Enhancing Carbon Dioxide and Water Flooding Sweep Efficiency Using High Strength Crosslinked Polymer Gel

Carbon dioxide flooding is one of the most applied enhanced oil recovery techniques worldwide. Since it can increase oil recovery significantly. The oil recovery potential that can be acquired from carbon dioxide flooding can be extremely diminished due to reservoir heterogeneity. This research undergoes an extensive lab evaluation of crosslinked micro-particle gel under carbon dioxide and water conditions to evaluate its ability to improve conformance, and hence sweep efficiency when performing a carbon dioxide and water, referred to as Water Alternating Gas, treatment. The research determines the impact of some factors on the gel performance, and quantifies this impact. The factors studied include the presence of residual oil, the change in gel concentration, and the injection flow rates of both the carbon dioxide and the water. Results show that the gel’s performance is strongly impacted by all these factors. This research is one the first to evaluate particle gels under carbon dioxide and water conditions together, which makes its results extremely important for both carbon dioxide flooding, and Water Alternating Gas applications.