Review of experimental and simulation studies of enhanced oil recovery using viscoelastic particles

Abstract

The profile control that employs viscoelastic particles for enhancing oil recovery is a novel technology that has attracted widespread interest in recent years. Viscoelastic particles can selectively plug high-permeability zones and enlarge the sweep volume of low-permeability zones, which can better improve the effect of development. Based on the extensive investigation of existing literature, the research status of experiments and simulations of viscoelastic particles on profile control is introduced in this paper. First, the properties of viscoelastic particles are summarized. Thereafter, the injection ability, migration ability, profile control ability, and damage effects of viscoelastic particles are expounded. Moreover, the simulation methods for studying the profile control, including classical percolation theory, size exclusion theory, and lattice Boltzmann method–discrete element method, are generalized. The characteristics and applications of different simulation methods are discussed. Finally, the problems that hinder the implementation of experiments and simulations are identified, and suggestions for clarifying the focus and directions of future research are presented.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Viscoelastic particles
• enhanced oil recovery
• experiments
• simulations
• review

Additional information

Funding

The authors greatly appreciate the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51574269), the Project supported by the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (Grant No. 51625403), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2017M622319), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (Grant No. ZR2018BEE004), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 15CX08004A, 18CX02169A) and the Postdoctoral Application Research Project of Qingdao (Grant No. BY20170205).