Experimental Study on Enhanced Oil Recovery of the Heterogeneous System after Polymer Flooding

Abstract

Daqing Oilfield faces increasing reservoir heterogeneity after years of polymer flooding, limiting further enhanced oil recovery. A novel preformed particle gel (PPG) was developed by Daqing Oilfield due to the limited profile control ability of polymer flooding. The preformed particle gel possesses strong deformation ability and the ability to pass through pore throats. The PPG was developed considering the in situ reservoir conditions and combined effects of plugging and flooding. Thus, a heterogeneous system was prepared by mixing polymers and the PPG. In this study, we measured the related properties of the system and assessed its profile control ability and oil displacement performance after polymer flooding. The experimental results demonstrate that typical polymer flooding cannot improve oil recovery under current reservoir conditions. Thus, deep profile control technology should be applied to remediate the highly heterogeneous reservoir issue. PPG can considerably increase the viscosity and stability of the system. The heterogeneous system has a strong plugging ability during the subsequent water flooding stage and is suitable to inject into the medium and high permeability layers. The water absorption profile of the core samples is significantly improved due to the impact of the PPG on the plugging of the layer with high permeability and the liquid flow direction. The system displays an excellent profile control effect in the core with a permeability ratio (high permeability/low permeability) of two under the conditions of a PPG concentration of 500 mg/L and an injection volume of 0.5 PV. In the oil displacement experiment, the recovery efficiency was raised by 16.56% using the polymer system, leading to significant swept volume increment and oil recovery improvement.