Minor II Mid Review - Final

UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM AND ENERGY STUDIES, DEHRADUN
A project Mid-review (Minor-2) report
Low Salinity water flooding in sandstone reservoirs using CMG-

GEMTM software
submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the degree of
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
in
APPLIED PETROLEUM ENGINEERING
with specialisation in Upstream (Semester-VI)

By Team No: 6
S.No. Student Name Roll No. Sap ID
1 Abhinav Goyal R870217003 500060716
2 Aniket Jain R870217021 500060756
3 Anuj Bhatia R870217032 500060916
4 Arsh Attri R870217039 500060642
5 Ayush Pandey R870217045 500060703
Under the Guidance of

Mentor Co-Mentor
Dr. Pushpa Sharma Dr. Atul K. Patidar

Professor Associate Professor
School of Engineering (SOE)

Department of Petroleum Engineering & Earth Sciences, UPES
Dehradun – 248 007
APRIL 2020
Objectives of the Project
Our project aims at the modeling and simulation of low salinity water
flooding in a sandstone reservoir for increasing hydrocarbon recovery. We
intend to use the GEM simulator of Computer Modeling Group Ltd.
(CMG).
Low salinity water flooding technique is used to increase recovery of
hydrocarbons from reservoirs, especially from those reservoirs where
conventional water flooding is not too beneficial.
Our specific objectives are as follows:
 Understanding the theory behind LSWI
 Learn the basics of reservoir simulation in GEM software
 Use GEM for simulating LSWI using actual field data
 To generate the relative permeability curves for oil and water by altering
the salinity of injected brines
 To understand the effect of various parameters such as salinity, etc. on

oil recovery
 To be able to determine parameters which could provide the best

recovery of oil
Introduction
Low Salinity Water Injection (LSWI) has recently gained huge popularity
in the oil and gas industry (Ref. 1). It is a very effective EOR technique
that has shown dramatic increase in oil recovery over conventional water-
flooding. Basically, in LSWI, water with controlled salinity and salt
content is used to alter the rock wettability. The significance of LSWI is
mostly in reservoirs which are or have become oil wet or mixed wet. In
such a situation, the recovery of oil is usually very low due to the
dominance of capillary forces over viscous forces due to pressure gradient
(Ref. 5). Conventional water flooding is not able to achieve the required
recovery due to wettability alterations. Here LSWI comes to use, since it
causes wettability alteration from oil wet/mixed wet to water wet.
Literature Survey
The exact mechanism of the working of LSWI is still debatable. Several
authors have proposed various mechanisms by which it alters the
wettability of the rock (Fig. 1). To state a few - mineral dissolution,
increased pH, fines migration, reduced interfacial tension, saponification,
wettability alteration etc. Many of these mechanisms contradict each other
and hence the mechanism which best describes the working of LSWI is
still uncertain. However, with the consensus of many researchers, it is
believed that wettability alteration from oil-wet to water-wet, is the main
mechanism of improvement in recovery in the case of sandstone reservoirs
(Ref. 2). According to a research, the recovery of oil obtained from LSWI,
is a function of initial and final states of wetting properties. For the case
wherein there are weak water wet conditions, low capillary pressure is
partly responsible for incremental oil recovery. In the case of oil-wet
reservoir, LSWI works due to increased oil relative permeability and the
change of non-wetting phase to oil. But in strong oil-wet and water-wet
conditions, LSWI mechanism increases only the oil relative permeability
(Ref. 3).
Mechanism: The recovery process involves injecting brine with a low

salinity that is depleted in divalent cations compared with the in-situ brine
into the oil reservoirs. The crystal structure of common sandstone reservoir
clay consists of a sheet of tetrahedral silica and octahedral aluminium
layers (Ref. 4). Clay minerals are often characterized as cation exchange
materials because of structural charge imbalances either in the silica or in
the aluminium layer and at the edge surfaces that produce a negative
charge on the clay surface (Fig. 4). Numerous studies have revealed that a
lower salinity thresh- old is needed to observe an increased oil recovery,
therein being a significant degree less than the salinity of the formation
brine. Some researchers have observed that the low-salinity brine must
contain some forms of divalent and other multivalent cations to work
successfully (Ref. 6). This model is implemented in the compositional
EOS simulation GEM of Computer Modelling Group Ltd.
Effect of mineral surface on the wettability:

Normally, carbonate rocks which are rich in calcite, are normally
recognised as oil-wet (Ref. 8). Carbonate rocks have a tendency to absorb
the organic acids such as a result of its positive charged surface. Calcite
mineral surface favourably adsorbs fluid content of the conflicting polarity
by acid and base reaction (Fig. 3).
Effect of LSWI on oil-water interface:
The reservoir residual oil is a capillary pressure dependent variable which
is a function of the rock IFT (Fig. 2). Hence, any reduction in IFT will lead
to decrease in the rock capillary pressure and consequently lowering the
residual oil (S ). Regarding the increase in pH (Ref. 9), this will enhance
or
the chemical reaction with the acidic parts of the oil, which will improve
the creation of the in-situ wettability alternation surfactants (Fig. 5).
Methodology
 First, we shall describe the grid geometry in aerial (or plan) view and
position it over our geological maps. Henceforth, we need to create a
three-dimensional grid by interpolating the reservoir structure and rock
properties from our geological maps.
 [Grid Geometry: (8100 * 13, 500) ft2, Block width=300ft, No. of blocks=
(27*45*4)]
 Finally, we specify the well completion locations in the grid, either from
well positions on the geological maps or by entering them manually.
Reservoir Properties for the builder model are as follows:
Reservoir Property Value
Reservoir Temperature 0
150 F
Maximum Pressure 5100 psia
Bubble Point Pressure 4900 psia
Oil density at Standard conditions 0
35 API
Gas sp. gravity at Standard conditions 0.7
Reference pressure for water properties 4900 psia
Water Salinity 10000 ppm
Rock Compressibility -6 -1
2x10 psia
 In GEMTM simulator the Process Wizard will help to generate
Relative Permeability data with the help of interpolation of
geochemical properties.
For the modelling purpose, an inverted five spot water flooding pattern
shall be chosen. To simulate low salinity water flooding, the following
LSWI mechanisms shall be modelled in the GEMTM simulator:
 Role of ion exchange mechanism with clays or ions (e.g. SO 42-) in

determining water ionic compositions
 Partitioning of surface active oil components into water
 Release of adsorbed surface active oil components
 Dependence of clay fines on LSWI
 Variation in relative permeability curves due to varying ionic
concentrations.
 Geochemical modelling of the various reactions involved in LSWI
 Impact of various bivalent ion concentrations on the recovery factor.
 Relative permeability variation due to wettability change.
Data Interpretation: Relative permeability oil-water system (Ref.

10):
 Pressure History:
Pressure changes during the week is monitored as follows (Ref. 11):
Month Pressure (psi)

1st 5000
2nd 4700
3rd 4500
4th 4325
5th 4180
6th 4050
7th 3910
Conclusion:
By undertaking this project, we intend to:
 Gain insights on the fundamental principles of low salinity water

injection
 Get hands on experience in simulation and modeling of reservoirs on

CMG software
 Determine the factors which influence the recovery factor of

hydrocarbons during low salinity water injection
LSWI is a broad area for research, but still there are lot of speculations and
mysteries behind its actual working and modeling. Our project could be
beneficial for academic research by providing better understanding of the
phenomenon.
Timelines achieved till mid-review

Month Work % Completed
February Creating the three-dimensional grid
reservoir model in the builder application of 15
CMGTM
March
Model calibration and validation 40
April Submission of mid and end-review which
includes simulating the reservoir
properties(majority) leaving behind some 75
simulation part to be done on software in
college
May-June Investigating the results of the simulation
and impact of changing salinities of water
with hydrocarbon recovery 100
Periodic discussion with mentor
Month Discussion
February, 2020 Selection of the topic, understanding the
viability and importance of topic thereby
clearing doubts and conversation with
mentor about the same.
March,2020 Reviewing various published papers on
internet, guided by mentor and simulating
the data on the CMG software with given
reservoir properties.
April,2020 Finalising our mid-review report,
discussion with mentor over mail and
finally submission of end review report by
end of the month.
References
1. Allan Katende, Farad Sagala - ‘A critical review of low salinity water

flooding: Mechanism, laboratory and field’, Journal of Molecular
Liquids, Elsevier (2019)
2. Abdullah AlSada, Eric Mackay; Heriot Watt University – ‘Low salinity
water flooding possible mechanisms and the impact of injected sulphate
variation on oil recovery in carbonate reservoirs: Compositional
Modelling Approach’, SPE-187980-MS (2017)
3. Jadhawar, P. S., & Saeed, M. S. – ‘Low Salinity Water flooding and
Polymer Enhanced Oil Recovery from Sandstone reservoirs’. Paper
presented at DEVEX 2019, Aberdeen, United Kingdom
4. Emad Waleed Al-Shalabi, Kamy Sepehrnoori, and Gary Pope –
‘Mysteries behind the Low salinity water injection technique’ (2014)
5. S. Xu, J. Wu, W. Lv, J. Wang, Q. Liu – ‘Experimental study on the
wettability alteration mechanism of ion tuning water flooding’ (2016)
6. Cuong Dang, Long Ngheim, Ngoc Nguyen, Zhangxin Chen, Quoc
Nguyen – ‘Modelling and Optimization of low salinity water flood’,
SPE-173194-MS (2015)
7. M. Sohrabi, P. Mahzari, S. Farzaneh, J. Mills, P. Tsolis, S. Ireland –
‘Novel insight into mechanisms of oil recovery by low salinity water
injection’, (2015)
8. L. Zhang, J. Zhang, Yi Wing, R. Yang, Yu Zhang, J. Gu, M. Zhang and
Shaoran Ren- Experimental Investigation of Low-Salinity Water
Flooding in a Low-Permeability Oil Reservoir (2018)
9. Adedapo N. Awolayo, Hemanta K. Sarma, Long Z. Nghiem – Brine
Dependent Recovery Processes in Carbonate and Sandstone Petroleum
Reservoirs: Review of Laboratory-Field Studies, Interfacial
Mechanisms and Modelling Attempts (2018)
10. Reda Abdel Azim, Sara Faiz, Shaik Rehman, Ahmed Elbagir-
Numerical study of low salinity water flooding in naturally fractured
oil reservoir (2017)
11. Mukul Chavan, Abhijit Dandekar, Shirish Patil- Low-salinity-based
enhanced oil recovery literature review and associated screening
criteria.
Tables & Figures
Fig.1: Overview of some proposed low-salinity recovery mechanisms (Ref. 3)
Fig.2: IFT measurement for different brines (Ref. 6)

Fig. 3: Impact of salinity on electrical double layer (Ref. 5)
Fig. 4: Representation of the diverse adhesion

mechanisms occurring between clay surface
and crude oil (Ref. 1)
Fig. 5: Electrical double layer and zeta

potential (Ref.3)

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UNIVERSITY OF PETROLEUM AND ENERGY STUDIES, DEHRADUN

A project Mid-review (Minor-2) report

Low Salinity water flooding in sandstone reservoirs using CMG-

with specialisation in Upstream (Semester-VI)

2 Aniket Jain R870217021 500060756

3 Anuj Bhatia R870217032 500060916

4 Arsh Attri R870217039 500060642

5 Ayush Pandey R870217045 500060703

Under the Guidance of

Dr. Pushpa Sharma Dr. Atul K. Patidar

School of Engineering (SOE)

 Understanding the theory behind LSWI

 Learn the basics of reservoir simulation in GEM software

 Use GEM for simulating LSWI using actual field data

 To understand the effect of various parameters such as salinity, etc. on

 To be able to determine parameters which could provide the best

Mechanism: The recovery process involves injecting brine with a low

Effect of mineral surface on the wettability:

 Role of ion exchange mechanism with clays or ions (e.g. SO 42-) in

 Relative permeability variation due to wettability change.

Data Interpretation: Relative permeability oil-water system (Ref.

Month Pressure (psi)

By undertaking this project, we intend to:

 Gain insights on the fundamental principles of low salinity water

 Get hands on experience in simulation and modeling of reservoirs on

 Determine the factors which influence the recovery factor of

Timelines achieved till mid-review

Periodic discussion with mentor

1. Allan Katende, Farad Sagala - ‘A critical review of low salinity water

Fig.1: Overview of some proposed low-salinity recovery mechanisms (Ref. 3)

Fig.2: IFT measurement for different brines (Ref. 6)

Fig. 4: Representation of the diverse adhesion

Fig. 5: Electrical double layer and zeta

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