Advanced Technology Solutions for Unconventional Oil & Gas Development
Project Goals
The overall objective of this project is to perform a research field experiment to validate the use of polymer floods for heavy oil Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) on Alaska North Slope.
The main scientific/technical objectives of the proposed project are:
- Determine the synergy effect of the integrated EOR technology of polymer, low salinity water, horizontal wells, and conformance treatments (e.g., gels), and its potential to economically enhance heavy oil recovery.
- Assess polymer injectivity into the Schrader Bluff formations for various polymers at various concentrations.
- Assess and improve injection conformance along horizontal wellbore and reservoir sweep between horizontal injectors and producers.
- Evaluate the water salinity effect on the performance of polymer flooding and gel treatments.
- Optimize pump schedule of low-salinity water and polymer.
- Establish timing of polymer breakthrough in Schrader Bluff N-sands.
- Screen an optimized method to control the conformance of polymer flooding at the various stages of the polymer flooding project.
- Estimate polymer retention from field data and compare with laboratory and simulation results.
- Assess incremental oil recovery vs. polymer injected.
- Assess effect of polymer production on surface facilities and remediation methods.
The technical tasks proposed in these studies focus on the following: (1) optimization of injected polymer viscosity/concentration and quantification of polymer retention via laboratory scale experiments; (2) optimization of injection water salinity and identification of contingencies for premature polymer breakthrough via laboratory scale experiments and numerical analyses; (3) reservoir simulation studies for optimization of polymer injection strategy; (4) design and implementation of a field pilot test at Milne Point on ANS; (5) identification of effective ways to treat produced water that contains polymer (including polymer fouling of heater tubes), and finally (6) the feasibility of commercial application of the piloted method in ANS heavy oil reservoirs.
