Application of Low Salinity Water-based Enhanced Oil Recovery Methods for Naturally Fractured Formations

Faculty Development Competitive Research Grants Program 2022-2024

A significant volume of hydrocarbons (over 20% of the world’s oil reserves) is found in naturally fractured reservoirs (NFR), which do not produce efficiently due to the high degree of heterogeneity caused by the fracture network. More than 90% of carbonate formations are oil-wet and mixed wet. Most of the NFRs produce under the natural depletion scenario. The conductive path of the fractures causes the injecting fluid to find a way to the production well immediately in the secondary stage of production, resulting in inefficient oil recovery. The oil-wetting feature in these reservoirs and the presence of natural fractures cause the efficiency of water flooding to be somewhat low. In addition, the application of different Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods is challenging and limited in NFRs, due to the complexity of such reservoirs. Therefore, the challenge is to tailor and design successful EOR methods to be applied in NFRs. The main purpose of this proposal is to continue our current research on low salinity water flooding (LSW) and make it more realistic for carbonate fields in Kazakhstan. As many carbonate fields in the region are fractured, a study on the design and performance of engineered water (EW) flooding on oil recovery is essential. Different experimental and modeling analyses will be considered in this proposal to study the effect of LSW/EW on fluid/rock interactions in a fracture/matrix system.