Influence of the polymer degradation on enhanced oil recovery processes

Polymer flooding is one of the most common and technically developed chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes. Its main function is to increase the carrying phase’s (i.e., water or brine) viscosity in order to mobilize the remaining trapped oil. Many numerical simulators have been developed during the last 30 years considering the influence of the polymer molecules on the viscosity as well as on other physical parameters (e.g., diffusion, adsorption). Nevertheless, there are certain phenomena which were not previously considered, for instance, the interfacial effects of hydrophobically modified polymers. Furthermore, the degradation of the polymer molecules in a harsh environment such as the one found in porous media is well known. This causes a deterioration on the viscosifying properties, diminishing the efficiency of the method. It is important also to consider the effect of the polymer viscoelasticity on the microscopic sweeping efficiency, lowering the residual oil saturation, which has not been properly addressed. A new compositional 2D numerical simulator is presented for polymer flooding in a two-phase, three-component configuration, considering all these physical effects present in porous media and using a fully second-order accurate scheme coupled with total variation diminishing (TVD) functions. Results demonstrated that degradation cannot be considered negligible in any polymer EOR process, since it affected the viscoelastic and viscosifying properties, decreasing the sweeping efficiency at both micro- and macroscopic scales. This simulator will allow setting the desired designing properties for future polymers in relationship with the characteristics of the oil field to be exploited.