Polymer/Low Saline Water Injection for Medium-Heavy Oil Recovery

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Waterflooding is the most common oil recovery methods, and indeed, thousands of successful water floods are operated in many oil fields. It is a proven technology, which is reliable, low-risk, and economically successful even at low recovery levels. Most of the knowledge gaps have been solved since the 1940's. However, optimizing its performance and extending its application specifically to medium/heavy oil carbonate reservoirs are important research areas, which have received less attention. Low salinity water injection (Smart Water) is the most recent research focus area by the oil industry. This process is unique and distinctive in its simplicity and effects. The early laboratory scale tests conducted by Norwegian researchers (light oil, imbibition, and conventional waterflooding studies only) showed considerable incremental oil recovery. The main objectives of this proposed project is to test, employ and optimize the new process " Polymer/Low Salinity Water Injection", for improving medium/heavy oil recovery from Saskatchewan and Alberta carbonate oil reservoirs, to understand and describe the physics of fluid flow/interaction in porous media, to add new reserves, to reduce the environmental impact of excessive water production and to derive guidelines for developing medium/heavy oil carbonate reservoirs under the new process polymer/low salinity water injection process.