THE USE OF OIL-SOLUBLE POLYMERS TO ENHANCE OIL RECOVERY IN HARD TO RECOVER HYDROCARBONS RESERVES

Abstract

Currently, the share of new fields in many places over the world, which are at the initial stage of development, is constantly growing. Fields often have a complex heterogeneous structure with hard-to-recover reserves, therefore, for their effective development, it is necessary to use completely new approaches, including improving existing methods of enhanced oil recovery. In this work, experimental verification of a new technology using oil-soluble polymers and comparing it with technology based on the use of water-soluble polymers has been performed. In laboratory conditions, a new technology for polymer flooding at an early stage of development using oil-soluble polymers was developed and experimentally confirmed. The new technology has made it possible to increase the degree of reserves recovery by an average of 30% compared to existing methods of enhanced oil recovery and to solve a number of problems arising from the use of water-soluble polymers. Such problems are the freezing of aqueous polymer solutions in winter and the poor solubility of polymers in formation waters with a high salt content. The use of new technology can also reduce energy costs by 25%.