A simulation investigation of performance of polymer injection in hydraulically fractured heterogeneous reservoirs

• DOI: 10.1007/s13202-016-0295-x
• Publication Date: 2016-11-10T01:25:27Z
• Authors: J. Abbasi; B. Raji; M. Riazi; A. Kalantariasl
• Keywords: Dilatant; Shearing (physics); Offshore geotechnical engineering; Shear thinning; Slippage

Polymer flooding is a popular enhanced oil recovery method because of its impact on improvement sweep efficiency. Polymers are non-Newtonian fluids with different behavior at flow rates. At high shear rate, they reveal shear-thinning behavior, which the apparent viscosity reduction by increasing rate. However, higher rate let them become dilatant. Consequently, an increase in contributes to and thus decreases well injectivity polymer. Hydraulic fracturing reduces mechanical shearing vicinity wellbore plays important role feasibility polymer scenarios due enhancement lowering A three-dimensional simulator was used construct synthetic model reservoir no-flow boundary condition. Results show that induced hydraulic fractures improve factor homogeneous heterogeneous reservoirs flooding, although vertically reservoirs, not very effective. The results also more successful viscous oil.