On approaches to solving problems when modeling polymer flooding at the Kalamkas oil field

Background: Currently, polymer flooding is one of the most effective methods for increasing reservoir recovery, accordingly and modeling this process is of particular relevance.

Aim: The purpose of hydrodynamic modeling is to predict the distribution of parameters, technological indicators, and simulate all possible development scenarios. Based on the simulation results, decisions are made on the profitability of projects.

Materials and methods: There are a number of significant problems in the process of hydrodynamic modeling, one of which is adaptation. Difficulties with adaptation are mainly associated with the incorrect determination of filtration – capacitive properties, which is directly caused by the lack of core research data. The main physical parameters that determine the filtration-capacitive properties of reservoir rocks are porosity, permeability, relative phase permeabilities, and saturation. These properties are critical for accurate fluid flow modeling and production forecasting. However, the lack of core data limits our understanding of these properties and affects the quality of model fit.

Due to the insufficient data on the oil field in this Vostok site of horizon Ю-1 of the Kalamkas field, the approved initial geological reserves differ from the reserves according to the model by approximately 20%. For a more accurate adaptation of the hydrodynamic model, the availability of current initial geological reserves is significantly insufficient.

Results: In this article, a number of approaches were applied to solve the above-mentioned problem in the hydrodynamic modeling of polymer flooding in the Kalamkas oil field, and as a result, the results obtained were demonstrated.

Conclusion: Hydrodynamic modeling allows us to conduct numerical experiments to optimize the parameters of polymer flooding, helps to study their influence and select the optimal ratio to improve the efficiency of the flooding process.