Effect of Inorganic Polymer Gel Systems on Residual Resistance Factor in Fractured Core Model

Excessive water production through fractures become an important problem in oil exploration of fractured reservoirs. For this purpose, polymer gels were prepared by crosslinking of aqueous solutions of polymer and crosslinker for the purpose of water management in high water cut fractured reservoirs. A copolymer of sulfonated polyacrylamide was used as polymer and chromium triacetate (Cr(OAc)3) and aluminum nitrate nonahydrate (Al(NO3)3.9H2O) were used as inorganic crosslinkers at 90oC. Two quadratic models were presented for the two inorganic polymer gel systems to predict the gelation time by using a central composite design which showed highly significant results. The results also showed that polymer concentration was the main effect on gelation time. Increasing polymer concentration leads to accelerate the gelation process and then decrease of gelation time. Based on the gelation time and strength of three dimensional structure of polymer gel, the selected polymer gels of Cr(OAc)3 and Al(NO3)3.9H2O were applied to study the performance of polymer gel system in fractured core with the same polymer concentration of 37071 ppm and the crosslinker concentration of 13096 ppm and 2707 ppm, respectively. Also, the gelation time of these polymer gels was determined 12 h and 34 h, respectively. For this purpose, the coreflooding test was carried out to measure the output flow rate before and after polymer gel treatment in order to calculate the Residual Resistance Factor (RRF). As a result, after polymer gel treatment, the output flow rate decreased intensively and by increasing injection pressure, the RRF decreased gradually. The polymer gels of Cr(OAc)3 and Al(NO3)3.9H2O in the fracture were renitent up to 70 and 60 bar against the water pressure drop, while these polymer gels were renitent up to 60 and 40 bar against the oil pressure drop, respectively. The polymer gel of Cr(OAc)3 demonstrated higher residual resistance factor than the polymer gel of Al(NO3)3.9H2O.