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Additional Oil Recovery by the Elongational behaviour of Polymers used for EOR Applications
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 79th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2017, Jun 2017, Volume 2017, p.1 - 3
Abstract
The goal of this work is to investigate the impact of certain aqueous polymer solutions, showing viscoelastic behaviour, to sort of increase oil recovery in a laboratory scale. Experiments were conducted in glass-silicon-glass micromodels using partially hydrolysed polyacrylamide (HPAM) solutions with different concentrations, displacing a high viscosity silicon oil. This allowed an analysis of the polymers elasticity contributing to a possible additional oil displacement.
It was clearly seen, that the pressure drop over the model, using HPAM solutions, increases much more with higher flowrate in comparison to Newtonian fluids. Moreover, it was shown that a higher polymer concentration with stronger viscoelastic behaviour induces a higher oil displacement until a certain extend. A higher flow rate (extensional rate) across the model triggers the viscoelastic effect even more, resulting in an even higher oil recovery.
The pore scale results of this study demonstrate the potential of viscoelastic polymer solutions to enhance oil recovery due to the higher pressure drop within a porous medium.