An experimental investigation of polyacrylamide and sulfonated polyacrylamides based gels crosslinked with cr(III)-acetate for water shutoff in fractured oil reservoirs

Water injection as one of the most efficient and worldwide extensively employed approach in homogenous oil reservoirs suffers from early water breakthrough time as well as low oil sweep efficiency values in fractured oil reservoirs. This study investigates the potential application of Cr(III)-acetate based gel polymer system in a typical water injection process using one fractured micromodel. For this purpose, three sulfonated polyacrylamides, different in solfunation degree, and one hydrolyzed polyacrylamide were studied regarding gelation time, gel strength and stability to find the optimized conditions in terms of polymer type and concentration, and polymer/Cr(III)-acetate ratio, which were subsequently used for one dynamic test. Results illustrated the optimized conditions as AN 105 polymer with concentration of 5000ppm and polymer/Cr(III) ratio of 5. Moreover, results showed that implementing such gel system yields an increased oil recovery value of 24.46% OOIP at 1.55 PV and delays the breakthrough time from 0.47 PV to 0.51 PV. [GRAPHICS] .