Simulation Study of Polymer Gel Application in Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes

Abstract

Heavy oil resources provide a significant percentage of total Canadian carbon energy production. They can be produced using enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes. The capacity of polymer gel as a blocking agent applied in a heavy oil field to recover oil, however, still remains unclear. A numerical simulation approach is used to investigate the connection and difference between secondary and tertiary recovery techniques to provide a better understanding of the polymer gel EOR process. The performance and key mechanism of a gel treatment applied in a heavy oil field is simulated for the first time by a novel reservoir simulation model in this study. A newly-introduced economic evaluation model built for the project proves the value of using a polymer gel and can be used as a simple method to evaluate other projects using polymer gel EOR techniques.