Chapter 13: Other Waterflooding Considerations

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss a few waterflooding-related topics that have not been covered in previous chapters. These topics are

The horizontal wells use in waterfloods is discussed first because this section is the longest, compared with the other four. Also, the physical mechanisms described in the second through fourth sections are coded into only a few of the numerical reservoir simulators. They are important in a subset of reservoirs being waterflooded, but, if included, increase the complexity and run times of the simulators.

As mentioned in the first chapter, this monograph does not include any discussion about polymer flooding or alkaline/surfactant/polymer flooding. These enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) processes involve large-scale water injection, but with the addition of small concentrations of specialty water-soluble chemicals that mobilize residual oil and enhance oil recovery by a number of complex process mechanisms.