• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.247-254
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• 2014

The compressibility of fracture in naturally fractured reservoir is larger than the compressibility of matrix in rock, although the compressibility of a typical rock is very small. The effective compressibility including the fracture compressibility should be considered to predict oil recovery correctly. It is hard to quantify changes of fracture aperture and pore volume in reservoir without the effective compressibility. In this study, oil recovery is analyzed by commercial simulator concerning the fracture compressibility based on fracture properties. We found that the effective compressibility affects oil recovery with change of polymer flooding factors such as polymer molar weight, concentration and injection rate. The estimated cumulative oil production is smaller with the effective compressibility than without it. Also, bottomhole pressure decreases rapidly without considering effective fracture compressibility.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2012

With the decline in discoveries of new oil fields and increasing demand from developing countries it is believed that enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies will play a key role to meet the energy demand in years to come. Based on the recently-published data, this paper discusses current status of global EOR market and technical development trends. The EOR market includes oil produced through various EOR recovery methods, such as thermal recovery, gas injection, chemical injection. Also, EOR methods are addressed screening criteria by reservoir and fluid characteristics including lithology, depth, thickness, and oil properties such as composition and gravity. Finally, the examples of field applied by various EOR methods are discussed with respect to reservoir characteristics and performance.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.59-71
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• 2023

Carbon capture, and storage (CCS) is important for the reduction of greenhouse gases and achieving carbon neutrality. CCS focuses on storing captured CO₂ permanently in underground reservoirs. CO₂-enhanced oil recovery (CO₂-EOR) is one form of CCS, where CO₂ is injected into the underground to enhance oil recovery. CO₂-EOR not only aids in the extraction of residual oil but also contributes to carbon neutrality by storing CO₂ underground continuously. CO₂-EOR can be classified into miscible and immiscible methods, with the CO₂-water alternating gas (CO₂-WAG) technique being a representative approach within the miscible method. In CO₂-WAG, water and CO₂ are alternately injected into the reservoir, enabling oil production and CO₂ storage. The WAG method allows for controlling the breakthrough of injection fluids, providing advantages in oil recovery. It also induces hysteresis in relative permeability during the injection and production process, expanding the amount of trapped CO₂. In this study, the effects of enhancing oil recovery and storing CO₂ underground during CO₂-EOR were presented. Additionally, cases of CO₂-EOR application in relation to CCS were introduced.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.259-264
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• 2015

For the enhanced oil recovery, one of the most important factors is to determine the surfactant formulation in chemical flood. The objective of this study is to analyze the microemulsion formed between the alkali-surfactant (AS) solution and A crude oil for screening surfactants. The alkali-surfactant solution was manufactured by using the surfactant purchased from AK ChemTech. $C_{16}-PO_7-SO_4$ and sodium carbonate solution were used as surfactant and alkaline, respectively. Both TEGBE and IBA were used as a co-solvent. The AS solution and A crude oil can form a Type III middle phase microemulsion at the salinity from 0.0 wt%~3.6 wt%. Increasing the salinity causes the phase transition of microemulsion from the lower (Type I) to middle (Type III) to upper (Type II) phase. Interfacial tension (IFT) values calculated by Huh's equation were in good agreement with ultralow IFT. According to this characteristic, the surfactant purchased from a domestic company can be applied to the enhanced oil recovery.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.638-647
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• 2007

In this study, we present the evaluation chart for assessing the applicability of $CO_2$ flooding method to oil reservoirs. The evaluation chart consists of four categories as source availability, miscibility, applicability and injecting method of miscible flooding. The applicability of reservoir and oil in the chart has basic items of the properties such as oil gravity, viscosity, oil saturation, reservoir temperature and permeability, and these are quantitatively graded. Meanwhile, for additional items of $CO_2$ purity, reservoir thickness and formation dip, they are graded as "highmediumlow". In the case of evaluating the injection method of either continuous injection or WAG ($CO_2$), the qualitative decision will be made according to formation dip, vertical permeability, reservoir thickness, etc. The recommended score in the chart was assigned by utilizing 51 oil producing fields which $CO_2$ flooding is successfully being applied. The evaluation chart developed in this work has been applied to the Captain oil producing field located in Scotland as well as to the Onado oil field of Venezuela, which Korean oil companies have participated in. For the Captain field, the reservoir quality in terms of permeability and porosity is considered to be very excellent to flow the oil. The oil in captain field contains heavier component of $C_{21+}$ as 54%. Therefore, this heavy oil could be immiscibly displaced, hence the evaluating result with the basis of immiscible criteria shows that $CO_2$ immiscible flooding in this field could be properly applied. In the case of Onado oil producing field, since the estimated minimum miscibility pressure is lower than the reservoir pressure, it was assessed that the Onado field would be efficiently conducted for $CO_2$ miscible flooding.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.53-61
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• 2018

Low-salinity water based polymerflooding (LSPF) is one of promising enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method that has the synergetic effect of combining polymer injection method and low-salinity water injection method. In order to maximize EOR efficiency, it is essential to design low-salinity water appropriately considering the properties of polymer. In this aspect, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of pH and $SO_4{^{2-}}$ ion which one of PDI (Potential Determining Ion) on oil production when applying LSPF to carbonate oil reservoir. First, the stability and adsorption of polymer molecule were analyzed in different pH of injection water and $SO_4{^{2-}}$ concentration in injection water. As a result, regardless of pH and $SO_4{^{2-}}$ concentration, when $SO_4{^{2-}}$ ion was contained in injection water, the stability of polymer solution was obtained. However, from the result of polymer retention analysis, in neutral state of injection water, since $SO_4{^{2-}}$ interfered the adsorption of polymer, the adsorption thickness of polymer was thinner as $SO_4{^{2-}}$ concentration was higher. On the other hand, when injection water was acidic as pH 4, the amount of polymer adsorption increased with the injection of polymer solution, so the mobility of polymer solution was greatly lowered. From the results of wettability alteration due to low-salinity water effect, in the case of neutral injection water injected, as $SO_4{^{2-}}$ concentration was increased, more oil which attached on rock surface was detached, altering wettability from oil-wet to water-wet. On the other hand, in acidic condition, due to complex effect of rock dissolution and polymer adsorption, wettability of the entire core system was less altered relatively to neutral condition. Therefore, it was evaluated that better EOR efficiency was obtained when injecting low-salinity water based polymer solution containing high concentration of $SO_4{^{2-}}$ with neutral condition, enhancing the oil production up to 12.3% compared to low-salinity water injection method.