HEAVY OIL WATERFLOODING: EFFECTS OF FLOW RATE

The objectives of this final year project are to understand the forces that are present in
the reservoir and how they can be used to properly design the heavy oil waterflooing and
to determine the effect of water injection rate toward oil recovery. In times of uncertain
commodity pricing, it is beneficial to oil and gas industries company to have and
examine the potential for low cost, non-thermal oil recovery techniques which are
relatively inexpensive and easy to control such as waterflooding.
The problem is that, in waterflooding applications, oil companies still have a
problem of understanding the forces that are present in the reservoir and how they can be
used to properly design the waterflood which can lead to a better oil recovery.
Specifically, proper design and maintenance of waterfloods requires comprehension of
how viscous oil can be displaced by water, and how oil recovery can be optimized.
Thus, the scope of study should be based on searching for the results for water injection
into laboratory core plug containing gas-free heavy oil of high viscosity at different
water injection rate. The responses for different waterfloods are compared in order to investigate
the mechanisms by which heavy oil can be recovered by water injection. The
parameters that will be evaluated is the effect of water injection rate, effect of capillary
forces, instability and mobility ratio. This research focus in evaluating affects of water
injection rate towards heavy oil recovery by waterflooding. In order to obtain the data,
the author use research methodology of identifYing and understand the theory of
waterflooding in oil reservoir such as understand the instability theory and imbibitions
theory. Author also evaluates the effect of viscous forces and capillary forces through
laboratory test and make a prediction of heavy oil waterflooding recovery. This final
year project presents the finding or results for water injection into laboratory core plug
containing gas-free heavy oil at varying water injection rates. The responses for different
waterfloods are compared in order to investigate the mechanisms by which heavy oil can
be recovered by water injection. Therefore, if the author can prove that waterflooding at
lower injection rate is better than high injection rate in term of recovery, Oil Company
can increase their profit at significant value.