Assessment of polymer flooding effects on the recovery of heterogeneous thick reservoirs with dominant channel

Abstract The formation of dominant channel has restricted the improvement in oil recovery in heterogeneous thick reservoirs greatly. How to effectively solve the problem has become a key issue in the development process. In this paper, firstly, the plugging effect of polymer flooding on the dominant channel is studied by visual microscopic-model displacement experiment. And then, we established a flow resistance model and simulated the effect of polymer flooding on improving dominant channel. The result shows that the present model matches the oilfield testing data greatly. And the higher the concentration, the more effective the plugging. When the polymer concentration is 2.0 g/L, the water content can reduce by 21.24% and the enhanced oil recovery can reach 13.69%. Besides, the efficiency of the reverse rhythm is higher than the positive rhythm under the same condition. This study has provided a quick and accurate assessment of the polymer flooding for the dominant channel in the heterogeneous thick reservoir.