Pore structure and wetting alteration combine to produce the low salinity effect on oil production
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Published version
Author(s)
Andrews, Edward
Muggeridge, Ann
Jones, Alistair
Krevor, Samuel
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Low salinity water flooding is a promising enhanced oil recovery technique that has been observed, in experiments over a range of scales, to increase oil production by up to 14% in some systems. However, there is still no way of reliably predicting which systems will respond favourably to the technique. This shortcoming is partly because of a relative lack of pore scale observations of low salinity water flooding. This has led to a poor understanding of how mechanisms on the scale of micrometres lead to changes in fluid distribution on the scale of centimetres to reservoir scales. In this work, we use X-ray micro-CT scanning to image unsteady state experiments of tertiary low salinity water flooding in Berea, Castlegate, and Bunter sandstone micro-cores. We observe fluid saturations and characterise the wetting state of samples using imagery of fluid–solid fractional wetting and pore occupancy analysis. In the Berea sample, we observed an additional oil recovery of 3 percentage points during low salinity water flooding, with large volumes of oil displaced from small pores but also re-trapping of mobilised oil in large pores. In the Bunter sandstone, we observed 4 percentage point additional recovery with significant displacement of oil from small pores and no significant retrapping of oil in large pores. However, in the Castlegate sample, we observed just 1 percentage point of additional recovery and relatively small volumes of oil mobilisation. We observe a significant wettability alteration towards more water-wet conditions in the Berea and Bunter sandstones, but no significant alteration in the Castlegate sample. We hypothesise that pore structure, specifically the topology of large pores impacted recovery. We find that poor connectivity of the largest pores in each sample is strongly correlated to additional recovery. This work is the first systematic comparison of the pore scale response to low salinity flooding across multiple sandstone samples. Moreover, it gives the first pore scale insights into the role of pore geometry and topology on the mobilisation of oil during low salinity water flooding.
Date Issued
2023-01-15
Date Acceptance
2022-09-27
Citation
Fuel: the science and technology of fuel and energy, 2023, 332, pp.1-15
ISSN
0016-2361
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
15
Journal / Book Title
Fuel: the science and technology of fuel and energy
Volume
332
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000874586800005&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Energy & Fuels
Engineering, Chemical
Engineering
Low salinity water flooding
Wettability
Pore scale physics
Enhanced oil recovery
X-ray micro-CT imaging
BUNTER SANDSTONE FORMATION
MICRO-CT
WETTABILITY ALTERATION
RECOVERY
SCALE
WATER
PERMEABILITY
MECHANISMS
TIME
SENSITIVITY
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 126155
Date Publish Online
2022-10-13