The effect of water-soluble polymers on water-alternating CO2 performance in porous media

In order to supply the demand of oil, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques are nowadays widely applied in the oil recovery industry to maximize reservoir sweep efficiencies. CO2-EOR method has been largely used in the petroleum industry for several decades, which can contribute to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emission through CO2...

Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Quantification for Core Flooding

In light of our depleting fossil fuel reserves and the relatively `cheap' extraction of oil and in spite of the highly nonlinear nature of reservoirs, waterflooding has become big business. In recent times, the use of numerical reservoir simulation has not only become possible but has increasingly been used in the petroleum industry in the...

Surfactant-Polymer Chemical EOR and Subsequent Oil Bank Behaviour

After a waterflood the oil saturation is (close to) the irreducible oil saturation, wherein oil in a porous medium is dispersed over the pore network in unconnected droplets due to snap off. In a chemical flood, the surfactant reduces oil-water interfacial tension and liberates the trapped oil droplets. These mobilised droplets coalesce into a...

Characterisation of Surfactant Polymer Oil Bank Mobilisation Through Relative Permeability Analysis

This research project attempts to improve the understanding of oil bank formation in Fontainebleau sandstone cores using a surfactant polymer (SP) EOR method. While oil bank formation is generally successful in longer length cores, it is elusive in short cores (<10cm). Core flooding experiments were performed in a specially designed setup...