Development of smart EOR in Abu Dhabi carbonate reservoirs

EOR technologies such as CO2 flooding and chemical floods have been on the forefront of oil and gas R&D for the past 4 decades. While most of them are demonstrating very promising results in both lab scale and field pilots, the thrive for exploring additional EOR technologies while achieving full field application has yet to be achieved. Among the emerging EOR technologies is the surfactant EOR along with the application of electrically enhanced oil recovery (EEOR) (Arsalan, et. al, 2012), which is gaining increased popularity due to a number of reservoir-related advantages such as reduction in fluid viscosity, water-cut and increased reservoir permeability. Nano EOR is among the new frontiers that demand more improvements, therefore, new concepts and extensive innovative experimental procedures are required to identify and address key associated uncertainties.;The procedure proposed in this study includes an understanding of the Nano-Surfactant EOR physical processes on lab-scale models of carbonate reservoir retrieved core plugs at various temperatures. (Ogolo et al., 2010). The main objectives include reducing the HSE concerns of handling and transporting the nano and surfactant particles as well as targeting the unswept oil.;Experiments were conducted on 1.5" carbonate reservoir oil-wet core-plugs from Abu Dhabi producing oilfields with porosity ranging from 10 to 24% and permeability ranging from 77 to 149 mD. Several nano particles including Fe (III) O, CuO and NiO of 50 nm range were tested after the waterflooding stage and compared for ultimate recovery factors against the injection of non-ionic surfactant (APG). The smart nano EOR (Haroun et al., 2012) was compared on the same cores, against smart chemical EOR by using sequential and simultaneous application of Electrically Enhanced Oil Recovery (EEOR). The results were further compared with the oil-wet cores. These experiments were also conducted at high pressure and high temperature to discover the effect in its overall recovery close to reservoir conditions.