The profile-control technique is
one of the most important enhanced
oil recovery (EOR) methods to maintain oil production in the medium
and late stages of water flooding. It is necessary to conduct laboratory
experiments based on the reservoir parameters from specific oil reservoirs
to optimize the operation parameters during the profile-control process.
In this work, based on the reservoir properties from Daqing Oil Field
(China), we employed three parallel core holders and a square core
with one injection well and four production wells to conduct profile-control
experiments, and the operational parameters in the field scale were
obtained using the similarity principle. The results show that the
selected gel system has a good plugging performance and the best injection
volume and profile-control radius are 0.3 PV and 6 m, respectively.
Additionally, we show the optimized injection speed under different
injection pressures when the profile-control radius is in the range
of 6–9 m. The optimized displacing radius of the field is in
the range of 3–6 m. When the radius is 6 m, the pressure decreases
90% and the corresponding plugging ratio is 81%. The optimized plugging
proportion of the fracture length is 50%, and further increase of
the proportion has a negligible effect on the production performance.
Good field response has been achieved after the implementation of
the optimized parameters in the target reservoir. This work, for the
first time, systematically studies the operational parameters for
the profile-control technique using experimental methods, and it provides
the fundamental understandings and implications for enhancing oil
recovery in similar types of high-water-cut reservoirs.