Smart Water EOR potential in Brazilian oilfields

Abstract

The fact that the petroleum industry still invest a lot of money on different oil recovery techniques indicates that there is an increasing demand for oil that needs to be met. Water flooding is a common secondary oil recovery method that involves the injection of water to maintain reservoir pressure and sweep oil to the producer. Studies have proven that the efficiency of a water flood depends on many factors, wettability being one of them. Injection of smart water can help alter wettability of reservoir making it favourable to overcome capillary forces that trap oil in the reservoir. In the research, we investigate the potential of smart water in the Brazilian pre-salt fields. Due to lack of significant literature for fluids and rocks from the Brazilian pre-salts, we consider the potential of smart water for oil recovery done on studies with rocks similar to the Brazilian pre-salts. The results from these studies will answer if there is at potential for smart water in the Brazilian pre-salt oil fields. A review of the historical stages and production magnitudes will be carried out to determine the current state of the oil industry within Brazil. It will be established that Brazil has numerous oilfields that are distributed mainly in offshore oil reservoirs. The presence of large areas of carbonate rock reservoirs in the country is seen to be one of the determining factors for the availability of oil in the country. Also will be discussed the challenges such as: long distances of pre-salt oilfields, CO2 separation due to its high concentration in the reservoirs and low reservoir temperatures.