New and Improved Physical Property Models for Chemical Flooding Simulators

Abstract

Abstract Significant advances have been made in chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in recent years including the development of hybrid methods that combine surfactants, polymers, alkali, co-solvents, gas and heat in novel ways. New and improved chemical and physical property models have been developed to more accurately simulate these processes at the field scale. We present improved models for relative permeability, capillary pressure, the effect of polymer viscoelasticity on residual oil saturation, the effect of pH on surfactant adsorption, polymer partitioning between aqueous and microemulsion phases, and the effect of co-solvent on microemulsion viscosity. Several simulations are presented to demonstrate how the models can be used to match experimental data.