TY - THES

T1 - Investigation of Low Salinity Water Flooding Recovery Mechanisms

AU - Barghati, Zakaria Mohamed

N1 - embargoed until null

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Low salinity water flooding (LSWF) is one of the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques with many advantages. It is an environmentally friendly and relatively cheap EOR method. Several laboratory experiments have been conducted and reported regarding the main mechanisms of the LSWF in the literature; however, laboratory experiments alone are not enough to understand the main recovery mechanisms during this process. For that reason, further modeling research attempts were made by different researchers to comprehend the understanding of the LSWF governing recovery mechanisms. This work discusses and summarizes some of the work done so far in modeling the oil recovery mechanisms during LSWF in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. Furthermore, discusses and summarizes the results obtained from numerical simulation models of the LSWF, which were built in this work on the Computer Modelling Group (CMG) reservoir simulator based on experimental data. This simulation model was built to further understand the dominated mechanisms controlling the oil recovery during LSWF in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The simulation results were also compared with some experimental results to validate the outputs from the simulation. This study concluded that a combination of several mechanisms is interacting together to cause an increase in the oil recovery during LSWF in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The optimization of the salinity, ion type, and composition are essential in this process. Besides, the sodium and sulfate ions were found to have a considerable effect on the performance of the processes in sandstone and carbonate rocks, respectively. Based on the properties of the fluids and rocks used in this work, it was confirmed that ion-exchange, together with electric double-layer, are the most realistic mechanisms, which causes the increase in the oil recovery during LSWF.

AB - Low salinity water flooding (LSWF) is one of the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques with many advantages. It is an environmentally friendly and relatively cheap EOR method. Several laboratory experiments have been conducted and reported regarding the main mechanisms of the LSWF in the literature; however, laboratory experiments alone are not enough to understand the main recovery mechanisms during this process. For that reason, further modeling research attempts were made by different researchers to comprehend the understanding of the LSWF governing recovery mechanisms. This work discusses and summarizes some of the work done so far in modeling the oil recovery mechanisms during LSWF in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. Furthermore, discusses and summarizes the results obtained from numerical simulation models of the LSWF, which were built in this work on the Computer Modelling Group (CMG) reservoir simulator based on experimental data. This simulation model was built to further understand the dominated mechanisms controlling the oil recovery during LSWF in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The simulation results were also compared with some experimental results to validate the outputs from the simulation. This study concluded that a combination of several mechanisms is interacting together to cause an increase in the oil recovery during LSWF in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The optimization of the salinity, ion type, and composition are essential in this process. Besides, the sodium and sulfate ions were found to have a considerable effect on the performance of the processes in sandstone and carbonate rocks, respectively. Based on the properties of the fluids and rocks used in this work, it was confirmed that ion-exchange, together with electric double-layer, are the most realistic mechanisms, which causes the increase in the oil recovery during LSWF.

KW - Wasserflutung mit niedrigem Salzgehalt

KW - verbesserte Ölrückgewinnung

KW - Rückgewinnungsmechanismen

KW - Ionenaustausch

KW - elektrische Doppelschicht

KW - Low Salinity Water Flooding

KW - Enhanced Oil Recovery

KW - Recovery Mechanisms

KW - Ion-Exchange

KW - Electric Double-Layer

M3 - Master's Thesis

ER -