Application of Electrokinetics for Enhanced Oil Recovery - Electrokinetics for Petroleum and Environmental Engineers - page 144

clastic reservoirs, unless the carbonate reservoir throats were lined with
clay minerals. Muhammad Haroun, and his students at the Petroleum
Institute Abu Dhabi, have conducted a series of small scale (1 in diameter
by 1.5 in long core plug) laboratory carbonate DCEOR assisted water flood
experiments Ansari, et al, 2012; Haroun et al, 2009, 2013).
The small sample size is subject to the electrode reaction product risks,
cited above, in spite of the authors' best attempts, including flushing the
sample holder electrode chambers during the tests. The potential gradients
of 2 V/cm are much higher than possible for field operations and may skew
the results. Finally, the aggressive core cleaning and restoration utilized by
the authors risks irreversibly altering the electrochemical properties of the
cores. Timur (1992) attributed the following quote from M. R. J. Wyllie:

“The only thing we can say, for certain, about core measurements is that
they come from rocks which are no longer part of the reservoir”

With the above disclaimers:

• Haroun, et al. (2009) reported increased waterflood and sur-
factant injection rates with DCEK aided flow.
• Ansari et al. (2012) and Haroun et al. (2012) reported
increased oil recovery with DCEK assisted waterflood.

3.13 Technology Comparisons

Any emerging technology needs to be compared to both existing and other
emerging technologies.

3.13.1 Comparison of DCEOR and Steam Flood Efficiency

Table 3.4 compares DCEOR oil recovery efficiency (energy expended/
incremental oil produced) during the Santa Maria Basin, California field
demonstration to steam flood and cyclic (Huff and Puff) ) steam injection,
in the same field. For this particular field, with the reservoir at a depth of
about 2800 ft BGS, DCEOR was considerably more efficient than either
steam flood or cyclic steam injection.
The Lloydminster Heavy Oil Belt well pay zone was much shallower
(517 m or about 1,700 ft BGS). No details on these tests are available, but
the DCEOR and steam injection efficiencies for this well were considered
to be comparable.