An Evaluation of the Chemical EOR Potential for Advanced Niger Delta Oil Recovery

Abstract

Most of the prolific fields in Niger Delta are increasingly producing water with substantial bypassed oil saturation left unrecovered. The major challenge facing oil and gas industry today is the ability to maximize recovery; reducing the residual oil saturation left trapped after primary and or secondary recovery. Surfactant flooding has been the major process in reducing the interfacial tension between oil and water thereby facilitating the maximum recovery of the residual oil saturation. This study involved using reservoir simulation to show the relative merits of surfactant/polymer flooding in a Niger Delta oil reservoir. The target reservoir is a simple geological model. Despite years of water injection there remains high bypassed oil saturation. Following nearly two years of water injection and an extensive field polymer injection into wells, the production response to polymer injection was evaluated and discovered to increase. The Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) simulation results show a substantial improvement in reservoir performance. The cumulative oil production increased from 120,000m3 using natural enrygy to 1,650,000m3using ASP The results of this study will be a major starting point for chemical EOR pilot project in Niger Delta area.