Pore-scale investigation of residual oil displacement in surfactant–polymer flooding using nuclear magnetic resonance experiments

Research on the Gangxi III area in the Dagang Oilfield shows that there was still a significant amount of oil remaining in oil reservoirs after many years of polymer flooding. This is a potential target for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Surfactant–polymer (SP) flooding is an effective chemical EOR method for mobilizing residual oil and improving displacement efficiency macroscopically, but the microscopic oil displacement efficiency in pores of different sizes is unclear. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is an efficient method for quantifying oil saturation in the rock matrix and analyzing pore structures. In this paper, the threshold values of different pore sizes were established from the relationship between mercury injection curves and NMR T 2 spectrums. The distribution and migration of residual oil in different flooding processes was evaluated by quantitatively analyzing the change of the relaxation time. The oil displaced from pores of different sizes after the water flood, polymer flood, and the SP flood was calculated, respectively. Experimental results indicate that (1) the residual oil in medium pores contributed the most to the incremental oil recovery for the SP flood, ranging from 40 % to 49 %, and small pores usually contributed <30 %; (2) the residual oil after the SP flood was mainly distributed in small and medium pores; the residual oil in medium pores accounted for 47.3 %–54.7 %, while that trapped in small pores was 25.7 %–42.5 %. The residual oil in small and medium pores was the main target for EOR after the SP flood in oilfields.