Jayaganesh Santhiran – MKP151034

Mohamed Afif Che Mohamed Rus - MYP131052

 Chapter 1
Introduction
 Definition of EOR
Hydrocarbon
Recovery

Primary Secondary Tertiary

Volume of hydrocarbon Augmentation of natural Enhanced Oil

produced by the natural energy through injection of Recovery
energy prevailing in the water or gas to displace oil
reservoir towards producing wells
Process of Oil Recovery
Process of Oil Recovery
 Enhanced Oil Recovery
Recovery of oil through the injection of fluids and
energy not normally present in the reservoir

Objectives
EOR • Boost the natural energy in the reservoir
• Interact with the reservoir rock/oil system to create
conditions favourable for residual oil recovery that
include among others:
 Reduction of the interfacial tension between the
displacing fluid and oil
 Increase the capillary number
 Reduce capillary forces
 Increase the drive water viscosity
 Provide mobility-control
 Oil swelling
 Oil viscosity reduction
 Alteration of the reservoir rock wettability
 Improved Oil Recovery

Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) is application of any EOR operation or

any other advanced oil-recovery technique that is implemented
during any type of ongoing oil recovery process.

Examples of IOR applications are any conformance improvement

technique that is applied during primary, secondary, or tertiary oil
recovery operations.

Other examples of IOR applications are: hydraulic fracturing, scale-

inhibition treatments, acid-stimulation procedures, infill drilling, and
the use of horizontal wells
 Enhanced Oil Recovery

Ultimate goal of EOR processes

 Increase the overall oil displacement efficiency, which is a function of

microscopic and macroscopic displacement efficiency.

 Microscopic efficiency refers to the displacement or mobilization of oil

at the pore scale and measures the effectiveness of the displacing
fluid in moving the oil at those places in the rock where the displacing
fluid contacts the oil

 For instance, microscopic efficiency can be increased by reducing

capillary forces or interfacial tension between the displacing fluid and
oil or by decreasing the oil viscosity
 Enhanced Oil Recovery

Macroscopic or volumetric
displacement efficiency refers to
the effectiveness of the displacing
fluid(s) in contacting the reservoir
in a volumetric sense.

Volumetric displacement efficiency

also known as conformance
indicates the effectiveness of the
displacing fluid in sweeping out
the volume of a reservoir, both
areally and vertically, as well as
how effectively the displacing fluid
moves the displaced oil toward
production wells
 Enhanced Oil Recovery

Macroscopic or volumetric
displacement efficiency refers to
the effectiveness of the displacing
fluid(s) in contacting the reservoir
in a volumetric sense.

Volumetric displacement efficiency

also known as conformance
indicates the effectiveness of the
displacing fluid in sweeping out
the volume of a reservoir, both
areally and vertically, as well as
how effectively the displacing fluid
moves the displaced oil toward
production wells
EOR Methods
Steam Flooding
Gas Flooding
Chemical Flooding
Microbial Flooding
Cyclic Steam Flooding
Screening Criteria
 Chapter 2
Microscopic Displacement
of Fluids in Reservoir
Screening Criteria
 Introduction

• Important aspect of EOR process is the effectiveness of displace fluids in

removing oil from the rock pores at the microscopic scale

• Where:
• E = overall displacement efficiency (oil recovered by the process)
• ED = microscopic displacement efficiency express as a fraction
• Ev = macroscopic (volumetric) displacement efficiency express in fraction
 Introduction

• ED is a measure of effectiveness of the displacing fluid in moving (mobilizing)

oil at places in the rock where displacing fluid contacts the oil
• ED reflected in the magnitude of the residual oil Saturation, Sor
• In diserable EOR process, the value of ED and EV and consequenty E
approach 1.0
• However, for waterflooding process, Ev at the economic limit is only 0.7
• Examples:
• Soi is 0.6 and Sor in swept region is 0.3:
 Capillary Forces

• Capillary and viscous forces govern phase trapping and mobilization of fluids
in porous media and thus microscopic displacement efficiency, ED.
• There are couple of forces related to phase trapping and mobilization of
multiphase fluid system – IFT, rock wettability and capillary pressure

Capillary Forces – Surface Tension & IFT

• Water coexists with oil in a reservoir even

when the reservoir has not been
waterflooded or flooded by a natural
waterdrive.
• Even though water the water may be
immobile, IFT can still influence performance
of subsequent flow processes
 Capillary Forces

• Surface tension referring to specific case in which the surface is between

liquid and its vapor or air
• If surface between two different liquids, or between a liquid and a solid, the
term ”interfacial tension” (IFT) is used.
• IFT – water and vapor at room temperature is about 73 dynes/cm
• IFT – water and pure HC is about 30- 50 dynes/cm
• Mixture of HC such as cruid oil will have lower IFT
• IFT and surface tension are relatively strong function of temperature
Capillary Forces
 Capillary Forces

Solid Wettability
• Wettability is the tendency of one fluid to spread on or adhere to a solid
surface in the presence of second fluid
• When two immiscible phases are placed in contact with a solid surface, one
phase usually is attracted to the solid more strongly then the other phase
• The more strongly attracted phase is called the wetting phase.
• Rock wettability affects the nature of fluid saturation and the general relative
permeability characteristics of fluid/rock system
 Capillary Forces

• The contact angle, θ, is used to measure wettability

• Solid is water wet if θ < 90o and oil wet if θ > 90o
• Contact angle approaching 0o indicates strongly water-wet system and angle
approaching 180o indicates a strongly oil-wet system
 Mobilization of Trapped Phase

Mobilization vs Trapping

• Effect of flood rate on residual oil for three different flooding condition in three
separate cores is show in the table.
• The trapped oil was presumably left as isolated oil drops

• Experiment shows that once oil has

been trapped, the process is not
completely reversible
• Mobilization of the the trapped phase
apparently does not occur until Nca
value higher than the value existed
when an initially continuous phase was
trapped achieve
 Viscous Forces

Viscous forces in porous medium are reflected in magnitude pressure

of pressure drop as results of flow of a fluid through the medium.
Simplest assumption to calculate viscous force is to consider porous
medium as a bundle of parallel capillary tube.

Screening Criteria
 Viscous Forces

Pressure drop in for laminar flow through single tube given by

Poiseuille‘s Law

Screening Criteria
Alternative units
 Viscous Forces

Viscous forces in porous medium in Darcy's Law

Screening Criteria
 Viscous Forces

For bundle of equal size capillaries the permeability given by

Screening Criteria
 Viscous Forces

Example of calculation for magnitude of viscous forces

Screening Criteria
 Viscous Forces

Screening Criteria
 Phase Trapping

Trapping
Mechanism

pore structure of fluid/fluid interaction

porous medium in IFT

fluid and rock interaction

related to wettability

Trapping and mobilization are related to these factors in complex way. Few
models describe the forces involve in phase trapping and mobilization
 Phase Trapping

Trapping in Single Capillary (Jamin Effect)

Pressure required to force a non wetting phase through a capillary system

such as porous rock can be quite high. This condition is called Jamin Effect

Fig. 2.13 shows 2 possible condition of drop size.

In Fig 2.13-a, a very long continuous water filament is in contact with a
continuous oil filament. The system is static with different pressure exist
at Points A and B because of capillary forces. The static pressure
difference must be exceed for the flow to occur.

In Fig 2.13-b, water contacts both side of a finite oil drop. If static
pressure difference PA-PB exist must overcome to initiate flow.
 Phase Trapping

Trapping in Single Capillary (Jamin Effect)

2.14 show 2 variation of the case shown in 2.13

Fig 2.14a, the capillary tube size varies and the radius is smaller in
one side drop than other

Fig 2.14b, shows the contact angle is different on two side of the
drop , which could result for example if the drop were displaced in
once direction causing an advancing contact angel different from
receding angle.

Fig 2.14c, gas dropped is trapped between water on one side and oil
on the other. Again the static pressure differences between Point A
and B is important because this value must exceed to initiate flow.
 Phase Trapping

Trapping in Single Capillary (Jamin Effect)

 Phase Trapping

Trapping in a Single Capillary with Fluid Bypassing

• Pore channels in reservoir rocks are not straight, smooth capillaries but
irregularly shaped channels.
• Isolated oil drops in channel do no ordinarily seal the channel; bypassing by
a second phase is possible because of a channel geometry.
• The calculation of the Jamin Effect in previous section assumed static
conditions with no bypassing if oil drop by the water phase.
 Phase Trapping

Pore Doublet Model

In this model, complexity of the porous medium is extended beyond of a single capillary
by considering flow in two connected parallel capillaries as shown in Fig 2.17.

In Fig 2.17, water displaces oil from two pores with radii r1 and r2
respectively.

• Pore 1 is smaller than Pore 2 and two pores are connected at

Point A and B to form pore doublet.
• The pores are assumed to be water wet and for purpose of this
development the viscosities and densities of the oil and water
phases are assumed to be equal.
• Oil will be trapped if the displacement proceed faster in one pore
than in other and if there is insufficient pressure differences
between Point A and B to displace the isolated oil drop from the
pore with the slower displacement rate. Pressures at Point A and
B assumed to remain constant until trapping occurs
Phase Trapping
 Mobilization of Trapped Phase

• Based on the experiment conducted, there are three ways to increase Nca:
• (1) Increase the flow rate of the displacing fluid
• (2) Increase the viscosity of the displacing fluid
• (3) Reduce the IFT between the displaced and displacing liquid
 Mobilization of Trapped Phase

Alteration of the Viscous/Cappilary Force Ratio

• To demonstrate difficulty of mobilizing trapped oil, an experiment was
conducted
• No residual oil was produced from the cores unless a “specific” critical value of
Delta P/Lo was exceeded
• The value was on the order of 6.0 (psi/ft)/(dynes/cm) and was considered a
minimum value
• A value of 30.0 was required for reasonable production rates of residual oil
from the cores
• The magnitude of pressure gradient require to mobilize residual oil far exceed
value obtained under normal field waterflood condition of pressure drop and
well spacing
• If residual oil is to be recovered by process of displacing fluid, IFT must be
reduced significantly to achieve production at reasonable pressure gradient
 Mobilization of Trapped Phase

After few experiments conducted, below are the summary:

• Application of waterflood generally will not be possible to increase flow rate
enough to recover additional oil
• The use of polymer or other viscocity-enhancing chemicals cannot be used to
increase viscous forces to the desired level in field applications
• The only practical alternative to increase microscopic displacement
significantly over that of a waterflood is to use miscible fluids or promote a very
large reduction in IFT between the displacing phase and the trapped or
mobilized oil
• Require “magic” fluid that is miscible (eliminate IFT completely) or has an
ultralow FIT with the oil phase
• This fluid then mobilized trapped oil and could displace it towards producing
wells with a microscopic displacement efficiency approaching unity
 Mobilization of Trapped Phase

Role of Phase Behavior

• Mobilization of trapped oil and displacement of oil can be accomplished by use

of favorable phase-behavior relationship between the oil and displacing fluid
• Solubilization of a displacing fluid into the oil with resulting swelling of oil
volume
• Alternatively, extraction of components from the oil phase into displacing
phase can result in oil components being transported through a rock