Modification of Relative Permeability Curves by Polymer Adsorption

Abstract

A newly developed starch based biopolymer treatment to modify the relative permeability curves is presented. The hydrophilic nature of the adsorbed biopolymer causes a reduction in the water relative permeability while having a variable effect on the relative permeability to the non-wetting phase.Starch based biopolymers have excellent viscosity in brines. Their viscosity has been found to increase with an increase in the salt concentration in the brine irrespective of the polymer concentration up to 10,000 ppm. Moreo'Jer, starch is naturally abundant, costeffective, and environmentally safe.

Impact of prolonged water‐gas flow on the performance of polyacrylamide

“…32 Similarly, Barrufet and Ali 21 investigated the influence of brine injection volume on biopolymer performance as an RPM. The permeability reduction gradually increased as the injected PV of brine increased, however the RPM performance did not reach to stable situation even though the injected brine volume was relatively higher than the previous study, 21 that is, 300 PV and 650 PV of a synthetic brine were injected into a treated synthetic core (1900 mD) and Elgin sandstone (2400 mD), respectively. Moreover, Liang et al and Liang et al 13,22 studied the effect of oil injection volume on oil permeability reduction in chromium acetate cross-linked hydrolysis polyacrylamide gel treated sandstone cores (2.3 D).…”

“…[18][19][20] The thickness of the adsorbed polymer layer and subsequently RPM performance change with time due to other underlying effects, such as the volume of injected fluid, the flowing fluid composition, brine salinity, and the rheological properties of the polymer. 1,[10][11][12][13][14][21][22][23][24][25] Even though the use of polymers as RPM have already been proven, the efficiency period of RPM is still questionable. The performance of RPM may reduce over time due to RPM removal during production of reservoir fluid (water and oil).…”

Visualization of Polymer Retention Mechanisms in Porous Media Using Microfluidics

“…Polymer retention often reduces the effective permeability of the aqueous phase, especially in water-wet formation, thus retarding water breakthrough, without significant alteration of the oleic phase permeability. This mechanism helps to further reduce the water/oil mobility ratio beyond the expected reduction from viscosity enhancement (Barreau et al 1997;Zaitoun and Kohler 1988;Barrufet and Ali 1994). Therefore, a successful field implementation requires, among other parameters, careful selection of the optimum polymer type that balances the pros and cons of polymer retentions (Sorbie and Seright 1992;Seright, Seheult, and Talashek 2009;Lotfollahi et al 2015;Santoso, Torrealba, and Hoteit 2020;Torrealba and Hoteit 2019;Dwarakanath et al 2016).…”

Simulation on the Water Controlling Performance of RPM in Hydraulic Fracturing of Low Permeability Reservoirs

“…This technique is being extensively used worldwide, with many successful case histories published in the literature 3,4,5 . When adequately design and applied, RPM treatments will increase well profitability, improving water-oil ratio, reducing water management costs and environmental impacts.…”