Development of a Field Scale Polymer Project in Argentina

After 6 years of continous polymer injection in El Corcobo Norte field, pilot's preliminar evaluation showed promising results. Although the evaluation is still ongoing, polymer technology economics look good enough to sustain a project expansion. Located in the Neuquén Basin, El Corcobo Norte field is an unconsolidated, underpressurized, strongly water-wet sandstone reservoir, producing medium-heavy oil from the Centenario Formation. Reservoir drive is waterflood, which has been implemented since the beginning of the field's development. Up to date the field has more than 650 producers and 350 injectors, mostly developed under 20 acres, inverted 7-spot patterns. Main challenge for this field's operation is sand production and chanelling issues that leave bypassed or undrained oil zones. Since 2008 EOR technologies were evaluated in order to increase ultimate recovery factor. As a results of this screening, polymer injection was chosen as the first candidate to test in the field. Polymer pilot design and execution was described in SPE 160078 (“Desing and Execution of a Polymer Injection Pilot in Argentina”) and pilot preliminar evaluation was presented in SPE 181210 (“Evaluation of a Polymer Injection Pilot in Argentina”). Based on the pilot's learnings, an expansion project was designed to maximize the use of the available capacity and upscale polymer injection as efficiently as possible, considering field's current operational conditions. The present article will focus on describing the upscale of the polymer pilot and the strategy to optimize the project's operation.