The Influence of Low Salinity Waterflooding on Waxy Oil Recovery

Waterflooding has been proven as the most popular and effective oil recovery methods through series of successful waterflooding project around the world. Today’s conventional waterflooding however, only focus on the physical aspect of waterflooding mechanism with less attention given to the injection water itself especially its chemical composition. The high cost of conventional Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods such as Chemical and Thermal EOR limits its application in real field although many field tests show promising results. Therefore the main focus of the research is to investigate the influence of Low Salinity Waterflooding (LSW) on Waxy Oil recovery. This aim was achieved through simulation study using LOWSALT option in Eclipse 100 on a synthetic reservoir model. The study shows a significant increase in oil recovery as the salinity of the injected brine decreases. The research also demonstrates that LSW as tertiary imbibition is more effective and economical compared to secondary recovery as the incremental difference between two methods is small. Besides, the study also support the wettability as one of the proposed mechanism of LSW as being suggested in many literatures. With correct LSW design, the study demonstrates the importance of investigating the optimum LSW injection slug sizes in order to maximize the potential of LSW. As a conclusion, the study of LSW is very relevant as it helps to maximize the potential of waterflooding as an economic method of oil recovery.