SPE-195495-MS

Polymer Injectivity: Influence of Permeability in the Flow of EOR Polymers in

Porous Media

Badar Al-Shakry, University of Bergen / NORCE Energy; Behruz Shaker Shiran, NORCE Energy; Tormod Skauge,
Energy Research Norway; Arne Skauge, University of Bergen / NORCE Energy

Copyright 2019, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Europec featured at 81st EAGE Conference and Exhibition held in London, England, UK, 3-6 June 2019.

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Abstract
Application of polymer flooding as a chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has increased over recent
years. The main type of polymer used is partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM). This polymer still
has some challenges especially with shear stability and injectivity that restrict its utility, particularly for low
permeability reservoirs. Injectivity limits the possible gain by acceleration in oil production due to polymer
flooding. Hence, good polymer injectivity is a requirement for the success of the operation. This paper aims
to investigate the influence of formation permeability on polymer flow in porous media.
In this study, a combination of core flooding with rheological studies is presented to evaluate the influence
of permeability on polymer in-situ rheology behavior. The in-situ flow of HPAM polymers has also been
studied for different molecular weights. The effect of polymer preconditioning prior to injection was studied
through exposing polymer solutions to different extent of mechanical degradation.
Results from this study reveal that the expected shear thinning behavior of HPAM that is observed in
rheometer measurements is not observed in in-situ rheology in porous media. Instead, HPAM in porous
media exhibits near-Newtonian behavior at low flow rates representative of velocities deep in the reservoir,
while exhibiting shear thickening behavior at high flow rates representative of velocities near wellbore
region. The pressure build-up associated with shear thickening behavior during polymer injection is
significantly higher than pressure differential during water injection. The extent of shear thickening is
high during the injection of high Mw polymer regardless of cores' permeability. In low permeable Berea
cores, shear thickening and mechanical degradation occur at lower velocities although the degree of shear
thickening is lower in Berea to that observed in high permeable Bentheimer cores. This is ascribed to
high polymer retention in Berea cores that results in high residual resistance factor (RRF). Results show
that preshearing polymer before injection into porous media optimizes its injectability and transportability
through porous media. The effect of preshearing becomes favorable for the injection of high Mw polymers
into low permeability formation.
This study discusses polymer in-situ rheology and injectivity, which is a key issue in the design of polymer
flood projects. The results provide beneficial information on optimizing polymer injectivity, in particular,
for low permeability porous media.
2 SPE-195495-MS

Introduction
Polymer injectivity is one of the decisive parameters for the success of polymer flooding operation. In
polymer flooding, the viscosity of injected water is increased by adding water-soluble polymers in order
to stabilize the front of displacing fluid. The improvements in oil production profile gained by polymer
flooding over conventional waterflood are mainly due to the reduction of water-oil mobility ratio (Needham
and Doe 1987). However, the addition of polymer is not limited to thicken injected water but also may
affect its flow characteristic in porous media that highly depends on the type of implemented polymer.
Two main classes of polymers that are used in EOR applications: biopolymers, e.g., xanthan and synthetic
polymers, e.g., partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM). The literature survey carried out by Standnes
and Skjevrak (2014) revealed that over 90% of EOR projects performed worldwide using HPAM polymers.
HPAM polymers that are implemented in EOR operations have typically a high molecular weight (Mw
>10 MDa) and broad molecular weight distribution (MWD). The synergic complexity of both porous
media and molecular structure of HPAM yields different flow behaviors that are not predicted by simple
shear flow (e.g., rheometer). These flow behaviors can be Newtonian, non-Newtonian (shear thinning
and shear thickening behavior) depends on flow velocity. These flow behaviors are attributed to polymer
viscoelasticity (Southwick and Manke 1988). Such high velocities present at wellbore area, HPAM polymers
exhibit predominant shear thickening behavior which may evolve into mechanical degradation (Maerker
1975). These in-situ flow behaviors are usually different from the observations that are made by rheometer
which demonstrates only predominant shear thinning behavior. Addition to that, polymer retention is another
factor that influences polymer injectivity (Manichand and Seright 2014, Wever et al. 2018). A detailed
review of polymer flow in porous media has been given recently by Skauge et al. (2018). The flow
parameters such as shear thickening and retention have a high contribution in reducing polymer injectivity
through pressure buildup and permeability reduction (Sheng et al. 2015). Therefore, understanding the flow
of polymer in porous media beforehand is extremely important to evaluate its injectivity and avoid the risk
of losing polymer viscosity due to mechanical degradation.
Polymer flow in porous media and mechanical degradation may depend on reservoir type such as
carbonate or sandstone irrespective of formation permeability. For example, earlier studies reported by
Martin (1974) and (1986) demonstrated variations on HPAM in-situ behavior investigated in carbonate and
sandstone. Their study revealed that the polymer in low permeability in carbonate had better propagation
and injectivity compared to that in sandstone with higher permeability. This was possibly due to core
heterogeneity such as the presence of high permeable channels (fractures) in carbonates. Dann et al. (1982)
found similar observation and argued the influence of permeability on polymer flow in porous media and
its injectivity. The argument was based on studying polymer injectivity at low permeability reservoir cores
in both sandstone and carbonate with the permeability of 9, 13, 25 and 45 mD. The polymer showed good
injectivity for low permeable cores (9 and 13 mD), and they suggested that the flow of polymer can be
affected by other factors than permeability such as pore-size distribution and core morphology. In order
to isolate the impact of variations of sandstone pore-size distribution and morphology, Southwick and
Manke (1988) conducted experiments on glass-bead packs to investigate the permeability effect on HPAM
resistance factor (RF). They found that mechanical degradation increases with decreasing permeability at
a constant strain rate due to the increase of normal mechanical stresses. Also, the maximum RF increased
with decreasing permeability. Moreover, the onset of shear thickening was found to have a dependency on
permeability. It increased with permeability increase (Heemskerk et al. 1984, Han et al. 1995).
Seright et al. (2011) reported the dependence of RF, residual resistance factor (RRF) and the extent of
shear thickening on permeability. They found the RF and the onset of shear thickening matched well with
the square root of permeability. This can be elucidated from the relationship between average pore size ( R )
and permeability ( K ) that obtained from the capillary bundle model using Darcy's and Poiseuille's laws
(Sorbie 1991). This relation has been invoked in most available correlations for estimating
SPE-195495-MS 3

shear rate in porous media and thereafter used in calculating apparent viscosity by the analytical models
(Delshad et al. 2008, Stavland et al. 2010). Hence, the selection of optimum polymer properties that match
formation permeability and the ratio between polymer molecules with pore throat is crucial to optimize
polymer injectivity (Jolma et al. 2017, Ghosh et al. 2017). Also, these studies reported polymer preshearing
method was beneficial on optimizing polymer injectivity, especially in low permeability. This ascribed to
the reduction of polymer molecular size upon preshearing which reduces its viscoelasticity and enhances
its propagation.
This paper extends our previous works concerning the parameters that affecting the in-situ flow of HPAM
polymers such as polymer mechanical degradation (Al-Shakry et al. 2018a), polymer physicochemical
properties such as Mw and concentration (Al-Shakry et al. 2019), porous media wettability and presence
of oil (Al-Shakry et al. 2018b). This work aims to evaluate the effect of permeability on HPAM in-situ
rheology by incorporating its in-situ flow in Berea and Bentheimer rock. We also adopted the approach we
have discussed in our previous papers concerning preconditioning the polymer before injection to evaluate
the impact of the polymer preshearing process on maximizing polymer injectivity.

Materials and Methods

Polymer preparation
Synthetic brine was prepared by dissolving 1wt.% NaCl powder into deionized water. The prepared brine
was filtered through a 0.45 μm cellulose nitrate filter before it was used in polymer preparation. The
polymeric solutions were prepared by dispersion of the polymer powder into 1wt.% NaCl brine. Then
the stock polymer solution was diluted into the required concentrations (Table 1). These polymers were
hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) with 30% degree of hydrolysis. The polymer powders were received
from SNF Floerger, France and it contained about 90 % active materials.

Table 1—Properties of polymer solutions (Mw and concentration)

Polymer Characterization. All rheological measurements were performed at 22 °C by Malvern Kinexus

Pro rheometer. In order to achieve a steady shear flow condition, different geometries were used. Cone-plate
geometry (CP 2/50) was used for solutions with a viscosity greater than 10 cP (polymer B), and double-gap
geometry (DG 25) was used for solutions (A and C) that possess viscosity less than 10 cP.
Polymer Pretreatment. Polymer prefiltering process was conducted in separate short cores (L= 5cm) at
low flow rate (Q=0.5 cc/min) before injection into main core for in-situ rheology measurements. This was
performed to remove any insoluble polymer particles or microgels present in the solution. The prefiltering
process also isolates wellbore from in-depth reservoir effects (Martin 1974). Some of the polymer solutions
were also subjected to preshearing process at high flow rates as detailed within the discussion section. This
was carried out to evaluate the impact of preshearing on the in-situ flow behavior of these polymers.

Porous Medium
Core plugs of Berea and Bentheimer sandstone were used as representing a homogeneous porous medium
with low and high permeability, respectively. In this study, Berea and Bentheimer rock had a small variation
in porosity compared to the high difference in permeability. The cores in average were 10 cm in length with
4 SPE-195495-MS

a diameter of 3.8 cm. The details of each core are given within the results. Sandstone contains mainly of
quartz material; therefore, it is considered a homogenous medium. According to X-ray diffraction (XRD)
analysis, the clay (kaolinite) content is higher for Berea rock compared to Bentheimer ( 6.5% and 0.7%
respectively) (Almansour et al. 2017). Fig. 1 demonstrates pore throat size distribution of similar cores
(Berea and Bentheimer) with average pore throat radii of 6 and 15 μm, respectively.

Figure 1—Pore throat size distribution of Berea and Bentheimer

Experimental Procedures
The core flood apparatus schematically represented in Fig. 2. It consists of Quizix pump, fluid transfer
cylinder, core holder, differential pressure transducers, back pressure regulator and effluent collector. The
setup was connected with a data acquisition unit (PC) to monitor the pressure versus time and control pump
injection rate. Note that, back pressure regulator was initially used during permeability measurements to
dissolve any air that may be found in the system. It was then removed to avoid polymer degradation during
polymer injection. The experiments were performed under room temperature (22 °C).

Figure 2—Core flood apparatus

Core flood experiments were conducted as follows:

1. The cores were cut into the desired length from 30cm core plugs and dried inside the oven at 50 °C
for at least three days before measuring their porosity. Geometrical and weight measurements were
carried out in order to measure core's absolute porosity.
2. Brine was injected at different flow rates to determine absolute permeability by employing the
following Darcy's law (Eq.1) :
SPE-195495-MS 5

Equation 1

where, Q referred to injection rate, η is fluid viscosity, ΔP is pressure drop across the core, L and A are
core geometrical parameters represent the length and cross-sectional area, respectively. Considering
superficial velocity νD = Q/A, interstitial velocity (ν) was derived from Darcy velocity (νD) where ϕ
is the porosity of porous media.

Equation 2
3. Prepared polymer solution was injected into the main core first at low flow rate (Q=0.5 cc/min) until
achieving constant pressure drop across the core. Then the flow rate was increased in a stepwise
manner until achieved highest flow rate (e.g., the highest flow rate was determined when the difference
between the confining and pump pressure was 10 bar see Table 2).
4. The flow rate was varied to measure resistance factor (RF). RF was obtained by dividing pressure
drop during polymer flow ΔPp to that of brine ΔPW at equal injection rates(Sorbie 1991):

Equation 3

Note that, ΔPW was measured based on Kwi using (Eq. 1).
5. After polymer injection was completed, the residual resistance factor (RRF) was measured. RRF is
the ratio of initial brine permeability Kwi to brine permeability after polymer injection KWf which is
given as follows (Sorbie 1991):

Equation 4

Note that, RRF was measured after injecting at least 5 PV brine proceeded by two steps of tapering
(50% and 25 % of effluent concentration).
6. Polymer mechanical degradation (Deg) was measured from the effluent viscosity ηe using the
following equation which expresses the change in shear viscosity corresponding to the shear rate of
10 s-1:

Equation 5

where ηi referred to injected solution viscosity and ηw is brine viscosity (1.04cP).

Table 2—Highest flow rates applied during the injection of each polymer solutions.

Results and Discussion

Shear Viscosity
Fig. 3 presents shear viscosity data for three different polymer bulk solutions A, B and C measured by
rheometer at room temperature (22 °C). From the measurements, it can be seen that shear viscosity decreases
6 SPE-195495-MS

with shear rate due to disentanglement and alignment of polymer molecules. At this, the polymers exhibit
predominant shear thinning (pseudoplastic) behavior over the range of shear rate (10100 s−1 ). Shear thinning
behavior was modeled by power law model using the given fitting parameters in Fig. 3. It
is also observed that the polymer solutions tend to exhibit a Newtonian behavior at very low shear rates.
At about ͘γ = 10 s−1 that is relevant to reservoir shear rate, bulk viscosity for polymers A, B and C were 8.4,
13.6 and 7.1 cP, respectively.

Figure 3—Bulk viscosity profiles for prefiltered solutions A, B

and C measured at 22 °C. Solid lines represent power law model.

In-Situ Viscosity
In order to compare the in-situ flow of polymer solution to bulk rheology, the flow velocity in porous media
was expressed by shear rate. This approach was also applied to normalize flow velocity in porous media.
The shear rate in porous media is notoriously challenging to measure due to the structural complexity of
porous media. The following equation is usually adopted to estimate reservoir shear rate ͘γ (Sorbie 1991):

Equation 6

where α is formation shape factor, νD is superficial velocity, Kabs and ϕ are core absolute permeability and
porosity, respectively. Note that, α is an important factor that increases with permeability decreases (Stavland
et al. 2010). However, determination of the empirical value of α is not a straightforward approach (Skauge
et al. 2018), hence it was assumed here to be 2.5 as reported for consolidated sandstone (Sorbie 1991).
In rotational rheometer discussed above, HPAM was exposed to pure shear flow, while in porous media
it was exposed to different nature of flow wherein a combination of shear and extensional flow exists
(Southwick and Manke 1988). This yields different flow behaviors that were not captured by rheometer as
presented in Fig. 4. Hence, polymer injectivity will be overestimated by bulk rheology that showed shear
thinning behavior (ideal injectivity characteristic of polymer) as a dominating flow behavior. However, in
porous media, at low flow velocities representative of the flow deep in the reservoir, the polymer solution
exhibited near-Newtonian behavior. This can be observed from the constant resistance factor. At high
velocities which are analogs to the wellbore region, the polymer exhibited shear thickening behavior. This
can be observed from the dramatic increase in the resistance factor above Newtonian plateau. HPAM
shear thickening behavior is ascribed to the presence of extensional flow that becomes dominant over
SPE-195495-MS 7

shear viscosity when flow velocity is sufficiently high (Chauveteau 1981, Heemskerk et al. 1984). Shear
thickening behavior with its associated pressure buildup restricts polymer injectivity.

Figure 4—Comparison of shear and in-situ rheology for prefiltered

polymer B measured in rheometer and porous media, respectively.

Polymer In-Situ Rheology. Fig. 5 displays the in-situ and effluent viscosity data associated with the
injection of three different polymer solutions A, B and C in both Berea and Bentheimer cores. All the
presented polymer solutions were prefiltered at Q=0.5cc/min in short Bentheimer core. Resistance factor
(RF) helps us to elucidate the pressure development against flow velocity in porous media taking into
account the polymer retention. In general, the obtained resistance factor was high for low permeable core
(Berea) than that for high permeability cores (Bentheimer) at reservoir flow velocities. Also, high Mw
polymer exhibited high resistance factor. The significant increase in RF and RRF in low permeability cores
may be due to the large restriction induced by small pores (Smith 1970). This suggests high flow resistance
for polymer C as it possesses high Mw.
Another important parameter is the extent of shear thickening behavior which can be evaluated by the
onset and degree of shear thickening. For instance, the onset occurred at higher velocities for polymer A
which has lower Mw compared to other solutions. This was also a valid observation at which the onset of
high Mw polymer occurred at lower velocities (Al-Shakry et al. 2019). The influence of permeability on the
onset of shear thickening can be clearly seen from the comparison of polymer flow in different permeability
rock given in Fig. 5c. The onset of shear thickening was 0.5, 1.3, 2.5 m/day for cores with the permeability
of 0.1, 1.3 and 2.6 Darcy (see Table 3). The shift of onset of shear thickening to lower flow velocities with
decreasing permeability was in-line with other studies (Heemskerk et al. 1984, Han et al. 1995). Despite the
earlier onset of shear thickening, the degree (slope) of shear thickening was lower in low permeability cores.
This results in a lower maximum RF at high flow velocities. Note that, for the given polymers in Fig. 5 at
given concentrations, shear thinning behavior was not observed in both porous media which is consistent
with the earlier observations reported by Seright et al. (2009). Interestingly, the in-situ rheology curves for
polymer C in different cores all overlap at high injection rates (Fig. 5c). This confirms that extensional
viscosity, which is a polymer property, dominates the polymer flow at high flow rates.
Effluent shear viscosity data for solutions A did not show significant alteration of shear viscosity
which indicates good shear stability of this polymer in both Berea and Bentheimer (see Fig. 5). However,
mechanical degradation was observed in Berea for higher Mw polymers B and C. It was relatively high for
8 SPE-195495-MS

polymer C with high Mw 9.5% compared to 7.2 % for polymer B. This validates the fact that high Mw
polymer is more prone to mechanical degradation (Stavland et al. 2010). Moreover, polymer mechanical
degradation decrease with increasing permeability (Maerker 1975). For example, mechanical degradation
data for polymer C were 9.5, 7.1 and 5.3% corresponding to cores' permeability of 0.1, 1.3 and 2.6 Darcy.

Figure 5—Resistance factor versus interstitial velocity observed in Berea and Bentheimer cores of prefiltered
polymers A, B and C. Open markers are effluents shear viscosity for each solution corresponding to ͘γ = 10 s−1.
SPE-195495-MS 9

Table 3—Experimental data of prefiltered polymer solutions A, B and C.

Fig. 6 shows the resistance factor and RF/RRF of polymer C against normalized flow velocity using the
parameter (νD (1 ‒ ϕ) (Seright et al. 2011). It can be seen that the RF curve observed in low permeability
Berea rock was shifted closer to that of high permeability Bentheimer2. This indicates the onset of shear
thickening correlates well with the decrease in permeability satisfying the factor . However, the
RF values at low flow rates are still different. This suggests that the porous media has a relatively larger
influence on the RF values at these rates.

Figure 6—Resistance factor and RF/RRF vs normalized flow velocity of polymer C in Berea and Bentheimer cores.

Residual Resistance Factor (RRF). Residual resistance factor (RRF) is also an important factor when
assessing polymer injectivity. It expresses permeability reduction due to irreversible polymer retention in
porous media. It can be observed in Fig. 7 that RRF increases with decreasing permeability. The effect was
significant for high molecular weight polymer. The high RRF values in Berea cores may also be expected
due to high clay content (Manichand and Seright 2014) and a smaller pore throat radius ( Fig. 1). This is in
accordance with the studies reported by Stavland et al. (2010) and Seright (2017) at which RRF increases
with decreasing permeability.
10 SPE-195495-MS

The RRF given in Fig. 7 were obtained after approximately 5 PV brine post-flush proceeded by tapering.
Based on performing similar procedures, in high permeable cores, the measured RRF values may be
reasonable. However, in low permeability cores the values were relatively high which may not represent
‘‘true'' RRF. Measuring ‘‘true'' RRF in porous media is challenging and may require over 100 PV brine-
injection particularly for such low permeability cores (Seright 2017). Determination of ‘‘true'' RRF is a
positive element that helps in interpreting apparent polymer viscosity in porous media when using the term
RF/RRF. The RRF values reported here were, therefore, relative values for the efficiency of 5 PV brine to
displace polymer. As seen, 5 PV was sufficient to achieve ‘‘true'' RRF values such as in the range of 1.6-2.2,
for high permeable rock, but not for low permeable Berea.

Figure 7—Residual resistance factor (RRF) for prefiltered polymers A, B and C measured in Berea and Bentheimer sand cores.

Impact of Polymer Pretreatment

In order to optimize polymer injectivity, polymer solution was subjected to different pretreatments through
the exposure to various flow rates. In Fig. 8 the polymer solutions were pretreated with similar procedures
reported in our earlier study (Al-Shakry et al. 2018a). Polymer pretreatment processes consisted of
prefiltering, reinjecting or preshearing processes. The prefiltering process was performed to remove any
insoluble polymer molecules in solution. In this study, the polymer solution was filtered in short cores of
Berea and Bentheimer at flow rates of 0.2 and 0.5 cc/min, respectively. Fig. 8 shows prefiltered polymer
solution at Q=0.5cc/min in short Bentheimer core exhibited higher resistance factor compared to solution
prefiltered at Q=0.2cc/min in short Berea core, when both solutions were subsequently injected in Berea
cores with similar permeability. This indicates the polymer filtration in the core with lower permeability is
more significant than the core with high permeability (Bentheimer).
Preshearing process was performed to evaluate the impact of mechanical degradation on polymer in-
situ behavior. Reinjection was carried out to assess if the polymer experience further degradation as
it was reinjected into porous media taking into account the increase of core length. In both processes,
the flow rate used for reinjecting and preshearing was 3.2cc/min. It was observed that RF curves of
reinjected and presheared solutions overlapping while they are lower than prefiltered solution. The onset
of shear thickening (see Table 4) was not significantly affected by the pretreatment process. This indicates
insignificant degradation occurred due to applied low injection rates which are lower than corresponding
flow velocities around the wellbore area (ν > 30 m/day). This shows that pre-shearing at this rate did not
improve the injectivity of the polymer in low permeable Berea.
SPE-195495-MS 11

Figure 8—Resistance factor of polymer A in Berea cores that pretreated differently (prefiltered, reinjected and presheared)

Table 4—Core properties and viscoelastic parameters of polymer A injected in Berea cores.

Preshearing at Elevated Shear Rates. In Fig. 9, presheared polymer solutions B and C were degraded
by 16 and 30 %, respectively from their original bulk viscosity. This caused a significant reduction (more
than 50%) on resistance factor and their viscoelasticity when they were injected in Bentheimer rock. Only
minor change was observed on RRF values (Al-Shakry et al. 2018a). A similar trend was observed in Fig.
9 when the polymers were injected in Berea cores in which RF of presheared polymer solution was lower
and onset of shear thickening shifted to higher velocities compared to prefiltered solution. However, RRF
values of presheared solution (see Table 5) were about two times lower than prefiltered solutions. The
effect of pre-degrading is to reduce the molecular weight of the polymer. This was confirmed by the shift
in onset of shear thickening and the reduction of RRF (Table 5). Although only 5 PV brine was used in
the polymer displacement step and the ‘‘true'' RRF was lower for both the pre-filtered and the presheared
polymer experiments, the results suggest that the benefit of preshearing on RRF reduction may compensate
for the loss in RF values at low flow rates. One of the optimum characteristics of EOR polymers is to
provide high viscosity with lower retention. Also, the shift of the onset to higher velocity enables injecting
the polymer solution at high flow rates which is beneficial for polymer flooding sweep efficiency.
12 SPE-195495-MS

Figure 9—Resistance factor for polymers B and C in Berea core. The

solutions were presheared at high rates in short Bentheimer cores.

Table 5—Core and viscoelastic properties of polymers B and C in Berea cores.

Polymer solutions were presheared at high velocities in short Bentheimer cores

Conclusions
In this study, the influence of permeability on HPAM flow in a porous medium has been investigated with
HPAM polymer with different molecular weight through two types of rock. The following conclusions
could be made:
– HPAM flow in porous media exhibited different flow behaviors that were not observed by
bulk rheology. Shear thickening behavior was predominant flow behavior at high flow velocities
corresponding to the near-wellbore region. Also, near-Newtonian behavior was observed at low flow
velocities representative of the polymer flow deep in the reservoir.
– HPAM apparent viscosity increased with decreasing permeability which means high-pressure buildup
was observed in low permeability cores. The apparent viscosity was higher for unsheared high Mw
polymer compared to presheared polymer.
– Residual resistance factor (RRF) was inversely proportional to core permeability. Permeability
reduction was higher for the injection of high Mw polymer solution.
– Polymer pretreatment, especially high Mw polymers, improves the injectivity of polymers in low
permeability porous media. In this study, preshearing process was an effective method that enables
injecting high Mw polymers into low permeability formation at higher flow rates that yield better
SPE-195495-MS 13

injectivity. Preshearing high Mw polymers before injection into the low permeability porous media
resulted in a reduction in RF values, shift of onset of shear thickening to higher velocities, and finally
significant reduction in RRF values. The benefits for injectivity has to be weighted against the loss
in apparent viscosity at low flow rates.

Acknowledgments
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) is acknowledged for study scholarship for Badar Al-Shakry. We
also acknowledge the financial support which was received from PETROMAKS 2 program at Norwegian
Research Council and Energi Simulation, Canada.

Nomenclature
A = cross-sectional area (cm2)
D = core dimeter (cm)
K = power low flow consistency index (cP. s(n-1))
Kabs = absolute permeability (mD)
Kwf = absolute permeability after polymer flow (mD)
Kwi =absolute permeability before polymer flow (mD)
L = core length (cm)
n = power law index, dimensionless
PV = pore volume, dimensionless
Q = flow rate (cc/min)
RF = resistance factor, dimensionless
RRF = residual resistance factor , dimensionless
ν = interstitial velocity (m/day)
νc = onset of shear thickening (m/day)
νD = Darcy velocity (m/day)
ΔPp = pressure drop during polymer flow (bar)
ΔPw = pressure drop during water flow (bar)
ηe = effluent viscosity (cP)
ηi = injected solution viscosity(cP)
ηw = brine viscosity (cP)
ϕ = porosity (%)
͘γ = shear rate (s−1)

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