Petroleum Engineering

Department

Enhance Oil Recovery

By:
M.Sc SHKAR QAIS SEDEEQ
Enhance Oil Recovery - 1

Enhance Oil Recovery Classification

• Enhanced Oil Recovery : refers to the process of
producing liquid hydrocarbons by methods other
than the conventional use of reservoir energy
Enhance Oil Recovery
 Primary Recovery
Primary Recovery
Main Drive Mechanisms
•Solution-gas drive
•Gas-cap drive
•Natural water drive

Matrix Mechanisms
•Formation water and rock
expansion
•Gravity drainage

**Water Displacement is the most efficient drive mechanism

Oil Recovery Mechanism
 Secondary Recovery
• Enhanced Oil Recovery
Secondary & Tertiary

• Secondary Recovery
• Gas Drive (Gas Flood)
• Water injection (Flood)
 Gas Injection
• The injected gas is usually natural gas produced from
the reservoir in question. This, of course, defers the sale
of that gas until the secondary operation is completed
and the gas can be recovered by depletion.

• Gas is usually injected up-dip or in the gas cap mainly

for pressure maintenance

• Other gases, such as CO2 and N2, can be injected to

maintain reservoir pressure. This allows the natural gas
to be sold as it is produced.
 Waterflooding
• Waterflooding recovers oil by the water’s moving through the
reservoir as a bank of fluid and “pushing” oil ahead of it. The
recovery efficiency of a waterflood is largely a function of the
sweep efficiency of the flood and the ratio of the oil and water
viscosities.
• Water may be injected within the oil zone and/or below the Oil
Water contact if one exists
• Gross heterogeneities in the rock matrix lead to low sweep
efficiencies. Fractures, high-permeability streaks, and faults are
examples of gross heterogeneities. Homogeneous rock
formations provide the optimum setting for high sweep
efficiencies.
 Water Injection
• When an injected water is much less viscous than the oil it is
meant to displace, the water could begin to finger, or channel,
through the reservoir. This is referred to as viscous fingering and
leads to significant bypassing of residual oil and lower flooding
efficiencies. This bypassing of residual oil is an important issue
in applying enhanced oil recovery techniques as well as in
waterflooding.
 Tertiary recovery
• Tertiary recovery processes were developed for application in
situations in which secondary processes had become ineffective.
• were also considered for reservoir applications for which
secondary recovery techniques were not used because of low
recovery potential. In the latter case, the name tertiary is a
misnomer.
• it is advantageous to begin a secondary or a tertiary process
concurrent with primary production.
1. Miscible flooding processes
2. Chemical flooding processes
3. Thermal flooding processes
4. Microbial flooding processes
 Miscible methods

• Miscible methods
• Miscible methods have their greatest potential for
enhanced recovery of low-viscosity oils. Among these
methods, CO2 miscible flooding on a large scale is expected
to make the greatest contribution to miscible enhanced
recovery in the future.
• Miscibility pressures are lower for CO2, usually in the
neighborhood of 1200–1500 psi, whereas N2 and dry gas
yield much higher miscibility pressures (i.e., 3000 psia or
more).
• miscible displacement includes single contact and multiple-
contact miscible processes.
 Chemical processes
• Chemical processes are polymer, Surfactant, and alkaline
flooding. (chemical and miscible displacement processes are
used in reservoirs containing light crude oils.)
 Chemical processes
• Chemical flooding relies on the addition of one or
more chemical compounds to an injected fluid
either to reduce the interfacial tension between
the reservoir oil and the injected fluid or to
improve the sweep efficiency of the injected
fluid.
 Thermal methods

• Thermal methods: provide a driving force and add heat

to the reservoir to reduce oil viscosity and/or vaporize
the oil. This makes the oil more mobile, so that it can be
more effectively driven to producing wells. Steam
injection has been commercially applied in California
since the early 1960s and is the most advanced of all
EOR methods in terms of field experience.
• Thermal processes include hot water, steam cycling,
steam drive, and in situ combustion.
• Microbial processes: use microorganisms to assist in oil
recovery.
 Pressure Maintenance

Pressure Maintenance
•Permits oil production at higher rates
•Allows for gas storage and water disposal
•Delays work-over on wells completed near gas-
oil and/or oil/water contacts
•Postpones artificial lift implementation
•Keeps production gas-oil ratio down
 Enhanced Oil Recovery
Enhanced Oil Recovery
• EOR processes also involve the injection of a fluid or
fluids into a reservoir.
• The injected fluids interact with reservoir rock/oil/brine
system to create conditions favorable for oil recovery.
• Favorable interactions include:
-oil swelling
-oil viscosity reduction
-rock wettability modification
• Cost of implementing EOR methods is usually high and
requires favorable economic conditions, e.g. high oil prices
 ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY METHODS

•improve sweep efficiency by reducing the

mobility ratio between injected and in-place
fluids,
•eliminate or reduce the capillary and interfacial
forces and thus improve displacement efficiency,
and
•act on both phenomena simultaneously.
Methods of Enhanced Recovery
Enhance Oil Recovery - 2

Reservoir Rock and Fluid Properties

Microscopic Displacement Efficiency
• Capillary pressure Difference in the pressure between two
fluids measured at the interface between the two fluids.

• Interfacial tension Measure of the ease with which a new

interface between two fluids can be made.

• Miscible When two or more phases become single phased.

• Mobility Measure of the ease with which a fluid moves

through porous media.

• Polymer Large-molecular-weight chemical used to thicken a

solution.

• Primary production: Production of oil using only the natural

• Residual oil Amount of oil remaining in a reservoir after primary
and secondary production.

• Secondary production: Production of oil when gas, water, or both

are injected into the formation and the injected fluid immiscibly
displaces the oil.

• Surfactant Molecule that is made up of both hydrophilic and

hydrophobic entities and can reduce the interfacial tension
between two fluids.

• Sweep efficiency Measure of how evenly a fluid has moved

through the available flow volume in a porous medium.

• Viscosity Property of a fluid that is a measure of its resistance to

flow.
Permeability:
• The permeability of a porous rock is a measure
of its ability to transmit fluids .
• The permeability, k, is a physical property of
the porous material. The oil field unit of
permeability is the Darcy.
• Quantitative measurements of permeability
are based upon an empirical law formulated by
Henry Darcy.
 Darcy's Law

Q=

Where:
• Q= volume rate of flow, cubic centimeters per second,
• k = proportionality constant,
• A = cross-sectional area of the body, square centimeters,
• PI =upstream pressure, atmospheres,
• P 2 =downstream pressure, atmospheres,
• μ = viscosity of the fluid, centipoises,
• L = length of the porous body, centimeters
Permeability and Porosity
 interfacial tensions

Two immiscible fluids are separated by a well defined

interface
• Within the fluid and away from the interface the
molecules attract each other in all directions.
• At the interface there are no similar molecules and,
therefore, there is an inward-directed force that
attempts to minimize the surface by pulling it into the
shape of a sphere.
 interfacial tensions

• The force is referred to as the interfacial tension

and has the dimension of force per unit length e.g.
dyne/cm
• A drop of one immiscible fluid is immersed in
another fluid and comes to rest on a solid surface,
the surface area of the drop will take a minimum
value due to the forces acting at the fluid–fluid and
rock–fluid interfaces. The forces per unit length
acting at the fluid–fluid and rock–fluid interfaces
are referred to as interfacial tensions.
 Wettability
• The tendency for a solid to prefer one fluid over another is
called wettability
• Wettability is a function of the chemical composition of
both the fluids and the rock. Surfaces can be either oil-wet
or water-wet, depending on the chemical composition of
the fluids
• The degree to which a rock is either oil-wet or water-wet is
strongly affected by the adsorption or desorption of
constituents in the oil phase.
Effect of Wettability on Displacement Water
Wet
Effect of Wettability on Displacement Oil
Wet
 Capillary Pressure
Oil is retained in the reservoir rock by
capillary forces. These forces are factions of
interfacial tension, rock wettability and
pore size distribution.
Fup = (2pr) (sow) (cos q)
Fdown = pr2 h (rw - rair) g
Pc = (2swo cos θ)/r)
Where:
• r = radius of capillary
• 𝜌o and 𝜌w oil and water densities
• θ is the contact angle
Oil Entrapment in Pore Throat

• In order to move a globule of oil through a restriction

it must overcome the capillary pressure.
• Miscible fluid displacement may improve recovery
by removing the interface and eliminating capillary
forces.
Capillary Pressure
 Capillary Pressure
h=
Where
• pc = capillary pressure, psia
• ∆ρ = density difference between the wetting
and nonwetting phase, lb/ft3
• H = height above the free-water level, ft
 Capillary Pressure
FWL = WOC +
Where
• pd = displacement pressure, psi
• ∆ρ = density difference, lb/ft3
• FWL = free water level, ft
• WOC = water-oil contact, ft
 Capillary Pressure
Pc α 1/ Sw
 Capillary Pressure
Example
The reservoir capillary pressure-saturation data of the Big Butte Oil
reservoir is shown graphically in Figure ( next slide). Geophysical log
interpretations and core analysis establish the WOC at 5023 ft. The
following additional
data are available:
• Oil density = 43.5 lb/ft3
• Water density = 64.1 lb/ft3
• Interfacial tension = 50 dynes/cm

Calculate:
• Depth to FWL
• Thickness of the transition zone
• Depth to reach 50% water saturation
 Capillary Pressure
• Solution:
a) FWL = 5023 + 5033.5 ft
b) Thickness of transition zone = = 31.5 ft
c) Pc at 50% water saturation = 3.5 psia
Equivalent height above the FWL = (144) (3.5)/(64.1 - 432.5)= 24.5ft
Depth to 50% water saturation = 5033.5 - 24.5 = 5009 ft
Effective and Relative Permeability
• Absolute permeability: When a single phase fluid
completely saturates the rock, the permeability of the
porous media to that particular fluid is called the absolute
permeability .
•Effective permeability: is the permeability of a rock to a
given fluid phase, say gas, when one or more other phases
oil, water, or both are present.
•Relative permeability: is the ratio between effective
permeability and a base permeability. The base is either
the absolute permeability or the permeability at
irreducible water saturation .
 Relative Permeability
• When several fluids are present in the porous medium, the flow of one of
the fluids is restricted by the presence of the others. Relative permeability
is a concept which relates the absolute permeability to effective
permeability to account for the above restriction; such as:

ke = k х kr
kr =

• where ke is the effective permeability to the phase considered, kr is

the relative permeability of the phase, and k the absolute
permeability for one face. The above relation is introduced into the
Darcy flow equation to describe flow of one phase in a multiphase
system.
 Relative Permeability
Configuration and shape of the relative permeability
curves encompass all reservoir flow parameters and
are impacted by variables such as:

– Permeability and porosity;

– Formation wettability;
– Fluid viscosity and interfacial tension;
– pressure gradient and displacement rate;
– Presence of trapped immobile phases, etc.
 Relative Permeability
• The wetting phase occupies the smaller pore openings
at small saturations, and these pore openings do not
contribute materially to flow, it follows that the
presence of a small wetting phase saturation will affect
the nonwetting phase permeability only to a limited
extent. Since the nonwetting phase occupies the
central or larger pore openings which contribute
materially to fluid flow through the reservoir, however,
a small nonwetting phase saturation will drastically
reduce the wetting phase permeability.
Oil Displacement
• relative permeability: When two or more fluid phases
are present, the saturation of one phase affects the
permeability of the other(s)

• The relative permeability to oil, Kro, is plotted on the

left vertical axis, whereas the relative permeability to
water, Krw, is plotted on the right.
• The curve for Kro goes to zero at Sor, the residual oil
saturation. Once the oil saturation has been reduced
to this point in a pore space by a waterflood, no more
oil will flow, since Kro is zero. Similarly, at saturations
below the irreducible water saturations, Swr
 Methods of determination of Relative
Permeability

• Special Core analysis.

• Petrophysical correlations.
• Production data.
• Log Analysis.
 Relative Permeability
Effective permeability's are normally measured
directly in the laboratory on small core plugs.
Owing to many possible combinations of
saturation for a single medium, however,
laboratory data are usually summarized and
reported as relative permeability.
 Mobility ratio

M = Mobility of displacing fluid/ Mobility of

displaced fluid.

The kw refers to the effective permeability behind the

water –oil front and Ko refers to the effective oil
permeability ahead of the front.
 Capillary Number

•The capillary number, Nc, is a dimensional group expressing the

ratio of viscous to capillary (interfacial) forces as follows:

Displacement
force

•Thus, if the capillary number is increased through the application

of EOR processes, residual oil will be mobilized

•The most practical alternative to significantly increase the capillary

number surfactants or alkaline flooding (chemical flooding)
 Displacement Efficiency

• The overall displacement efficiency of any oil

recovery displacement process can be
increased by
1. Improving the mobility ratio
2. Increasing the capillary number or both
E = Ev . Ed
Ev = sweep efficiency
Ed = Displacement efficiency.
 Sweep Efficiency
Sweep efficiency: is a
measure of how well the
water has come in contact
with the available pore space
in the oil bearing zone.

Ev = Es . Ei
• Es = Areal efficiency
• Ei = Vertical efficiency
Sweep Efficiency
Sweep Efficiency
 References

• Aurrel Carcoana, Applied Enhance Oil Recovery,

Prentice Hall, 1992.
• Stalkup, Fred, Jr. Miscible Displacement, SPE
Monograph 8, 1983.
• Lake, L. W., Enhanced Oil Recovery, Prentice
Hall, N. J.,1989.
• Selective papers of SPE, JPT and CJPT.
• Marcel Latil, Enhanced Oil Recovery, Institute
Francais Du Petrole