spe-214088-ms

SPE-214088-MS
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An Extensive Evaluation of Different Reservoir Simulators used for Polymer
Flooding Modeling
Aaron G. Tellez Arellano, Anas Mohammed Hassan, Emad W. Al-Shalabi, and Waleed AlAmeri, Department of
Petroleum Engineering, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, UAE; Muhammad S. Kamal and Shirish
Patil, Department of Petroleum Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals
Copyright 2023, Society of Petroleum Engineers DOI 10.2118/214088-MS
This paper was prepared for presentation at the Gas & Oil Technology Showcase and Conference held in Dubai, UAE, 13 - 15 March, 2023.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
The global interest in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods has been increasing recently as a source of
satisfying the ever increasing energy demand. This is due to maturing of most of the existing and significant
hydrocarbon reservoirs as well as the very limited number of new oil major reservoir discoveries. This
is added to the challenging existing reservoirs conditions such as viscous oil, mixed-to-oil wettability,
heterogeneity, and high temperature high salinity (HTHS). Polymer flooding is one of the robust and
inexpensive EOR processes that improves sweep as well as displacement efficiencies. However, modeling
of polymer flooding is a challenging task due to the difficulty in portraying all of the key physico-chemical
aspects such as polymer rheology, adsorption equilibrium, inaccessible pore volume, and behavior against
high salinity and hardness. This challenge has shifted the attention and efforts towards developing reliable
reservoir simulators as tools for predicting and mitigating the risks-involved with polymer flooding projects.
In this study, we present a critical review of recent modules from different numerical simulators with
chemical EOR (cEOR) competences such as CMG-STARS, ECLIPSE-100, and UTCHEM to model
polymer properties. The review starts with description of numerical formulation and applications for
different simulators. This is followed by descriptions of polymer models including viscosity, salinity effect,
rheology, adsorption, and permeability reduction. Afterwards, the assessment of different simulators is
presented through polymer flooding simulation cases as reported in the literature. It is to be noted that
the overall results did not provide an insight into algorithm efficiency or computational cost of different
numerical simulators, but instead mainly focused on the mechanistic modeling of the process with different
parameters. The results suggest that with an appropriate mechanistic modeling of polymer flooding, there
is potential for accurate prediction and optimization of various polymer flooding projects under diverse
conditions, which is expected to positively impact the oil recovery efficiency and related economics. This
study provides insights about the application scopes of different numerical simulators and their competences
under diverse reservoir scenarios in order to obtain optimized performance of a polymer flooding field
project.
2 SPE-214088-MS
Introduction
The increasing global demand for oil, reaching the highest demand-level in year 2019 with 97.75 million of
barrels per day as per the BP Statistical Review (2022) is to continue to increase in the forthcoming decades
(Dale, 2022). The industry expects to supply oil by way of discovering new fields or increasing the recovery
from existing fields including harsh conditioned carbonates (high temperature and high salinity, HTHS).
Conventional recovery, commonly referred to as the primary production from oil reservoirs is the result
of the inherent energy of the reservoir through reservoir depressurization process. It is during secondary
recovery where energy is supplemented to the reservoir through increasing the pressure by injections of
water or gas. Moreover, waterflooding, which can be officially backdated to at least the 1920s is the most
common secondary recovery method after the conventional primary recovery.
Nevertheless, more than 60% of the oil originally in place (OOIP) remains unrecovered after
waterflooding (Statter and Iqbal, 2007; Hassan et al., 2022a). This renders waterflooding an inefficient
displacement method due to either unfavorable mobility ratio and/or identified heterogeneities that cause
the unrecovered oil to be left behind, usually classified into "bypassed oil" and "residual oil" (Sorbie, 1991).
Therefore, additional recovery processes are applied whereby the physical and chemical properties of the
rock and/or the fluids are changed to recover hydrocarbons efficiently and economically, which are termed
as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods. For instance, chemical techniques such as alkali, surfactant,
and/or polymer flooding, known as Chemical EOR (cEOR) have been developed. The latter chemicals
can change the rock-fluid interactions at a reasonably technical and economic cost to be considered as a
promising category of oil recovery.
Polymer flooding is among the most widespread cEOR techniques, that involves addition of polymers
to the injected water for lowering the water mobility and improving the sweep efficiency during EOR.
Polymer flooding has been successfully applied to mature conventional reservoirs, for nonthermal recovery
of viscous oils, and in heterogeneous fractured reservoirs as well (Goudarzi et al., 2016; Carpenter, 2022;
Keith et al., 2022). Recently, some new polymers have been proposed in literature, which involve the use
of co-polymer or terpolymer with functionalized monomers such as polymers tolerant to high temperature
and high salinity environments, shear resistant polymers such as hydrophobic associating polymer that can
retain certain viscosity after shear reduction, and pre-sheared or pre-degraded polymers that evade reservoir-
plugging complications. These polymers have been tested beyond conventional polymer flooding with
seawater/formation water, but towards hybrid low salinity polymer flooding method. However, simulations
of these new polymer flooding advances are complicated to perform, since a competent mechanistic
prediction model is required that correctly reproduces polymer-rock-brine interactions (Al-Shalabi et al.,
2022; Hassan et al., 2022b).
Accordingly, efficient commercial and open-source reservoir simulators have been developed to model
these complex polymer flooding processes. These include UTCHEM, CMG-STARS, ECLIPSE, REVEAL,
VIP, and MRST. One should note that for REVEAL, VIP, and MRST simulators, the features for polymer
flooding will be briefly discussed in this paper. On the other hand, the main focus will be on the detailed
descriptions of UTCHEM, CMG-STARS, and ECLIPSE reservoir simulators due to their wide-reaching
applications (Goudarzi et al., 2016). Some of the recent prominent works related to these simulators are
summarized.
Morel et al. (2008) used the ECLIPSE-100 polymer module to perform a feasibility study of polymer
injection in the Dalia field. They demonstrated useful results of injectivity and additional recovery.
Additionally, Alshawaf et al. (2018) validated numerical studies of crossflow in stratified reservoirs during
polymer flooding using ECLIPSE-100 without modification. The results from their experiments were
compared against the output from the simulator showing that the simulator was able to capture the physics of
simple polymer flooding in stratified systems without history matching. Al-Murayri et al. (2022) used CMG-
STARS to develop a comprehensive model that captures a polymer flooding test, which aimed to mitigate
SPE-214088-MS 3
the risks of phased commercial polymer flooding in the Wara reservoir in the Burgan field. The authors
calibrated the simulator to wellbore petrophysics, polymer concentrations, downhole pressures, injection
rates, and monitoring data. Their key objective was production acceleration, reservoir development, and cost
optimization. On the other hand, Goudarzi et al. (2013, 2016) verified both CMG-STARS and ECLIPSE
against UTCHEM with a laboratory coreflood results to show the agreement and limitations of the two
commercial simulators for modeling the effect of hardness and adsorption in the polymer flooding process.
Other used simulators are REVEAL and VIP. REVEAL is a complete field numerical simulator that
has studies in EOR areas and is capable of modeling mobility control of polymer and gel (Petroleum
Experts, 2012). Reveal's mobility section has the ability of modeling polymer viscosity as function of
concentration, temperature, and salinity. This module can model shear-thinning behavior, total thickening
factor, inaccessible pore volume, gelation, and degradation between polymer and cross-linker. VIP is
another competitive simulator where the VIP-CORE module can initialize reservoir simulation modules as
multi-component black-oil model, equation of state compositional mode, dual porosity, dual permeability
mode, polymer flooding model, and thermal compositional model (Halliburton, 2012). Through the VIP-
POLYMER option module, the model considers the key physical properties ascribed to the flow of polymer
solutions through porous media. These comprise of a non-Newtonian (shear dependent) viscosity that is
a function of polymer concentration and other polymer dependent properties viz., polymer adsorption,
permeability reduction, as well as inaccessible pore volume.
Furthermore, the MATLAB Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST) is an open-source and object-oriented
simulator founded on black-oil formulation with fully-implicit formulation and upstream-weighting for
spatial discretization. The software has been modified into a practical platform for rapid prototyping and
testing of the new simulation methods and mathematical models (Lie et al., 2012). The simulator enables
the adaption of four main class systems comprising of the grid, fluid, rock, and numerical system. The
fundamental part of the toolbox is the MRST-AD framework and an iterative linear solver with a constrained
pressure residual (CPR) preconditioner. MRST features a module for a three-phase black oil polymer
model with additional variables, mixing rules, viscosity modification, and optional shear effects. This model
assumes that polymer is transported in the aqueous phase and that the polymer alters the viscosity of this
phase without affecting the oleic and gaseous phases (Lie and Moyner, 2021). Bao et al. (2017) verified
the MRST simulator against a commercial simulator and then, obtained a good agreement to apply the new
simulator to several realistic reservoir models for investigating the effect of polymer flooding and numerical
efficiency.
In addition, with the purpose of understanding the rheological behavior of the polymer-water mixture
on a reservoir scale, as well as the salinity and hardness effects on polymer rheology, a coupling between
the flow simulator MRST and IPhreeqc i.e., the geochemical engine Interface pH-Redox-Equilibrium had
been performed (Al-Shalabi et al., 2022, Hassan et al, 2022b). IPhreeqc is a free and open-source module
of Phreeqc geochemical package that is designed to grasp the coupling between the reservoir simulator
software and the geochemical package (Parkhurst and Appelo, 2013). The capabilities of this geochemical
engine include aqueous speciation, dissolution/precipitation of minerals, reaction of acidic components
of oil with bases in aqueous solution, ion-exchange, and surface complexation. The coupling interface
of MRST-IPhreeqc allows representative fluid flow and reactive transport prediction in porous media for
advanced cEOR processes such as low salinity water injection (LSWI) and low salinity polymer flooding
(LSP).
This paper discusses the competencies of polymer flooding reservoir simulators such as CMG-STARS,
ECLIPSE, and UTCHEM with analysis and comparison of the chemical models that each simulator uses. In
addition, the capabilities and limitations of different models for polymer properties are analyzed to portray
their strengths and weaknesses under diverse reservoir environments. The acumens will be acquired and
4 SPE-214088-MS
assessments will be accomplished through polymer flooding simulation cases between different simulators
as reported in the literature.
Reservoir Simulators Description
UTCHEM
The UTCHEM simulator is a multicomponent, multiphase, and three-dimensional chemical compositional
reservoir simulator, which can simulate different cEOR processes (Delshad, 1994; Korrani, 2014; Goudarzi
et al., 2016). The flow and transport equations of UTCHEM account for a mass conservation equation
for each chemical species, overall mass conservation equation, and an energy conservation equation. Four
phases are modeled by UTCHEM and these modeled phases include a single component gas phase and up
to three liquid phases of either aqueous, oleic, or microemulsion phase that is conditional to the relative
amounts and effective salinity of the surfactant/oil/water system.
The consequential flow equations are numerically solved by means of a block-centered finite-difference
scheme. The numerical solution technique utilizes a high order of numerical accuracy and dispersion control
by using an implicit in pressure and explicit in concentration method (IMPES-like). Up until now, UTCHEM
has been extensively applied for simulations of laboratory and field scale processes including waterflooding,
polymer, surfactant/polymer flooding, tracers transport, and high pH alkaline/surfactant/polymer flooding
methods (Lashgari, 2018).
CMG-STARS
The new generation advanced processes reservoir simulator STARS by CMG includes options such
as chemical/polymer flooding, thermal applications, steam injection, horizontal wells, dual porosity/
permeability, directional permeabilities, flexible grids, fireflood, and others. STARS was developed to
simulate steam flood, steam cycling, steam-with additives, dry and wet combustion, along with numerous
types of chemical additive processes, using a wide range of grid and porosity models in both field- and
laboratory-scale. STARS is a three-phase multi-component thermal and steam additive simulator with
gridding system that may be Cartesian, Cylindrical, or have variable depth/thickness along with novel
attributes like dispersed component. STARS also includes foam, naturally fractured reservoirs, adaptive
implicit formulation, and geomechanics simulation capabilities, among others. For polymer flooding, the
features comprise of viscosity, rheology, adsorption, inaccessible pore volume (IPV), and permeability
reduction which will be used for comparison (CMG-STARS User Guide, 2021).
ECLIPSE
The ECLIPSE simulator is one of the most popular reservoir simulators used worldwide in the oil industry.
The simulator software consists of two separate modules: ECLIPSE 300, specializing in compositional
modelling, and ECLIPSE 100, which specializes in black oil modeling. ECLIPSE 100 is a fully implicit,
three-phase, three-dimensional, general-purpose black-oil simulator that can model different chemical EOR
processes, and polymer flooding is one of them. It is assumed by ECLIPSE that the flow of the polymer
solution through the porous media has no influence on the flow of the hydrocarbon phases (ECLIPSE
Reference Manual, 2022).
Polymer Model Description

Polymer Flooding Process
The main objective of polymer flooding is to enhance water viscosity, leading to improved water mobility
and consequently, enhanced displacement and volumetric sweep efficiencies (Sorbie, 1991; Musa et al.,
2021). According to Sorbie (1991), there are two scenarios whereby the application of polymer flooding
SPE-214088-MS 5
results in higher yield of recovery: unfavorable mobility ratio and excessive reservoir heterogeneity. To
understand the improvement in sweep efficiency by polymers, it is essential to introduce the definition of
mobility ratio (M), which is as given by the equation below:
(1)
where λ, μ, and keff correspondingly denote the mobility, viscosity, and effective permeability, respectively.
The subscripts "w" and "o" refer to water and oil phases, respectively. During waterflooding, the oil left
behind the waterfront comprises of the "bypassed" oil as well as the "residual" oil. The amount of bypassed
oil increases with complex reservoir heterogeneities and unfavorable mobility ratio between displacing
(water) and displaced (oil) fluids, that is typically greater than >1.
The role of the polymer is to achieve efficient displacement of oil in the pore system and shift
the fractional flow curve towards a more favorable direction. Several key parameters such as polymer
concentration, viscosity, rheology, adsorption, inaccessible pore volume (IPV), and permeability reduction
are imperative parameters for controlling a successful polymer flood. The core of this paper is to present a
distinctive modeling exemplar by evaluating the different reservoir simulators.
Polymer Viscosity and Salinity Effect

The viscosity-enhancing power of the polymer is the essential parameter for the evaluation of a successful
polymer flooding project. The polymer solution's viscosity is a function of the concentration, size, and
extension of the polymer molecule in the solution; where higher concentration and larger molecule species
are associated with higher solution viscosities. STARS by CMG calculates the polymer viscosity via the
non-linear mixing rule, which is given by:
(2)
where xa denotes the components mole fraction, f(xa) denotes the mixing function which depends onxa, and
μa denotes the component viscosity. The viscosity defined for the nonlinear mixing component is presumed
to represent the viscosity of a specified component concentration. In most cases, this is represented by
a polymer solution, but the salinity effect is considered as common to any component/solution mix. The
salinity effect for a polymer/water solution is defined as follows:
(3)
(4)
where xsalt is the salinity component mole/mass fraction, xmin is the enforced minimum salinity component,
is the user defined polymer component viscosity, μp is the resultant polymer component viscosity in
the saline solution, and sp is the slope on a log-log plot of polymer component viscosity against the ratio
of salinity over minimum salinity mole/mass fraction. The salinity component can be defined for a single
CMG-STARS component, or it can be represented by a weighted sum of the mole mass fraction of multiple
cationic components. The latter case is termed as the equivalent salinity option. This equivalent salinity
option (xeq) and is given by the equation:
(5)
6 SPE-214088-MS
where xeq replaces xsalt in Equation (3), and βvs denotes the coefficient of the equivalent salinity weighting for
each contributive cationic component. The weighting factor is employed to account for the valence number
of the ion (equivalence) and hence, divalent ions have a stronger effect through the equivalent salinity on
viscosity in comparison to monovalent ions. For instance, monovalent ions generally will have a weighting
factor of unity, whereas the divalent cations have a weighting factor that is greater than unity.
In ECLIPSE 100, it is the viscosity terms that contain the effects of a change in the viscosity of the
aqueous phase because of the presence of polymer and salt in the solution. Nevertheless, to incorporate the
effects of physical dispersion at the leading edge of the slug and the fingering effects at the rear edge of
the slug of the fluid components, the polymer viscosity module computes the effective viscosity via the
following equation (Todd and Longstaff, 1972):
(6)
where μm (Cp)ω denotes polymer solution viscosity as an increasing function of polymer concentration,
μp denotes the polymer viscosity at maximum polymer concentration, and ω denotes the Todd-Longstaff
mixing input parameter where ω ranges from [0,1]. ω=0 shows that the polymer solution is entirely separated
from the water while ω =1 means that there is a complete mixing between water and polymer solution;
consequently, ω ranges from 0 to 1 for partial mixing. Therefore, the polymer viscosity model considers
salinity and temperature but lacks the effect of hardness. MRST implements the same effective viscosity
model that uses a viscosity multiplier given by:
(7)
(8)
where the viscosity multiplier μm(Cp) is an input parameter and the effects of salinity and hardness are
implemented as equation (4). Additionally, UTCHEM models the viscosity of a solution as function of
concentration and salinity, which is given by the following equation (Flory, 1953):
(9)
where C4l denotes the polymer concentration in the water, μw denotes the water viscosity, and Ap1, Ap2, and
Ap3 represent fitting parameters. The factor is known as effective salinity and allows for dependence
of polymer viscosity on salinity and hardness. The equation for effective salinity equation is given by:
(10)
where C51, C61, and C11 represent the anion, calcium, and water concentrations in the aqueous phase
correspondingly, and βp is an input parameter to the model that is measured in the laboratory. Also, the
parameter Sp corresponds to the slope of normalized polymer viscosity vs. the effective CSEP on
a log-log scale.
Polymer Rheology
The polymer viscosity behavior is non-Newtonian i.e., shear rate dependent, even though the underlying
physical mechanism producing this behavior can differ. Typically, this shear dependency is important at
high flow regimes around wells. Generally, at low shear rates, μp is independent of shear rate; however, at
higher shear rates the viscosity is reduced, and finally a second plateau value close to the water viscosity
will be reached (Lake, 1989).
SPE-214088-MS 7
The CMG-STARS specifies shear thinning and thickening effects through a power law relation that can
be included either as a tabular format or an equation which relates polymer viscosity to fluid velocity. For
the tabular format, CMG STARS uses the ensuing general combined shear thinning and thickening apparent
viscosities equations that are defined as:
(11)
The summed-up power law relation between apparent fluid viscosity (μapp) and Darcy fluid velocity (ul)
is given by:
(12)
The boundary of lower velocity of the shear thinning and thickening regime (ul,lower) is defined by the
point on the thinning power law curve when the apparent viscosity μapp equals the fluid phase viscosity in
the absence of thinning behavior. While, the boundary of upper velocity of the shear thinning and thickening
regime (ul,max) is defined by the point on the thickening power law curve when the apparent viscosity
(μapp) equals the user defined maximum viscosity (μl,max). For the equation format, the equation relating the
effective porous media shear rate and the fluid Darcy velocity is given as follows (Sorbie, 1991):
(13)
where k and ϕ denote the absolute permeability and porosity; and ul, Sl, and k denote the phase Darcy
r,l
velocity, saturation, and relative permeability, respectively. The shear rate factor (γfac) is defined as follows:
(14)
where n stands for the shear thinning power exponent and C denotes a constant value that is typically equal
to 6. It is important to know that the default value of the shear rate factor that corresponds to C=6 and n=0.5
is 4.8. For CMG-STARS, a tabular input option for velocity-dependent viscosity or shear-rate-dependent
viscosity is useful when the viscosity vs. velocity relation or viscosity vs. shear rate relation is specified by
laboratory data, or in case a simple power law relation is not sufficient.
Furthermore, ECLIPSE 100 has two options for modeling the non-Newtonian rheology. The first model
targets the shear thinning or thickening of polymer that has the effect of altering the polymer viscosity at
higher flow rates. It assumes that shear rate is proportional to the flow viscosity. The related water flow
velocity is given by the following equation:
(15)
(16)
where Bw is the water formation volume factor, Fw is water flow rate, A stands for the flow area between
a pair of wells, μw,eff represents the water viscosity, μsh denotes polymer shear viscosity, and P and Mμ are
the viscosities and shear thinning/thickening multipliers provided as inputs, respectively. One should note
that when M =1, there is no shear effect and when M =0, there is maximum shear thinning and the shear
viscosity is given by:
(17)
8 SPE-214088-MS
which corresponds to the minimum viscosity that can be obtained. If the polymer concentration is zero
(P=1), we obtain the effective water viscosity, which in this case is equal to the water viscosity.
Additionally, MRST implements the effect of shear-thinning by adjusting the effective viscosities through
a shear thinning multiplier given by:
(18)
The shear thinning multiplier is calculated considering the water velocity at each grid face as below
(Swan, 1979):
(19)
where ϕ is the porosity defined as the average of the two neighbor cells, and A the face area. The shear
modified water velocity will be given by:
(20)
(21)
where μw,eff Msh is the viscosity multiplier, and msh is the shear multiplier dependent of water velocity.
On the other hand, in UTCHEM, the reduction in the viscosity of the polymer solution as a function of
shear rate ( ) is modeled by Meter's equation as below (Meter and Bird, 1964):
(22)
where is the shear rate at which viscosity is the average of and μw. Pα denotes an empirical coefficient,
when Equation (16) is applied to flow in permeable media, μp is generally termed as apparent viscosity
and shear rate is an equivalent shear rate ( ). It is important to mention that UTCHEM has an additional
option to model the rheological behavior of the fluid that is represented by the recent unified viscosity model
(UVM). The UVM captures the full spectrum of Newtonian, shear-thinning, and shear-thickening behavior
of polymer solution flowing in porous media (Delshad et al., 2008). The apparent solution viscosity is
defined via the following equations:
(23)
(24)
(25)
where the relaxation time (τ) and strain hardening index (n2) identify the level of polymer shear-thickening
behavior. Additionally, UVM also considers the maximum elongational viscosity (μmax) prior to the
appearance of the mechanical degradation effect. The model extensional parameters (n2, μmax) may be
estimated by coreflooding tests, while shear parameters (μw, , λ, n1) are determined through bulk rheology
measurements. Additionally, there is a correction for near wellbore where the fluid velocity is high given
by (Li and Delshad, 2014):
SPE-214088-MS 9
(26)
where
(27)
where, Rp is an analytical constant used in analytical injectivity model and is the Peaceman equivalent
well radius in u − v plane. The parameter Rp is that when , for a radial flow, at , the effective
shear rate becomes . Equation (21) gives a more accurate estimate of near wellbore pressure to predict the
start of fracturing. It is imperative to mention that no simulator presented in this work accounts for polymer
mechanical degradation that is indicative at high rates and in high molecular weight polymers.
Polymer Adsorption
Adsorption refers to the interaction between polymer molecules and the solid surface. The polymer
molecules are attracted to the surface of the rock by physical forces such as the Van der Waals forces,
electrostatic forces, and hydrogen bonding. Adsorption is the most important retention mechanism, and
it impacts the polymer concentration negatively, due to which the polymer concentration in the solution
decreases when polymer adsorption is more pronounced.
CMG-STARS allows a description of the adsorption phenomena, wherein a set of constant temperature
adsorption isotherms i.e., adsorption level as a function of fluid composition is used as input. These
isotherms can be in either tabular form or in terms of the well-known Langmuir isotherm to calculate
polymer adsorption as a non-linear function of salinity and mole fraction of polymer in the aqueous phase
given by the following equation (Lakatos et al., 1981):
(28)
where xnacl denotes the salinity, ca denotes the mole fraction of polymer in the aqueous phase, and tad1,
tad2, and tad3 are the input parameters of Langmuir expression.
The polymer adsorption in ECLIPSE 100 is modeled through generalized Langmuir function, and is
given by the following equations:
(29)
(30)
where C is the polymer concentration, m is the exponent for concentration dependence, CSE is the effective
salinity, k is grid-block permeability, kref stands for the reference permeability, n represents the exponent for
permeability dependence, and a1, a2, and b are the adsorption coefficients.
Furthermore, in UTCHEM, a similar Langmuir-type isotherm is used to describe the adsorption level
of polymer that considers the salinity, polymer concentration, as well as the permeability (Hirasaki and
Pope, 1974). The adsorption is irreversible with concentration and reversible with salinity. The equations
for adsorbed concentration of polymer are given by:
(31)
10 SPE-214088-MS
(32)
where C41 is the polymer concentration in the aqueous phase and the parameters a41 and a42 are model inputs
found by matching laboratory data. The value of represents the maximum level of adsorbed polymer
and b4 controls the curvature of the isotherm.
Polymer Permeability Reduction

When polymers are adsorbed on the rock surface, the permeability of the aqueous phase decreases
as opposed to the permeability when water is flowing without any polymer adsorption. The extent of
permeability reduction depends on the polymer type, concentration, salinity, molecular weight, rock
properties, and shear effects.
By assuming that only single-phase flow paths are changed, CMG-STARS accounts for the correlation
of local permeability with local adsorption levels. For CMG-STARS, the adsorption which may result in
the blockage or reduction of effective permeability is given by:
(33)
(34)
where AK(I) is the standard block permeability, AKW(I) is the standard block effective water permeability,
krw is the relative permeability of water, RKW is the permeability reduction factor of water, RRF is the
residual resistance factor, AD(C,T) denotes the adsorption isotherm, and ADMAXT stands for the maximum
adsorption capacity of the rock.
The ECLIPSE 100 and MRST employs a similar equation as follows:
(35)
where RRF, , and denote the residual resistance factor, polymer adsorption, and maximum
adsorption capacity, respectively, of the rock for polymer component in phase α. On the other hand, the
permeability reduction factor in UTCHEM is modeled as follows:
(36)
(37)
where l denotes the phase with the highest polymer concentration, and brk and crk are input parameters. In
UTCHEM, the effect of permeability reduction is assumed to be irreversible. Further, the viscosity of the
phase containing the polymer is multiplied by the value of the Rk to account for the mobility reduction in
the simulator.
Inaccessible Pore Volume

The polymer can spread comparatively quicker than an inert tracer in porous media. To model this
phenomenon, one needs to consider the inaccessible pore volume (IPV). This parameter characterizes the
SPE-214088-MS 11
tiny pores that are left inaccessible to the polymer solution (Al-Shalabi et al., 2022). As the polymer
molecules are relatively larger to the water and oil in the reservoir, there will be a portion in the porous
media that will be inaccessible since minutest pores are found. The inaccessible pore volume promotes
faster polymer movement and is defined as the pore volume fraction that remains unpenetrated by the
polymer solution during flooding because of difference in molecular sizes of polymer and the pore sizes.
IPV usually ranges between 1 to 30% of total pore volume depending on the type of polymer and rock
system (Sheng, 2010). For the reservoir simulators using Black oil model, the parameter Sipv which denotes
the pore volume fraction inaccessible to polymer, generally termed as inaccessible pore volume or dead
pore space is multiplied in the conservation term for polymer and water diffusivity equation. However, for
UTCHEM this effect is modeled by multiplying the porosity in the conservation equation for polymer by
the input parameter of effective pore volume. Table 1 summarizes the properties of the polymer model in
each reservoir simulator.
Table 1—Comparison of polymer models in different commercial reservoir simulators
Polymer Module CMG-STARS ECLIPSE 100 UTCHEM MRST
Viscosity vs. Polymer Concentration √ √ √ √
Viscosity vs. Shear Rate √ √ √ √
Adsorption √ √ √ √
Permeability Reduction √ √ √ √
Inaccessible Pore Volume √ √ √ √
Effect of Salinity on Viscosity and Adsorption √ √ √ √
Effect of Hardness on Viscosity, Adsorption, and √ × √ √

Permeability Reduction
Viscoelastic Behavior × × √ ×
Mechanical Degradation × × × ×
Polymer Flooding Simulation Cases

ECLIPSE Case
Alshawaf et al. (2018) studied the application of polymer flooding and the crossflow effects in oil
displacement for vertically communicating stratified reservoirs. By way of experimental data, the authors
were able to validate their earlier numerical simulations using ECLIPSE 100. The experiments were
conducted using water, glycerol solution, and paraffin oil. All rock and fluid properties required as input
data for the numerical simulations were determined independently of the displacement experiments. Table
2 summarizes the experimental conditions used as input for the commercial simulator ECLIPSE 100. A
2-dimensional 100×100×1 grid was used for the simulation where a grid refinement study was made to
ensure appropriate simulation results. The output results of the simulator were compared with the results
from the experiments without history matching to dictate if the simulator was able to model the polymer
behavior in stratified systems. By activating the capillary pressure module in ECLIPSE, a good agreement
between the experiments and ECLIPSE in function of total recovery, amount of crossflow, and mobility
ratio was obtained, as given in Figure 1. Therefore, the ECLIPSE-100 polymer model is validated with
an experimental setup that resembles a crossflow in a two-layered model reservoir. However, it should be
noted that using glycerol as the polymer representation will limit the polymer model since glycerol is a
Newtonian fluid that does adsorb or cause plugging, therefore it will limit the use of the modules of non-
Newtonian flow, adsorption, and IPV.
12 SPE-214088-MS
Table 2—Summary of experimental conditions, fluid, and beadpacks (Alshawaf et al., 2018)
Exp. Beadpack Bead Permeability Flood Flood Oil Injection Viscosity Mobility Φ k
# Type Size Designation Type Viscosity Viscosity Rate Ratio Ratio (%) (mD)
(μm) (cP) (cP) (cc/min)
10 24.9 2.5 24.9

Waterflood 1 16
11 24.8 2.5 24.8
12 Two Layers 4.9 24.6 2 5.0

with 3 40
13 cross-flow Glycerol 5.0 25.1 2 5.0
14 Flood 18.9 25.5 2 1.4

0.85
15 Low & 18.7 24.9 2 1.3
Both 15.3
16 High 26.2 2.5 26.2
Waterflood 1 16
17 25.5 2.5 25.5
Two Layers
18 with 5.3 26.1 2 4.9
3 42
19 no cross- 5.1 25.5 2 5
flow Glycerol
20 Flood 18.4 24.4 2 1.3
0.85
21 18.7 25.1 2 1.3
Figure 1—Comparison of the experimental results for different floods in communicating

layer beadpacks vs. simulation output using ECLIPSE-100 (Alshawaf et al., 2018).
CMG Case
Moreover, Al-Murayri et al. (2022) used the commercial simulator CMG-STARS as the numerical evaluator
of the polymer flooding strategy at field scale in Wara reservoir at Burgan field. The reservoir's parameters
are listed in Table 3 and were used to develop a reservoir model. The polymer and fluid input parameters
were found from the experimental data. The polymer used is a ZLPAM 40520 Ter-polymer (ATBS/AMPS
HPAM) with 5-10 million Dalton dissolved in 170,000 ppm TDS water. Polymer rheology is illustrated
in Figure 2, shows a pseudoplastic behavior, therefore the non-Newtonian module of CMG-STARS was
tested. The latter figure shows two curves; blue curve for room temperature at 25 °C and red curve for
reservoir temperature at 55 °C. The final calibration of the polymer model was successfully matched by
experimental data as depicted in Figure 3.
SPE-214088-MS 13
Table 3—Reservoir parameters used for the sector model (Al-Murayri et al., 2022)
Parameter Value
Average Porosity (%) 18.1
Average Permeability (mD) 277
Number of Perforations per foot 12
Diameter of Perforations (in) 0.75
Length of Perforations (in) 18
Height of effective perforated zone (ft) 13
Figure 2—Apparent viscosity vs. shear rate for a 1800 ppm polymer concentration; blue curve for
room temperature at 25 °C and red curve for reservoir temperature at 55 °C (Al-Murayri et al., 2022).
Figure 3—Coreflood cumulative oil, injection pressure, and polymer

mass rate history match for polymer injection (Al-Murayri et al., 2022).
UTCHEM Case and Simulators Comparison

Furthermore, Goudarzi et al. (2013, 2016) presented a benchmark of different reservoir simulators for
modeling chemical EOR processes such as polymer flooding, surfactant flooding, and Alkali Surfactant
Polymer (ASP) flooding. In their analysis, they validated their assessment for these methods with a coreflood
test from Mohanty (2012) and case scenarios using UTCHEM, CMG-STARS, and ECLIPSE 100. For
14 SPE-214088-MS
this benchmark of polymer flooding, they used Table 4 that represents a Cartesian model where single-
phase polymer flood was simulated to compare the polymer viscosity model and its impact in injection
pressure and average pressure of UTCHEM against CMG-STARS. Two cases were run; one where the
polymer viscosity model did not include the polymer adsorption and shear dependence, and the other
case where polymer adsorption and shear dependence were included. From Figure 4, they concluded that
UTCHEM outperforms CMG-STARS because it shows a reduction in polymer viscosity when adsorption
and subsequent reduction in polymer concentration is modeled. The main difference between the latter two
simulators is that a function is used for adsorption and shear models in UTCHEM polymer viscosity model,
whereas tables are used for these models in CMG-STARS.
Table 4—Inputs used for comparison between UTCHEM and CMG-STARS (Goudarzi et al., 2016)
Model 3-Dimensional Cartesian

Polymer Flood
No. of Gridblocks 15×15×15
Porosity 0.19
Permeability (mD) 100
Water Saturation (%) 100
Injection Rate (constant rate) (bbls/day) 100
Production Pressure (constant pressure) (psi) 1800
Polymer Concentration (wt%) 0.25
Simulation Time (days) 1000
Figure 4—Comparison of water viscosity between UTCHEM and CMG-STARS for polymer model (Goudarzi et al., 2013).
In their later study, UTCHEM and ECLIPSE were compared for a polymer flood based on oil saturation
and polymer concentration. Table 5 provides the polymer flood setup for this comparison that represents
a Cartesian model with a constant rate injection well and a constant pressure production well. Figure 5
shows a close agreement of oil saturation profile of UTCHEM and ECLIPSE after 1000 days. However,
it should be noted from Table 1 that ECLIPSE polymer model does not consider the effect of hardness
on viscosity, adsorption, and permeability reduction. Furthermore, Figure 6 shows a disagreement for
the polymer concentration between the two simulators since ECLIPSE models the polymer movement as
maximum injected concentration and does not consider the residual oil behind the polymer front.
SPE-214088-MS 15
Table 5—Polymer flood simulation data for UTCHEM and ECLIPSE (Goudarzi et al., 2016)
Model 2-Dimensional Cartesian
No. of Gridblocks 10×10×1
Δx,Δy,Δz (ft) 75, 75, 30
Porosity 0.2
Permeability (mD) 50
Initial Water Saturation (%) 25
Initial Reservoir Pressure (psi) 4000
Oil Relative Permeability Endpoint 0.8
Water Relative Permeability Endpoint 0.25
Temperature (°C) 25
Crude Oil Viscosity (cP) 2
Residual Oil Saturation 0.3
Injection Rate (constant rate) (ft /day)

3 1123
Production Pressure (constant pressure) 3999 psi
Polymer Concentration 0.15 wt%
Simulation Time 1000 days
Figure 5—Comparison of oil saturation after 1000 days between

UTCHEM and ECLIPSE for polymer model (Goudarzi et al., 2016).
16 SPE-214088-MS
Figure 6—Comparison of polymer concentration after 1000 days between
UTCHEM and ECLIPSE for polymer model (Goudarzi et al., 2016).
Coupled MRST-IPhreeqc Case

Recently, the interest in low salinity polymer (LSP) flooding has increased significantly owing to the
favorable potential for enhancing both displacement and sweep efficiencies. The LSP technique is
considered as one of the hybrid applications of low salinity water injection (LSWI) that enhances the
microscopic displacement of oil (Al-Shalabi and Sepehrnoori, 2017). This hybrid technique attracted the
research attention for further investigations of the synergy between these two methods i.e., LSWI and
polymer flooding. These researches are buoyed by the success of polymers in controlling the mobility of
injected fluid to improve sweep efficiency and the relatively low cost of the LSWI technique.
However, LSP flooding is laborious since it requires in-depth understanding of different complex physical
processes and the considering of the polymer sensitivity to brine salinity and hardness. Al Shalabi et al.
(2022) and Hassan et. al (2022b) used the coupled MRST-IPhreeqc simulator that provided a flexible
and dynamic mechanistic model for low salinity polymer flooding. This was accomplished through the
modification of the polymer module in MRST (Bao et al., 2017) and extension to allow modeling of
the transport of geochemical species. This is in addition to the coupling of MRST with the geochemical
simulator IPhreeqc that allows to capture the geochemical reactions. In their study, a reactive transport
case was verified against a reaction transport simulator as depicted in Figure 7. Moreover, the model
was validated using history matching against the LSP coreflooding experimental data from Unsal et al.
(2018) using the brine compositions presented in Table 6. Figures 8 and 9 show the coupled simulator
predictions and history matching of the divalent cation effluent concentration and normalized viscosity
data, respectively. In this perception, the models have a similar match with the experimental data. However,
it should be mentioned that Figure 9 was grid redefined from 40 to 230 gridblocks to account for a
more realistic outcome where the polymer front behaves more like spreading waves. Furthermore, the
numerical model confirmed that cation exchange and rock dissolution were the two main mechanisms for
the increase in divalent ions as mentioned by Unsal et al. (2018). This proves that the coupled simulator
allows the investigation of polymer-brine-rock geochemical interaction and flow dynamics associated with
LSP flooding from a molecular to a Darcy scale.
Table 6—Ion compositions of HS and LS brines (Unsal et al., 2018)
Salinity Unit Brine Ionic Composition (ppm)

TDS (ppm)
Ions Na+ K+ Mg2+ Ca2+ Cl- SO42-
High salinity (HS) 2,227 0 41 74 3,111 777 6230
Low salinity (LS) 223 0 4 7 311 78 623

SPE-214088-MS 17
Figure 7—Na+ ion concentration for MRST vs. Phreeqc (Al Shalabi et al., 2022).
Figure 8—Effluent divalent ions concentration match of LSP coreflood (Al Shalabi et al., 2022).
Figure 9—Normalized viscosity match of LSP coreflood (Al Shalabi et al., 2022).
18 SPE-214088-MS
Summary and Conclusions

This review study presented assessments of different polymer-based commercial reservoirs simulators
through polymer flooding simulation as reported in the literature. The main findings of this study can be
summarized as follows:
• The assessment of UTCHEM, ECLIPSE, and CMG-STARS simulators revealed that the variation
between modeling of different polymer properties are held down by hostile environments such as
high-salinity and high-temperature.
• The discussions in this paper showed that UTCHEM simulator performed in a realistic manner in
comparison to the other numerical simulators due to the suitability of polymer viscosity behavior
under the effect of salinity and hardness, permeability reduction, and adsorption.
• The competence of the numerical simulators in providing a complete polymer rheology scenario for
viscoelastic behavior has not been properly tested for ECLIPSE-100, which limits the application
of polymer flooding simulations with high molecular weight or under high flow rates.
• The adsorption impact on the polymer viscosity was only noted for UTCHEM by decreasing the
viscosity. Also, the effect of hardness is not modeled in ECLIPSE-100, which puts a limitation of
application in high salinity reservoirs.
• The coupled simulator MRST-IPhreeqc produced a polymer model that considers the effects of
salinity, transport of geochemical species, and geochemical reactions that have an impact on
polymer viscosity.
• Additionally, the MRST-IPhreeqc simulator provided an insight into the cation exchange and rock
dissolution mechanism acting in the proposed model. Nevertheless, the complexity of the model
demanded for history matching of log-K values rather than measuring them, which provided limited
accurate results.
Acknowledgment
This contribution is based upon the financial support of the KFUPM-KU joint research program, i.e.,
between Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KU) and King Fahd University of Petroleum
and Minerals (KFUPM). Author(s) at KU would like to acknowledge the support received under
award # KFUPM-KU-2020-14. Author(s) at KFUPM acknowledges the support received under grand #
KU-201-001.
Nomenclature
A Flow area
Ap1 Matching parameter for UTCHEM polymer viscosity model
a1 Polymer adsorption parameter in ECLIPSE
a2 Polymer adsorption parameter in ECLIPSE
a41 Polymer adsorption parameter in UTCHEM
a42 Polymer adsorption parameter in UTCHEM
AD(C,T) Adsorption isotherm of polymer in CMG-STARS
ADMAXT Maximum adsorption capacity of the rock in CMG-STARS
AKW(I) Standard block effective water permeability
b Polymer adsorption parameter in ECLIPSE
b4 Polymer adsorption parameter in UTCHEM
brk Permeability reduction parameter in UTCHEM
SPE-214088-MS 19
Bw Water Formation Volume Factor

βvsi Equivalent Salinity CMG-STARS
C Polymer concentration in ECLIPSE
ca Mole fraction of polymer in aqueous phase for CMG-STARS
CP Polymer concentration in ECLIPSE
Polymer adsorption in phase # for ECLIPSE
Maximum Polymer adsorption in phase # for ECLIPSE
crk Permeability reduction parameter in UTCHEM
CSE Salinity in ECLIPSE
CSEP Effective salinity for polymer viscosity
C4l Polymer concentration in phase l
C5 Total anions concentration in UTCHEM
C6 Divalent cations concentration in UTCHEM
Fw Water flow rate in ECLIPSE
K Permeability
Kref Reference Permeability
Krw Relative permeability of water
m Exponent of concentration in ECLIPSE
msh Polymer viscosity multiplier in MRST
Mμ Viscosi
M Mobility ratio
Msh Shear Viscosity thickening or thinning multiplier in MRST
n Exponent for permeability dependency in ECLIPSE
n2 Strain hardening index
P Viscosity thickening or thinning multiplier in ECLIPSE
Pα Parameter for Meter's equation
Mean radius in u-v plane
Peaceman equivalent radius in u-v plane
Peaceman equivalent well radius in u-v plane
Rk Permeability reduction
Rkmax Maximum Permeability reduction
RKW Permeability reduction of water
RRF Residual resistance factor in ECLIPSE
Sipv Inaccesible Pore Volume
Sl Liquid saturation
Sp Parameter for divalent effect on viscosity in UTCHEM
tad1 Polymer adsorption matching parameter in CMG-STARS
vp Polymer velocity
vw Water velocity
xa Component mole fraction
xnacl Salinity in CMG-STARS
xsalt Salinity content
20 SPE-214088-MS
Greek Letters
μapp Apparent viscosity
μm (Cp) Mixed polymer solution viscosity in ECLIPSE
μp Polymer viscosity at maximum polymer concentration
μsh Shear polymer viscosity in ECLIPSE
μw Water viscosity
Average polymer viscosity
μweff Effective water viscosity
μw,eff Effective water viscosity in MRST
μw,sh Shear modified water viscosity in MRST
Shear rate coefficient in CMG-STARS
Equivalent shear rate in UTCHEM and CMG-STARS
Equivalent shear rate in ECLIPSE
τ Relaxation time
λi Mobility of ith phase
ϕ Porosity
ω Todd-Longstaff mixing parameter for polymer viscosity
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Copyright 2023, Society of Petroleum Engineers DOI 10.2118/214088-MS

Reservoir Simulators Description

Polymer Model Description

Polymer Viscosity and Salinity Effect

Polymer Permeability Reduction

Inaccessible Pore Volume

Table 1—Comparison of polymer models in different commercial reservoir simulators

Polymer Module CMG-STARS ECLIPSE 100 UTCHEM MRST

Viscosity vs. Polymer Concentration √ √ √ √

Viscosity vs. Shear Rate √ √ √ √

Inaccessible Pore Volume √ √ √ √

Effect of Salinity on Viscosity and Adsorption √ √ √ √

Effect of Hardness on Viscosity, Adsorption, and √ × √ √

Polymer Flooding Simulation Cases

10 24.9 2.5 24.9

12 Two Layers 4.9 24.6 2 5.0

14 Flood 18.9 25.5 2 1.4

Figure 1—Comparison of the experimental results for different floods in communicating

Average Porosity (%) 18.1

Average Permeability (mD) 277

Diameter of Perforations (in) 0.75

Length of Perforations (in) 18

Height of effective perforated zone (ft) 13

Figure 3—Coreflood cumulative oil, injection pressure, and polymer

UTCHEM Case and Simulators Comparison

Model 3-Dimensional Cartesian

No. of Gridblocks 15×15×15

Permeability (mD) 100

Water Saturation (%) 100

Injection Rate (constant rate) (bbls/day) 100

Production Pressure (constant pressure) (psi) 1800

Polymer Concentration (wt%) 0.25

Simulation Time (days) 1000

Model 2-Dimensional Cartesian

No. of Gridblocks 10×10×1

Δx,Δy,Δz (ft) 75, 75, 30

Initial Water Saturation (%) 25

Initial Reservoir Pressure (psi) 4000

Oil Relative Permeability Endpoint 0.8

Water Relative Permeability Endpoint 0.25

Crude Oil Viscosity (cP) 2

Residual Oil Saturation 0.3

Injection Rate (constant rate) (ft /day)

Production Pressure (constant pressure) 3999 psi

Polymer Concentration 0.15 wt%

Simulation Time 1000 days

Figure 5—Comparison of oil saturation after 1000 days between

Coupled MRST-IPhreeqc Case

Table 6—Ion compositions of HS and LS brines (Unsal et al., 2018)

Salinity Unit Brine Ionic Composition (ppm)

High salinity (HS) 2,227 0 41 74 3,111 777 6230

Low salinity (LS) 223 0 4 7 311 78 623

Summary and Conclusions

Bw Water Formation Volume Factor

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