Mechanistic Simulation Studies on Viscous-Elastic Polymer Flooding in Petroleum Reservoirs

Abstract

Based on the theory and application developments of polymer flooding on enhancing oil recovery, an improved mathematical model has been developed to simulate the mechanism of viscous-elastic polymer flooding. IMPES method has been presented to solve the polymer flooding model considering the viscosifying effect of elasticity, the effect of decreasing residual oil and the degradation of polymer molecules. The validation of the model is approved by an experiment. A simulation example was carried out using the developed numerical simulator. The enhanced oil recovery mechanism was discussed for viscous-elastic polymer flooding, and corresponding influencing factors were also studied.

Keywords:

• Enhanced oil recovery
• mathematical model
• petroleum reservoirs
• polymer flooding
• viscoelasticity

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the major national S&T program of 2008ZX05024-002-012.