An assessment of the technological effectiveness of polymer flooding: a case study of the J2 reservoir in the Ust-Tegusskaya area of the Malyka field

Abstract

After reviewing global experience, the authors of the article outline approaches to justify the use of polymer flooding technology in their work. Results from laboratory studies on low viscosity objects are generalized. Polymer flooding has the potential to increase oil recovery by 10–15 % compared to standard flooding, as demonstrated by tests on core samples with permeabilities of 116 and 527 mD. The values of the residual resistance factor are 5 and 2 for cores of 116 and 527 mD, respectively. This distribution of the residual resistance factor will not only fail to smooth the displacement front in the reservoir, but it will also further isolate the low permeability interlayers.The authors of the article used a synthetic model of one of the zones to evaluate the effectiveness of polymer flooding in the J2 reservoir in the Ust-Tegusskaya area of the Malyka field. The increase in the oil recovery factor can be up to 4 %. The contribution of parameters such as the level of adsorption, reservoir heterogeneity in terms of permeability, the presence of highly conductive channels and the energy reserve to the magnitude of the effect of polymer flooding has been established.