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Dynamic Monitoring of Polymer Flooding Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technology

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Abstract

Polymer flooding is a vital method for the enhanced oil recovery of heterogeneous formations after water flooding. However, few visualization approaches are available to conduct the online monitoring and the non-invasive evaluation of polymer flooding experiments in natural rock cores. In this study, online dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and T2 distribution measurements were employed to monitor polymer flooding in a natural layered core using low-field MRI equipment. A modified spin echo (SE) imaging technique featuring half Fourier acquisition and a short echo time (3.5 ms) was used to achieve dynamic MRI images during flooding with a temporal resolution of 93 s. Moreover, online T2 distribution measurements by the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) pulse sequence were utilized to estimate the bulk remaining oil saturation to validate the MRI results. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of the displacement efficiency was obtained through MRI signal processing and was visualized via a pseudo-colour mapping technique. A statistical analysis was carried out to estimate the change in the mean of the spatial distribution of the displacement efficiency. The results show that an improvement in the oil recovery from the natural layered core by polymer flooding after water flooding can be intuitively observed by the proposed method. Our low-field MRI methods provide quantitative and revealing information that can be beneficial for flooding mechanism studies of enhanced oil recovery.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 61531002); and the Science Foundation of China University of Petroleum-Beijing at Karamay (grant number No. RCYJ2016B-01-004).

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Author notes

  1. Hongxian Liu and Yao Ding the authors have the same contribution.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Petroleum, China University of Petroleum–Beijing at Karamay, Karamay, 834000, China

    Hongxian Liu

  2. Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yao Ding, Weimin Wang, Yingkang Ma, Taotao Zhu & Deming Ma

Authors
  1. Hongxian Liu
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  2. Yao Ding
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  3. Weimin Wang
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  4. Yingkang Ma
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  5. Taotao Zhu
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  6. Deming Ma
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Contributions

Hongxian Liu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing-original draft. Yao Ding: Methodology, Investigation, Validation, Writing-original draft. Weimin Wang: Formal analysis, Project administration. Yingkang Ma: Writing—review & editing. Taotao Zhu: Writing—review & editing. Deming Ma: Validation.

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Correspondence to Weimin Wang.

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Cite this article

Liu, H., Ding, Y., Wang, W. et al. Dynamic Monitoring of Polymer Flooding Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technology. Appl Magn Reson 52, 117–133 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00723-020-01280-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00723-020-01280-4

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