The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded more than $2 million for three university research projects that will study polymer injection techniques for oil fields.
Sponsors are the University of Kansas Center for Research Inc. in Lawrence, Kan., the New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center in Socorro, N.M., and Prairie View A&M Research Foundation in Prairie View, Tex.
The projects have arranged $1.35 million in private sector funding. In each case, results will be made available to producers.
DOE called polymer injection "particularly attractive" as a way to enhance the effectiveness of waterflooding. Use of polymers faces technical challenges, such as development of gels that flow easily for several hundred feet into a reservoir rock, then harden to block water flow.
For polymers that follow natural fractures, the set-up time could be only a few days, DOE pointed out. But for polymers that must flow through the tiny pores in the rock matrix, the time to reach the intended location and harden may be a year or longer.
Another research challenge is to develop gels that can seal the more porous sections of reservoir rock without plugging less permeable sections.
The projects
The Kansas project will continue research on polymers that create gels able to block the flow of waterfloods through areas of the reservoir that have been swept of oil, forcing the flow to zones with producible oil.
Research will focus on using gels in highly fractured reservoirs, in carbonate rocks, and in carbon dioxide flooding, gel treatment in production wells, and techniques to harden gels at precise locations several hundred feet into a reservoir.
Don Green and Paul Willhite will head the 30 month project, which will receive $754,000 from DOE and $1.05 million in private funding.
The New Mexico project also will focus on gels and other chemical agents to shut off the flow of water through depleted sections of a reservoir.
The project will seek to identify blocking agents that can flow readily through reservoir fractures or through small leaks in casing or into narrow channels outside the reservoir pipe without damaging low permeability zones close to the well. It also will assess techniques for placing blocking agents in the reservoir where they will be most effective and try to determine why some chemicals block water while allowing oil or gas to continue flowing.
Randall Seright will head the 30 month effort, which will receive $800,000 in federal funds and $300,000 in private funds.
The Texas project will focus on a new family of chemicals for advanced oil recovery. The family includes starches and blends of polymers and starches that offer potentially lower cost alternatives to other chemicals.
The study also will examine blends of polymers and surfactants.
DOE said surfactants to be studied by Prairie View show some of the properties of plastics and could offer producers significant cost savings.
Jorge Gabitto will head the 24 month project, which will obtain $466,337 from DOE.
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