Numerical simulation of chemical flood using a compositional simulator

This paper introduces the application of a reservoir simulator, which can be used in high pH chemical flood, on simulating core experiments of chemical flood. The core flood experiments include polymer flood and alkaline/surfactant/polymer (ASP) flood under three kinds of different remaining oil saturation. The results of both simulation and experiment show that the remaining oil saturation at the start of polymer flood does not affect oil recovery when the amount of polymer used is large enough. The value of initial oil saturation reflects difference of core pore structure and oil distribution characteristics in core. It is also proven by simulation that the actual value of surfactant concentration in the cores is higher than the injected one after alkaline flood due to in\|situ generated surfactant. The better history match of differential pressure and oil recovery between simulation and experiment is quite encouraging, and shows validity of UTCHEM-6.0 simulator. To our experience, it is necessary for model parameters used in the simulator to be adjusted properly to account for salinity levels, pH and in\|situ generated surfactants.