Chemical enhanced oil recovery projects usually require fairly soft water to achieve optimum recovery. Chemical softening was selected for an alkaline flood design in a Montana Muddy formation at a considerable savings over ion-exchange softening. Many Rocky Mountain oil fields have relatively soft water available, often from the producing formation. This paper shows that using simple and controllable processes with common oilfield equipment, satisfactory water treatment can be achieved at economic levels for EOR floods.

Keywords:
consideration, hardness, softening, concentration, alkaline flood, precipitate, enhanced recovery, upstream oil & gas, lime, sodium silicate
Subjects:
Improved and Enhanced Recovery, Waterflooding
Copyright 1983, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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