability (residual resistance factor) in a post-waterflooding process after the injection of 1.5 pore volume (PV) of microgel. For a strong permeability heterogeneity, the strong plugging is believed to be the expected pattern. The particles size and the pore-throat size should meet the following relationship: 1 < α < 2, 2 < β < 4, 4 < γ < 6. In this scenario, the deformable microgel particles could achieve both an effective plugging and a deep migration. The quantitative matching relation with multiple matching coefficients determined based on the particle size distribution might help to choose suitable particles more precisely in comparison to the method based on one matching coefficient (mostly, the ratio of the average diameter of particles to the average pore-throat diameter). In addition, the method itself to build a quantitative matching relation according to particle size distribution can be used for designing different particle-type conformance control agents for profile control and water shutoff treatment in field applications.