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Gradual or Instantaneous Wettability Alteration During Simulation of Low-Salinity Water Flooding in Carbonate Reservoirs

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Abstract

Injection of low-salinity water into carbonate reservoirs has gained attention as a viable and efficient enhanced oil recovery approach through wettability alteration as prevailing mechanism. However, modeling and implementation of wettability alteration during simulation of low-salinity water injection are challenging because of the complex ion interactions and chemical reactions in the brine and oil mixture as well as on the rock surface. It is noteworthy that wettability alteration is usually considered instantaneous in black oil simulation. The main purpose of this work was to put this assumption into perspective; thus, it aims at discerning under what circumstances the instantaneous wettability alteration approach is plausible during simulation of low-salinity water flooding. To answer this question, an approach was proposed to consider gradual wettability alteration during simulation of low-salinity water flooding and the results were compared with instantaneous wettability alteration method. The results show that the impacts of simultaneous increase in \({\text{SO}}_{4}^{2 - } ,{\text{Ca}}^{2 + }\) concentrations and temperature cause the difference between gradual and instantaneous wettability alteration to be more noticeable at the early times of injection. Therefore, the results highlight that the impact of gradual consideration would be important at the early time of low-salinity water flooding process.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Shiraz University for their support during this research. We would also like to thank Prof. John Carranza, the Editor-in-Chief, and the anonymous reviewers of Natural Resources Research for their valuable comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Petroleum Engineering, School of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

    Zahra Negahdari, Mohammad R. Malayeri, Mojtaba Ghaedi, Sabber Khandoozi & Masoud Riazi

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  1. Zahra Negahdari
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  2. Mohammad R. Malayeri
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  3. Mojtaba Ghaedi
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  4. Sabber Khandoozi
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  5. Masoud Riazi
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Correspondence to Mojtaba Ghaedi.

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Negahdari, Z., Malayeri, M.R., Ghaedi, M. et al. Gradual or Instantaneous Wettability Alteration During Simulation of Low-Salinity Water Flooding in Carbonate Reservoirs. Nat Resour Res 30, 495–517 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-020-09726-z

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