Microscopic and Macroscopic Investigation of Simultaneous Swelling and Migration of Clays on Rock Permeability During Smart Water Injection

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Petroleum Engineering, Kish International Campus, University of Tehran, Iran

2 Institute of Petroleum Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In recent years, petroleum engineers have focused on smart water injection as an economical and environmental consideration method to increase oil recovery. On the other hand, the phenomena of migration and swelling of clays in the reservoir rock due to the decrease in salinity and the change in the ionic ambiance cause significant changes in the permeability of the sandstone/carbonate reservoirs, which is the cause of damage to the formation. This study performed static tests to determine the amount and type of clay using XRD and SEM tests on the rock core sample. Then, the injection water salinity was designed according to the results of swelling gauge tests to study the effect of different liquids on the swelling of identified clays (kaolinite and smectite) from the static results. In the continuation of the new micromodel dynamic tests and flooding by making a porous clay environment according to the specifications of the real reservoir rock was designed. In this study, the formation damage index to express the simultaneous or separate effect of swelling and migration of swelling and non-swelling clays according to the observational evidence of permeability changes in the micro model along with the interpretation and comparison of quantitative calculations of flooding experiments in salt water/clay interactions are presented. The common result of these experiments shows two suitable patterns of smart water injection, the gradual reduction of formation water salinity with the priority of injection of swelling control fluid and the removal of a migration control fluid, as well as the combination of one percent of zirconium oxychloride in 20 times diluted seawater as a suitable injection fluid for swelling control. With this achievement, in the scenario of smart water injection as a method of EOR which is interested in the oil industry, by removing or controlling formation damage due to fluid incompatible with the reservoir rock, the maximum production recovery will be achieved.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Petroleum Research
Volume 33, 1402-4 - Serial Number 131
November and December 2023
Pages 3-24

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