Assessing the impact of geochemical mechanism and interpolation factor selection on the precision of low-salinity waterflooding modelling: a comparative study
Jalilian M. Mahdavi S. Pourafshary P. You Z. Mohammadi A.H.
2024Taylor and Francis Ltd.
Geosystem Engineering
2024#27Issue 6304 - 318 pp.
The efficacy of low salinity waterflooding (LSWF) as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method in carbonate formations has been well established; however, its geochemical modelling in such reservoirs remains insufficiently explored. This study aims to bridge this gap by conducting a comparative analysis of three well-recognised geochemical mechanisms including fines migration, rock dissolution/precipitation, and multi-ion exchange (MIE). Our research encompasses two parts: experimental and modelling. First, we conducted four coreflooding experiments to study the effect of LSWF on oil recovery in core scale as well as on rock wettability by measuring the contact angle of the crude oil-brine-rock system. In the next step, we created a one-dimensional compositional model in CMG-GEMTM for LSWF, validated it using the obtained experimental results, and compared the accuracy of the three geochemical mechanisms one-by-one. The results of the experimental section, confirm the positive effect of LSWF on oil recovery: 34.3% with seawater (40,000 ppm), 42.5% with LoSal-01 (10,000 ppm), 49.7% with LoSal-02 (5,000 ppm), and 60.9% with LoSal-03 (2,000 ppm). The experiments also show the wettability alteration through the reduction in the contact angle. Furthermore, the modelling results reveal that choosing MIE as the governing mechanism and sulphate concentration ([(Formula presented.)]) as the relevant interpolation factor (IF) leads to the most accurate LSWF model. After identifying the most accurate mechanism, we detected the wettability alteration in the model by showing the movement of oil and water relative permeability curves intersection point on the Kr-Sw diagram toward the right side.
fines migration , geochemical modelling , Low salinity waterflooding , multi-ion exchange , rock dissolution
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Department of Petroleum Engineering, School of Engineering, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, Australia
Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
School of Mining and Geosciences, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
School of Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
Department of Petroleum Engineering
Schulich School of Engineering
School of Mining and Geosciences
School of Engineering
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