PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Volume 41, Issue 6, December 2014

Online English edition of the Chinese language journal

Cite this article as: PETROL. EXPLOR. DEVELOP., 2014, 41(6): 794–797. RESEARCH PAPER

Injection parameters optimization of cross-linked polymer

microspheres and polymer composite flooding system
YANG Junru1,2,*, XIE Xiaoqing1,2, ZHANG Jian1,2, ZHENG Xiaoyu3, WEI Zhijie1,2
1. State Key Laboratory of Offshore Oil Exploitation, Beijing 100027, China;
2. CNOOC Research Institute, Beijing 100027, China;
3. China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China

Abstract: Based on the facts that there is no obvious improvement in injection conformance and no significant water cut reduction in
production wells after polymer flooding in S oilfield in Bohai Bay, this study used cross-linked polymer microspheres-polymer composite
flooding to research the effect of chemical system composition, displacement speed, injection volume on polymer flooding by physical
simulation experiments, and to optimize injection parameters of composite system. The results showed that the higher the concentration
of cross-linked polymer microspheres at a total concentration of 1750 mg/L, the more the oil recovery enhancement; the 1350−
1650 mg/L polymer composite system can achieve better oil recovery when the cross-linked polymer microsphere concentration reaches
400−100 mg/L; compared with single polymer flooding, the cross-linked polymer microspheres and polymer composite system flooding
can enhance recovery factor by 8%−11%; in addition, it was found that the composite system could better improve polymer flooding at
the displacement rate of 3.5 m/d and the injection volume of 530 mg/L⋅PV.

Key words: cross-linked polymer microspheres; polymer; composite displacement system; injection parameter; deep displacement;
offshore oilfield

Introduction solution can increase the effective operating distance of mi-

Reservoir heterogeneity and adverse mobility ratio of oil
and water would lead to channelling of injected water along
high permeable layers during water flooding. Injection con-
formance control is regarded as an efficient solution for this
problem[1−3], which can improve the mobility ratio of oil and
water and enlarge sweeping volume, and thus enhance oil
recovery when combined with polymer flooding[4−7]. Com-
pared with the small well spacing (less than 250 m) and lay-
ered injection-production system in onshore oilfields, wells in
offshore oilfield feature large well spacing (more than 350 m)
and commingled injection-production well pattern, which
exacerbates the lateral and vertical heterogeneity. In addition,
the limited offshore platform space and well completion mode
make it difficult to narrow well spacing and change into lay-
ered injection/production system. All these worsen the effect
of heterogeneity on polymer flooding in offshore reservoirs.
Polymer microsphere profile adjustment, a new deep con-
formance control technology, has been applied successfully in
onshore oilfields[8−10]. For polymer flooding oilfields, the
polymer microspheres and polymer agents are mixed into one
chemical composite system and work synergistically: polymer
crospheres, meanwhile the injected microspheres can give
better conformance control, strengthen fluid diversion capac-
ity, delay polymer solution coning and enhance sweep effi-
ciency; this technology can further improve the effect of
polymer flooding, but little research on this topic has been
reported.
The development of the S oilfield in Bohai bay was com-
menced in 1993, which has an average oil viscosity of 70 cp,
reservoir permeability of 3 000 md, average pay thickness of
32 m, reservoir temperature of 65 °C, formation water salinity
of 6 000−20 000 mg/L. The oilfield is developed by in-
vert-nine spot well pattern with a well spacing of 350−590 m.
Single well pilot test of polymer flooding began in September
2003, well group pilot test began in October 2005, and three
years later the test was expanded to the whole field. By Feb-
ruary 2014, there were already 23 polymer injectors. The wa-
ter cut of the oilfield was 68% at the beginning of polymer
flooding, the polymer used was associating polymer PA with
molecular weight of 11 million g/mol and concentration of
1 750 mg/L. It turned out that the oil recovery was enhanced
by polymer injection and cumulative oil increment was 2 mil-

Received date: 26 Mar. 2014; Revised date: 16 Sep. 2014.

* Corresponding author. E-mail: yangjr@cnooc.com.cn
Foundation item: Supported by the China National Science and Technology Major Project (2011ZX05024-004).
Copyright © 2014, Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina. Published by Elsevier BV. All rights reserved.
 YANG Junru et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2014, 41(6): 794–797

lion cubic meters by the end of 2013.

Although the polymer flooding achieved some good results
in the S oilfield, there was no obvious improvement in injec-
tion conformance and no significant reduction of water cut in
production wells. Hence, the chemical composite flooding
combining cross-linked polymer microspheres and polymer is
proposed in this paper. Based on reservoir properties, fluid
properties and current development status of the field test area,
we conducted physical modeling experiments to test the per-
formance of cross-linked polymer microspheres/polymer
composite flooding system and optimize injection parameters Fig. 2 Apparent viscosity retention ratio at different shear rate
in order to guide field application and improve the result of of PA+ ESS (300mg/L ESS +1 450mg/L PA) system and PA system

polymer flooding.
1 Chemical composite system and its properties
The chemical composite system consists of cross-linked
polymer microspheres (ESS) and associating polymer (PA).
1.0−4.0 μm in grain size, ESS is amphoteric and compatible
well with PA. The chemical composite system has good vis-
cosity enhancement capacity, shear stability and blocking
performance.
1.1 Viscosity enhancement capacity
The viscosity of the composite system at different concen-
tration of the associating polymer PA and constant concentra-
tion of the cross-linked polymer microspheres ESS (300 mg/L)
is shown in Fig. 1. It can be seen from the figure that the vis-
cosity of the composite system (red line) exceeds that of sin-
gle polymer (green line) over a large polymer concentration
range.
1.2 Shear stability
1.3 Blocking performance
A sand pack 60 cm long, 2.5 cm in diameter and 3 275 md
in permeability was used for the blocking performance ex-
periments. The chemical composite system of 1 450 mg/L
associating polymer PA and 300 mg/L cross-linked polymer
microspheres was injected into the sand pack, and the flow
pressure difference at various locations was measured at dif-
ferent injection volume. In Fig. 3, curves AB, BC and CD
indicate the pressure difference at the front end (20 cm), the
middle (20 cm), and the end (20 cm) of the sand pack, respec-
tively. On basis of the variation of the pressure difference, the
plugging position of polymer microspheres can be induced.
The experiment shows that the composite system has better
blocking performance and can realize deep plugging (Block-
ing happened in AB, BC, CD sections).
The composite system has better conformance control ca-
pability. Fig. 4 shows the recovery factor is strongly affected
by permeability in PA flooding, and decreases quickly with the

According to the offshore oilfield anti-salt acrylamides

polymer performance indexes and testing method, some
composite solution samples were synthesized and the waring
laboratory blender was used to measure the apparent viscosity
of the samples blended for different time at 65 °C and rotating
speed of 3 500 r/min. Then apparent viscosity retention ratio
at different shear rate was calculated and plotted in Fig. 2. It
can be seen that viscosity retention ratio of ESS and PA system
is higher than PA system, proving better shear stability of the
Fig. 3 Flow pressure difference curves of PA+ ESS system
chemical composite system.

Fig. 4 Recovery factor of different permeability samples in

Fig. 1 Viscosity vs. concentration curve of PA+ ESS and PA composite system flooding
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 YANG Junru et al. / Petroleum Exploration and Development, 2014, 41(6): 794–797
increase of permeability when permeability is more than 500
md. But it is not the case for ESS+PA, the recovery factor is
higher when permeability ranges between 150 md and 3 500
md, indicating EOR effect of ESS+PA is insensitive to perme-
ability. Thus the ESS+PA composite system is suitable for the
high permeable reservoir in the S oilfield.
2 Experimental methods
To facilitate field application of this chemical composite
system as soon as possible, lab physical simulation experi-
ments were carried out to test and optimize its chemical com-
position, injection speed, and injection volume etc.
2.1 Primary water flooding
Man-made long core of 30 cm long and short core of 7 cm
long with a permeability of 2 700 md were saturated with
water firstly, and then saturated with crude oil of 70 cp at res-
ervoir temperature.
Next, the cores were water flooded until water cut reached
95%, injection pressure, water cut, recovery factor (RF) and
liquid production were recorded during this process.
2.2 Chemical composition optimization experiment
The experiment was carried out on a man-made core of 30
cm long with the permeability of 2 700 md, the cores were
saturated with water firstly, and then saturated with crude oil
at reservoir temperature.
Next, the cores were water flooded until the water cut
reached 60% (68% for polymer flooding in the S oilfield),
then converted to chemical composite flooding with different
composition of ESS and PA. In total, 0.3 PV of composite
chemicals was injected, then the core were flooded until the
water cut reached 95%.
In the course, injection pressure, water cut, RF and liquid
production were recorded, so that the increased RF of differ-
ent chemical compositions over water flooding at constant
injection volume could be calculated.
2.3 Injection volume optimization experiment
The experiment was conducted on man-made cores of 30
cm long with the permeability of 2 700 md, the cores were
saturated with water firstly, and then saturated with crude oil
at reservoir temperature.
Then the cores were water flooded to the water cut of 60%,
then flooded with the chemical composite flooding system
(1 650 mg/L PA + 100 mg/L ESS) of different volume. Finally,
they were water flooded to the water cut of 95%.
In the course, injection pressure, water cut, RF and liquid
production were recorded, so that the increase of recovery
factor over water flooding at different injection volume of the
composite system could be compared.
2.4 Injection speed optimization experiment
The experiment was carried out on man-made short cores
of 7 cm long with the permeability of 2 700 md, the cores
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were saturated with water firstly, and then saturated with
crude oil at reservoir temperature.
Next, the cores were water flooded to the water cut of 60%,
then the chemical composite flooding fluid of 0.5 PV (1450
mg/L PA + 300 mg/L ESS) was injected at different injection
speed. Finally the cores were flooded with water to the water
cut of 95%.
Injection pressure, water cut, RF and liquid production
during the process were recorded to compare the increase of
RF over water flooding at different injection speed.
3 Results and discussions
3.1 Chemical composition optimization
The polymer concentration of 1 750 mg/L was applied in
polymer flooding project of the S oilfield, to enhance the
economic benefit of polymer flooding, the concentration of
cross-linked polymer microspheres ESS and the associating
polymer PA were adjusted under the constant total polymer
concentration. Five chemical composite system were designed:
system 1, 1 350 mg/L PA+400 mg/L ESS; system 2, 1 450
mg/L PA + 300 mg/L ESS; system 3, 1550 mg/L PA+200 mg/L
ESS; system 4, 1 650 mg/L PA+100 mg/L ESS; and system 5,
only PA.
Fig. 5 shows the recovery factor and the increase of recov-
ery factor over water flooding of the chemical composite sys-
tems of different concentrations. It can be seen from the figure
that the higher the concentration of cross-linked polymer mi-
crospheres at a total concentration of 1 750 mg/L, the higher
the oil recovery increase; all the 1 350 mg/L−1 650 mg/L
polymer composite systems can achieve good oil recovery;
compared with polymer only flooding, polymer composite
flooding can enhance recovery factor by 8%-11%.
3.2 Injection volume optimization
The effect of injection volume on RF and increase of RF of
chemical composite system 4 (1 650 mg/L PA+100 mg/L ESS)
was tested, the results are shown in Fig. 6. The injection vol-
ume of chemical agents ranged from 0.1-0.6 PV, i.e., 175-
1 050 mg/L⋅PV (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6 shows that the RF increased fast as the injection
volume went up before 0.3 PV and after that the increase
speed slowed down.
Fig. 5 Recovery factor and the increase of recovery factor of
chemical composite systems with different concentrations
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spheres the higher the oil recovery increment; all the compos-
ite systems with 1 350 mg/L−1 650 mg/L PA and ESS concen-
tration ranges 400 mg/L−100 mg/L can achieve satisfactory
oil recovery.
Experiment on injection volume optimization indicates the
chemical composite system can achieve best result at the in-
jection volume of 0.3 PV (530 mg/L.PV). In field application,
this result can be consulted in determining reasonable injec-
tion volume.
Fig. 6 Recovery factor and recovery factor increment vs. dif- It is found through experiment that the composite system
ferent injection volume of chemical composite system 4
can achieve best flooding result at the injection rate of 3.5 m/d,
which can be referred to in field application to select reason-
able injection rate.
The experiment also shows the cross-linked polymer mi-
crospheres/polymer composite system flooding at the total
concentration of 1 750 mg/L can enhance recovery factor
8%−11% higher than that of only polymer flooding.

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