Chapters authored
Lessons Learned from Our Recent Research in Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (C-EOR) Methods
As a result of the ever-increasing global energy demand coupled with the rapid decline of the oil production, the games of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) are played in many oilfields worldwide especially in China. It was reported that EOR jobs produced 45.1 × 104 m3/d of oil production rate in 2014 all over the world, proving the significance of these jobs. Due to the complex geology, chemical enhanced oil recovery (C-EOR) methods are considered the predominant technology in China and takes nearly 86% of the total EOR projects currently. This fact motivates us to develop novel and more advanced C-EOR methods for different geological types of Chinese reservoirs such as high temperature and pressure, ultralow permeability, heavy oil reservoirs, etc. Through 20 years’ efforts, many advantageous C-EOR methods have been successfully developed in our group and tested in oilfields such as stabilized foam injection, nanofluid flooding, functional polymer flooding, etc. Herein, this chapter summarized the latest experimental results of three representative C-EOR methods. More attentions were given to the relationship between bulk properties and flow behaviors in porous media. The lessons learned from our research in C-EOR were also discussed in this chapter.
Part of the book: Recent Insights in Petroleum Science and Engineering