Laboratory experiment based permeability reduction estimation for enhanced oil recovery

Formation damage is an unwanted operational problem-taking place through several phases of oil reservoir life. The permeability reduction is a key indicator for the formation damage. Suitable assessment of permeability reduction is critical for hydrocarbon recovery. As oil production reach tertiary recovery stage in many fields, formation damage critical evaluation is needed to avoid additional operational cost and technical feasibility concern. The interaction between reservoir minerals and chemical injection practices is not fully understood. Also, clay mineral presence is highly sensitive to the chemicals, while adsorption phenomena can also occur. The degree of permeability reduction cannot be generalized for core/field scales; therefore investigating the permeability reduction in core scale is important before field-scale assessment. Therefore, this study investigates the permeability reduction after chemicals injection under low flow rate in sand-quartz cores and in the presence of kaolinite. Artificial sandpacks were used to control the sand-kaolinite mixture percentage. The permeability was measured before and after each flood by pressure drop calculation. The study showed that the seawater flood has the highest reduction in permeability followed by polymer and surfactants. Also, the results showed a strong effect of surfactant nature and molecular weight on the adsorption process and consequently the permeability reduction. The study provides an insight for the effect of chemicals on cores physical properties.