Evaluation of the Efficiency of Flow Diverting Polymer Flooding

Abstract

The specific aspects of the evaluation of the efficiency of flow diverting polymer flooding (FDPF) for enhanced oil recovery are discussed. It is demonstrated that the zeroing of the FDPF effect on enhanced formation fluid withdrawal leads to the overestimation of the total FDPF effect. The FDPF effect evaluation procedure based on the evaluation of the effect on each responsive production well and the subsequent summation of all effects, as currently used by oil companies, leads to the selective evaluation of only positive constituents of the FDPF effect. The neglect of the negative constituents leads to overestimation of the summary effect of FDPF. Examples of unjustified overestimation and underestimation of FDPF efficiency based on the evaluation procedures used by oil companies are discussed.