Oil/water wettability on porous rocks
Computational modeling and molecular dynamics simulations of oil/water wettability on porous rocks
Description
Crude oil production includes primary, secondary and tertiary or enhanced recovery stages or phases. During primary stage the natural pressure of the reservoir drive oil into the wellbore that combined with artificial pumping techniques bring the oil to the surface. At this stage only the 10% of the original oil is extracted from reservoir. In the secondary recovery stage the productive life of the reservoir is extended by injecting water or gas into the injection wellbores to displace oil to the production wellbore. This stage allows to recover about 20-40% of the original oil in the reservoir. Some decades before, at this point the field extraction stopped. However, in the last years the increase in the oil price has allowed using new techniques of extraction (enhancement oil recovery, EOR) and thus, obtaining between 30-60% of extracted oil. Among the different EOR techniques, the thermal recovery, the gas injection and the chemical injection have obtained the best rates.
Our group of research is involved in the chemical injection EOR technique. Computational simulations are performed to know the best additives to be added into the water flooding to recover a higher amount of oil.
Collaborations
Dra. Cristina Rincón (Technology Repsol S.A. Madrid, Spain)
Fundings
REPSOL S.A.
Generalitat de Catalunya (Project: VALCHEM 2017)
