Geochemical evaluation of low salinity hot water injection to enhance heavy oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs

Abstract Although low salinity water injection (LSWI) has recovered residual oil after the conventional waterflood, highly viscous oil has remained in heavy oil reservoirs. Hot water injection is an economic and practical method to improve oil mobility for viscous oil reservoirs. It potentially cont...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ji Ho Lee, Kun Sang Lee
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. 2018
Materias:
Q
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/49f23f1344a745c2b5c49e27382b640f
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:Abstract Although low salinity water injection (LSWI) has recovered residual oil after the conventional waterflood, highly viscous oil has remained in heavy oil reservoirs. Hot water injection is an economic and practical method to improve oil mobility for viscous oil reservoirs. It potentially controls temperature-dependent geochemical reactions underlying the LSWI mechanism and oil viscosity. Therefore, this study has modeled and evaluated a hybrid process of low salinity hot water injection (hot LSWI) to quantify synergistic effects in heavy oil reservoirs. In comparison to seawater injection (SWI) and LSWI, hot LSWI results in more cation ion-exchange (Ca2+ and Mg2+) and more wettability modification. Hot LSWI also reduces oil viscosity. In core-scaled systems, it increases oil recovery by 21% and 6% over SWI and LSWI. In a pilot-scaled reservoir, it produces additional oil by 6% and 3% over SWI and LSWI. Probabilistic forecasting with uncertainty assessment further evaluates the feasibility of hot LSWI to consider uncertainty in the pilot-scaled reservoir and observes enhanced heavy oil production. This study confirms the viability of hot LSWI due to synergistic effects including enhanced wettability modification and oil viscosity reduction effects.