Chapter 13: Polymers, Gels, Foams, and Resins

This chapter provides an overview of selected chemical systems and technologies that promote improved conformance during light oil-recovery operations. These conformance-improvement systems and technologies include fluid systems for use during oil-recovery flooding operations in which the fluids promote sweep improvement and mobility control (e.g., polymer waterflooding) and oilfield conformance-improvement treatment systems (e.g., “small-volume” gel treatments). A conformance-improvement fluid system for promoting flood sweep improvement and mobility control involves injecting a volume of an oil-recovery fluid that constitutes a significant fraction of the reservoir pore volume. The volume of an oil-recovery flooding system that is applied for sweep improvement is usually greater than 5% of the reservoir and/or well-pattern pore volume. Conformance-improvement treatment systems normally are of a relatively small volume and usually are used to treat the near-wellbore region or a relatively small fracture volume within the reservoir.