The Numerical Simulation Study of the Oil–Water Seepage Behavior Dependent on the Polymer Concentration in Polymer Flooding

Qiong Wang, Xiuwei Liu, Lixin Meng, Ruizhong Jiang and Haijun Fan
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Qiong Wang: State Key Laboratory of Offshore Oil Exploitation, Beijing 100028, China
Xiuwei Liu: School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Lixin Meng: Dagang Oilfield Company, PetroChina, Tianjin 300280, China
Ruizhong Jiang: School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China
Haijun Fan: School of Petroleum Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao 266580, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 19, 1-19

Abstract: It is well acknowledged that due to the polymer component, the oil–water relative permeability curve in polymer flooding is different from the curve in waterflooding. As the viscoelastic properties and the trapping number are presented for modifying the oil–water relative permeability curve, the integration of these two factors for the convenience of simulation processes has become a key issue. In this paper, an interpolation factor Ω that depends on the normalized polymer concentration is firstly proposed for simplification. Then, the numerical calculations in the self-developed simulator are performed to discuss the effects of the interpolation factor on the well performances and the applications in field history matching. The results indicate that compared with the results of the commercial simulator, the simulation with the interpolation factor Ω could more accurately describe the effect of the injected polymer solution in controlling water production, and more efficiently simplify the combination of factors on relative permeability curves in polymer flooding. Additionally, for polymer flooding history matching, the interpolation factor Ω is set as an adjustment parameter based on core flooding results to dynamically consider the change of the relative permeability curves, and has been successfully applied in the water cut matching of the two wells in Y oilfield. This investigation provides an efficient method to evaluate the seepage behavior variation of polymer flooding.

Keywords: flow mechanism; polymer flooding; numerical simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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