SPE-182596-MS

Assessment of Chemical Performance Uncertainty in Chemical EOR

Simulations

Olaoluwa O Adepoju, Hoteit Hussein, and Adwait Chawathe, Chevron Energy Technology Company

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference held in Montgomery, TX, USA, 20–22 February 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Chemical floods such as surfactant and/or polymer floods are enhanced oil recovery techniques that have
been proven at both laboratory and field scale to increase sweep and/or displacement efficiency. Even though
the compatibility and the efficiency of the injected chemicals are thoroughly tested and validated in the
laboratory, uncertainty still remains regarding their actual performance in the reservoir. These uncertainties
can result from the differences in the scale of investigation (core scale to field scale), lack of understanding
of reservoir heterogeneity and connectivity, and the long term chemical performance and the chemical slug
integrity in the reservoir.
In order to properly design a chemical flood, the uncertainties related to chemical performance have to
be considered along with subsurface uncertainties during formal analysis using Design of Experiments.
In addition to traditional subsurface uncertainty analysis, this work focused on two methodologies
to systematically incorporate in-situ chemical performance uncertainties. The first methodology varies
chemical properties such as polymer rheology, adsorption, permeability reduction, inaccessible pore volume
and non-Newtonian behavior individually during uncertainty analysis. The drawbacks of this approach are
the computationally cumbersome parameter combinations and an increased possibility of testing unphysical
combinations of chemical parameters.
The second methodology considers the overall chemical performance in the reservoir as an uncertainty
parameter. In this case, the chemical properties are not varied individually but as a set to express the
uncertainty range of chemical quality. The advantage of using chemical performance as an uncertainty
parameter is that the possibility of testing unphysical combination of chemical properties is eliminated
and there are less uncertainty parameters (thus increased computational efficiency). The drawback of this
approach is that inadvertent bias can be introduced in the uncertainty analysis because of limited knowledge
of the subsurface, and extreme end-points in the uncertainty space may remain untested.
The two approaches are compared in this paper and case studies were conducted. The results show
how realistic low, mid and high performance models were generated that account for both subsurface and
chemical uncertainties.
2 SPE-182596-MS

Introduction
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has a potential to increase the recovery efficiency for most hydrocarbon
fields. The average oil recovery rate for most hydrocarbon reservoirs is 33% (Farouq Ali, 2012). This shows
that there is a large potential for EOR technologies. Chemical flooding is one of enhanced oil recovery
processes that can help to achieve this goal. There is renewed interest in chemical enhanced oil recovery
due to advances in chemical formulation technology, better laboratory screening, commercial chemical cost
reduction, and better reservoir characterization (Wyatt et al., 2008, Rivas and Gathier, 2013, Shahid et al.,
2012). This enthusiasm is currently being tempered with the current low oil price.
Chemical EOR (CEOR) is an enhanced oil recovery technology in which chemical solution is injected
into the reservoir inorder to increase sweep and/or displacement efficiency. Polymer flooding involves
injecting polymer solution to decrease water mobility resulting in improved sweep efficiency (Lake, 1989,
Green and Wilhite, 2003). Surfactant flooding involves injecting surface-active agents (surfactants) that
achieve low interfacial tension (IFT) with the displaced oil. The injected chemicals solubilize the displaced
oil to form an oil bank that is displaced ahead of the slug. The chemical slug also has a low IFT with
formation water. Polymers are usually added to surfactants for mobility control, hence the name Surfactant-
Polymer (SP) flood or Micellar-Polymer flood. SP floods have advantage over other EOR methods
because of its dual advantage of increasing both microscopic displacement efficiency and volumetric sweep
efficiency. Microscopic displacement efficiency is increased as the oil is mobilized by the surfactant and
the added polymer increases volumetric sweep efficiency. Chemical floods have been shown to have a huge
potential of increasing recovery efficiency in mature waterfloods with high residual oil saturation (Flaaten
et al., 2009).
Field applications of CEOR is challenging due to numerous uncertainties that can potentially impact
project success. These uncertainities include chemical adsorption, residual oil saturation reduction by
chemical flood, interfacial tension, trapping number, permeability reduction, inaccessible pore volume and
reservoir heterogeneity (Shahid et al., 2013, Alkhatib, 2015, Anderson, 2006). Reservoir heterogeneity
is considered as the dominant uncertainty impacting the success of any CEOR process (Alkhatib, 2015,
Alkhatib et al., 2012,). Therefore detailed reservoir characterization is a key requirement to the design and
evaluation of CEOR (Bragg et al., 1982, Gao et al., 2010).
Design of Experiments (DoE) presents a methodology to quatitiatively investigates and assess impact
of uncertainties using a minimal number of experiments or simulations. Design of Experiments can
be used to identify significant uncertainties affecting a desired objective function. Results of design of
experiments can be used to generate response surface or proxy that gives a quantitative relationship between
objective function and significant uncertainties. Monte Carlo simulations can be conducted on the proxy
to generated probabilistic forecasts. The application of design of experiment to assess uncertainties and
generate probabilistic forecasts has been extensively discussed in literature (Yeten et al., 2005, Amudo et
al., 2008, Friedmann et al., 2003, Kabir et al., 2005, Adepoju et al., 2009).
In order to properly design and evaluate a chemical flood, uncertainties relating to chemical performance
have to be considered along with subsurface uncertainties using formal analysis of Design of Experiments.
This work considers different methodologies to incorporate both subsurface uncertainties and chemical
performance uncertainties in the design and evaluation of CEOR.

Chemical Performance Uncertainties

There are several chemical process parameters that affect the performance of any chemical flood. In this
section we will review some of these chemical process parameters that affect both polymer and surfactant-
polymer floods.
SPE-182596-MS 3

Polymer process uncertainties

Polymer yield. The polymer yield gives the relationship between polymer concentration and polymer
viscosity. This relationship is measured in the laboratory and can be modeled numerically using modified
Flory-Huggins equation (UTCHEM v9.0). Different yield curves (Figure 1) can be used to represent the
possible relationships between polymer concentration and polymer viscosity.

Figure 1—Polymer yield curves showing uncertainty in the relationship

between injected polymer concentration and polymer viscosity.

Polymer adsorption. Polymer can adsorb on the rock surfaces depending on clay content in the reservoir,
rock mineralogy and surface area of the medium. Polymer adsorption can be determined by static tests using
crushed cores or dynamic tests using corefloods (Shahid et al., 2013). There is uncertainty associated with
adsorption because the experiments are conducted on few core samples relative to the reservoir volume.
Adsorption is represented numerically using Langmuir-type isotherm (UTCHEM v9.0). Different Langmuir
curves (Figure 2) inferred from experimental analysis can be used to represent uncertainties associated to
adsorption.

Figure 2—Polymer adsorption curves showing possible relationship between adsorbed polymer and polymer concentration.
4 SPE-182596-MS

Permeability Reduction. Polymer propagation in porous media has been empirically observed to cause
a degree of permeability reduction (Lake, 1989). Reduction in permeability during polymer flood is more
significant at low permeabilities. Permeability reduction is a consequence of the resistance factor observed
when comparing injectivity of single-phase polymer solution to the injectivity of brine. Hoteit et al., 2016
showed that residual resistance factor post-polymer flood is not necessarily equal to the resistance factor
during polymer flood. Permeability reduction can be indirectly inferred from coreflood by using numerical
simulation to match observed pressure gradient during core flood. Empirical model for permeability
reduction can be used to quantitatively represent uncertainties on permeability reduction (UTCHEM v9.0)
(Figure 3).

Figure 3—Permeability reduction relationship during polymer flood showing possible permeability reduction scenarios.

Polymer shear thinning. Polymer is a non-Newtonian fluid. Polymer solution viscosity depends on
shear rate. The relationship between polymer solution viscosity and shear rate is experimentally measured.
Polymer shear thinning is modeled numerically with modified Meter's equation (UTCHEM v9.0). Polymer
shear thinning offers both a challenge and an opportunity for chemical flood. Shear thinning poses an
operational challenge because of the possibility of mechanical degradation of the polymer. Therefore all flow
equipment has to be inspected to eliminate the possibility of shear degradation of the polymer. However,
shear thinning offers advantage in terms of polymer injectivity. Due to the relatively high shear rate near
the wellbore there can be significant viscosity reduction near the wellbore resulting in improved injectivity.
Uncertainty around polymer shear thinning can be represented by different shear thinning curves (Figure 4).

Figure 4—Relationship between polymer viscosity and shear rate for different level of uncertainty.
SPE-182596-MS 5

Inaccessible pore volume (IPV). Polymer may not be able to access all pore throats in the reservoir
depending on the size of the polymer molecule compared to pore-throat radius. The effect of IPV is an
observed acceleration of the polymer solution, compared to brine based on pore volume that cannot be
accessed by polymer molecules. The magnitude of IPV depends on polymer size, permeability distribution
and pore size distributions (Lake, 1989). IPV is represented in the numerical simulator as multiplier to the
system porosity (UTCHEM v9.0). Uncertainty associated IPV can be captured with a range of multipliers.

Surfactant process uncertainties

Capillary desaturation curve. Capillary desaturation curve gives the relationship between residual oil
saturation and capillary number. Trapping number can be used in place of capillary number on the capillary
desaturation curve. Trapping number is a dimensionless parameter that relates viscous and gravitational
force to capillary forces (UTCHEM v9.0). Trapping number increases as injected surfactant reduces the
interfacial tension between oil and brine. The uncertainty around surfactant performance in field application
can be captured by a range of capillary desaturation curves (Figure 5).

Figure 5—Capillary desaturation curves showing possible relationship between residual oil saturation and trapping number

Surfactant adsorption. Like the polymer, there is a tendency for surfactant to adsorb on reservoir rock
depending clay content and rock mineralogy. Surfactant adsorption reduces surfactant effectiveness as it
reduces the volume of surfactant available for oil mobilization. Surfactant adsorption is experimentally
measured and can be empirically modeled with Langmuir isotherm. Surfactant adsorption uncertainty in
field application can be captured by different adsorption isotherms (Figure 6).
6 SPE-182596-MS

Figure 6—Surfactant adsorption curves showing possible relationship

between quantity of surfactant adsorbed and surfactant concentration.

Microemulsion viscosity. The mobility of microemulsion phase is strongly impacted by the microemulsion
viscosity. Measurement and accurate modeling of microemulsion viscosity is critical to proper design and
evaluation of chemical flood. High microemulsion viscosity will reduce phase mobility and will result in
low injectivity. The uncertainty in microemulsion viscosity needs to be considered in the CEOR design
(Figure 7).

Figure 7—Microemulsion viscosity curves showing possible relationship

between microemulsion viscosity and solubilized oil concentration.

Methodology
This work investigates two approaches to assess chemical performance uncertainties for chemical EOR
evaluation. The first approach relies on conventional DoE formalism for analyzing uncertainty. In
conventional DoE formalism, all identified uncertainties are varied based on a chosen DoE design. The
advantage of this approach is that the whole sample space can be investigated. The challenge of this approach
is that randomly combining chemical parameters can result in chemical properties which are non-physical
in nature. The second challenge is that, in addition to the subsurface/surface uncertainties, the full-factorial
variation of additional chemical uncertainties can result in significant incremental computational burden.
Table 1 shows an example of a 3-level uncertainty table containing combination of subsurface and chemical
performance parameters is shown below.
SPE-182596-MS 7

Table 1—Uncertainty table showing subsurface and chemical performance parameters and associated range of values.

No Uncertainty Parameters Low Mid High

1 Residual oil saturation 0.15 0.225 0.3

2 Endpoint Krw 0.1 0.25 0.4

3 Polymer viscosity 7 10 12

4 Polymer adsorption 70 50 30

5 Permeability reduction 1.3 1.2 1

6 Inaccesible pore volume 0.9 0.95 1

7 Shear thinning Low Mid High

8 Surfactant Adsorption (mg/g) 0.5 0.3 0.15

9 Microemulsion viscosity (cp) 25 18 14

10 Sor: High capillary number 0.06 0.03 0.01

The second approach, which is our recommended approach, is to focus on chemical performance as
a single parameter during uncertainty analysis. This parameter constitutes multiple chemical properties
lumped together in chemically feasible combinations only. This approach relies on input from subject
matter experts, chemical vendors and experimental analysis to define possible low, mid and high chemical
performance scenarios.
The advantage of this approach is that only physically possible chemical scenarios are tested. Another
advantage is that it is more computational efficient compared to conventional approach. Table 2 shows
an example of uncertainty table that has possible chemical performance scenarios for both surfactant and
polymer. It can be seen from the table (Table 2) that surfactant and polymer properties were combined
together as surfactant and polymer performance parameter. During uncertainty analysis, the polymer and
surfactant performance are varied as low, mid and high performance. However, a low performance polymer
can be combined with a low, mid or high surfactant performance based on DoE design. Table 2 shows that
same set of uncertainties that was shown in Table 1 (10 parameters) can be evaluated as four (4) uncertainty
parameters.

Table 2—Uncertainty table showing subsurface and lumped chemical performance parameters.

No Uncertainty Parameters Low Mid High

1 Residual oil saturation 0.15 0.225 0.3

2 Endpoint Krw 0.1 0.25 0.4

3 Polymer performance Low Mid High

 Polymer viscosity 7 10 12

 Polymer adsorption 70 50 30

 Permeability reduction 1.3 1.2 1

 Inaccesible pore volume 0.9 0.95 1

 Shear thinning Low Mid High

4 Surfactant Performance Low Mid High

 Surfactant Adsorption (mg/g) 0.5 0.3 0.15

 Microemulsion viscosity (cp) 25 18 14

 Sor: High capillary number 0.06 0.03 0.01

8 SPE-182596-MS

Case Studies
Two case studies were conducted to test the two approaches of assessing chemical performance
uncertainties. The first case study was a polymer flood and the second case study was surfactant flood.
A reservoir model with a seven-spot pattern was used for the case study (Figure 8). An in-house
proprietary general purpose reservoir simulator (CHEARSTM) was used for this analysis. Average properties
in the model are given in Table 3. CEOR simulation is very sensitive to grid block size. This dependence
is due to chemical dilution, artificial mixing and numerical dispersion that can create numerical artifacts
and reduce accuracy of the simulation. For this case study a grid block size of 10 feet was used. Grid
sensitivity study should be conducted to determine the appropriate grid block size that will balance the need
for accuracy and computational efficiency.

Figure 8—Areal view of seven-spot pattern reservoir used for case study.

Table 3—Average reservoir properties in simulation model.

Property Value

Permeability (D) 5D

Porosity (%) 25

Oil viscosity (cp) 10

Oil saturation (%) 60

Grid Size (feet) 10

Polymer case study

In this case study, an uncertainty assessment was conducted for a polymer flood. Subsurface uncertainties
that have been identified for this case study based on field history are the residual oil saturation to waterflood
and the relative permeability end-point. The objective of this study is to evaluate uncertainties related to
polymer flood for this reservoir and generate a probabilistic forecast that can assist in field development
decisions.
The first step in uncertainty analysis using DoE is to develop an uncertainty table that reflects possible
ranges of key parameters. The development of realistic uncertainty table is critical to the success of the
uncertainty analysis exercise. Field history and expert opinion should be consulted in the formulation of this
table. The uncertainty table for this case study is shown in Table 4. It shows that there are seven uncertainty
parameters using conventional approach. In order to evaluate all possible combination in this uncertainty
SPE-182596-MS 9

table, a full factorial design of 2,187 simulations are required. The analysis can be made computationally
more efficient by choosing a fractional factorial design but it may come at a cost of accuracy. In this case, we
chose the D-Optimal design with 100 simulation runs for efficiency. The more serious issue is that infeasible
combination of parameters, e.g., high adsorption and low permeability reduction may get tested, which does
not make sense in this particular case.

Table 4—Uncertainty table used for polymer flood case study using conventional approach

No Uncertainty Parameters Low Mid High

1 Residual oil saturation 0.15 0.225 0.3

2 Endpoint Krw 0.1 0.25 0.4

3 Polymer viscosity 7 10 12

4 Polymer adsorption 70 50 30

5 Permeability reduction 1.3 1.2 1

6 Inaccesible pore volume 0.9 0.95 1

7 Shear thinning Low Mid High

The recommended approach for this analysis is to combine all uncertainties relating to polymer
performance as a polymer performance uncertainty. In this scenario, only 3 parameters will be in the
uncertainty table compared to 10 in the conventional approach (Table 5). A full factorial design of 27
simulation run is required to run all possible combination of parameters in the uncertainty table compared
to 2,187 simulation runs in the conventional case. The advantage of the recommended approach is that only
physically possible chemical combinations are tested during uncertainty analysis.

Table 5—Uncertainty table used for polymer flood case study using recommended approach.

No Uncertainty Parameters Low Mid High

1 Residual oil saturation 0.15 0.225 0.3

2 Endpoint Krw 0.1 0.25 0.4

3 Polymer performance Low Mid High

 Polymer viscosity 7 10 12

 Polymer adsorption 70 50 30

 Permeability reduction 1.3 1.2 1

 Inaccesible pore volume 0.9 0.95 1

 Shear thinning Low Mid High

The recovery factors from the two approaches were plotted on a cumulative distribution function curve
(Figures 9 and 10). It can be seen that the recommended approach gives comparable probabilistic forecast
to the conventional approach with only a fraction of simulation runs. The recommended approach requires
only 27 simulation runs compared 100 D-Optimal runs used for the conventional approach. Table 6 shows
the probabilistic forecast for polymer flood for the two methods. The main benefit of varying chemical
performance (recommended approach) as an uncertainty parameter during uncertainty analysis is that only
physically possible chemical scenarios are tested during uncertainty analysis.
10 SPE-182596-MS

Figure 9—Cumulative distribution function of recovery factor from

uncertainty analysis from 100 simulation runs using conventional approach.

Figure 10—Cumulative distribution function of recovery factor from

uncertainty analysis from 27 simulation runs using recommended approach

Table 6—Probabilistic recovery factor for conventional and recommended approach (polymer flood)

Recovery factor (%)

Conventional approach Recommended Approach

P10 44.59 44.25

P50 56.18 56.15

P90 67.54 66.97

Surfactant-Polymer case study

In this case study, a surfactant-polymer flood uncertainty analysis was conducted. The chemical design
contains a polymer pre-flush, a surfactant-polymer slug and a polymer chase slug. A salinity gradient
was also imposed to minimize surfactant retention (Dwarakanath et al., 2008). Chemical performance
uncertainties for surfactant-polymer flood are a combination of subsurface uncertainties, surfactant
uncertainties and polymer uncertainties. The uncertainty table using conventional approach of considering
chemical properties separately during uncertainty analysis is shown in Table 7.
SPE-182596-MS 11

Table 7—Uncertainty table used for surfactant-polymer flood case study using conventional approach.

No Uncertainty Parameters Low Mid High

1 Residual oil saturation 0.15 0.225 0.3

2 Endpoint Krw 0.1 0.25 0.4

3 Polymer viscosity 7 10 12

4 Polymer adsorption 70 50 30

5 Permeability reduction 1.3 1.2 1

6 Inaccesible pore volume 0.9 0.95 1

7 Shear thinning Low Mid High

8 Surfactant Adsorption (mg/g) 0.5 0.3 0.15

9 Microemulsion viscosity (cp) 25 18 14

10 Sor: High capillary number 0.06 0.03 0.01

Uncertainty analysis of all ten parameters in the uncertainty table requires 59,049 simulations to cover
all possible combinations of the parameters. A sub-set of these simulations (202) was used for this analysis
based on D-Optimal design.
The alternative approach is to use chemical performance as uncertainty parameter. In this case only
four parameters are in the uncertainty analysis table (Table 8). In this analysis, polymer and surfactant
performance are lumped as an uncertainty parameter. This parameter represents possible chemical
performance during field applications based on laboratory analysis, subject matter expert inputs, chemical
manufacturer's specification and field observation.

Table 8—Uncertainty table used for surfactant-polymer flood case study using recommended approach

No Uncertainty Parameters Low Mid High

1 Residual oil saturation 0.15 0.225 0.3

2 Endpoint Krw 0.1 0.25 0.4

3 Polymer performance Low Mid High

 Polymer viscosity 7 10 12

 Polymer adsorption 70 50 30

 Permeability reduction 1.3 1.2 1

 Inaccesible pore volume 0.9 0.95 1

 Shear thinning Low Mid High

4 Surfactant Performance Low Mid High

 Surfactant Adsorption (mg/g) 0.5 0.3 0.15

 Microemulsion viscosity (cp) 25 18 14

 Sor: High capillary number 0.06 0.03 0.01

The recommended approach has an advantage over randomly varying all possible combinations of
chemical parameters. A full factorial evaluation that combines all possible parameter combination in the
recommended approach requires 81 simulation cases for the identified uncertainty parameters in Table 8.
A D-Optimal design requires 74 simulation runs to evaluate the interactions between various parameters.
The results from uncertainty analysis shows comparable recovery factor between recommended and
conventional approach (Figures 11 and 12, Table 9). Recommended approach only requires a fraction of the
12 SPE-182596-MS

simulations required in the conventional approach. Also only physically possible chemical combinations
are investigated in the recommended approach.

Figure 11—Cumulative probability distribution of recovery factor from

uncertainty analysis from 202 simulation runs using conventional approach

Figure 12—Cumulative probability distribution of recovery factor from

uncertainty analysis from 74 simulation runs using recommended approach

Table 9—Probabilistic recovery factor for conventional and recommended approach (surfactant-polymer flood)

Recovery factor (%)

Conventional approach Recommended Approach

P10 68.77 69.45

P50 72.39 71.94

P90 75.68 74.15

Conclusion
This study presented two approaches to analyze chemical performance uncertainties using Design of
Experiments. The first approach considered chemical properties individually as uncertainty parameters
during uncertainty analysis. The second approach, which is the recommended approach, uses chemical
performance as a lumped uncertainty parameter during uncertainty analysis. This parameter combines
SPE-182596-MS 13

multiple chemical properties to provide overall chemical performance. Uncertainty is then captured by
assigning a range to the overall chemical performance.
Using chemical performance as an uncertainty parameter eliminates infeasible chemical property
combinations during uncertainty analysis. The approach is also computationally more efficient compared to
the conventional approach. Expert opinion and laboratory experiments are mandatory to develop realistic
chemical performance scenarios for uncertainty analysis.

Acknowledgments
The authors appreciate the support and guidance of Chevron's CEOR laboratory personnel and subject
matter experts including Dwarakanath Varadarajan, Malik Taimur and Sophany Thach. The efforts of
Chevron's ETC Gas Modeling and EOR modeling group is also appreciated. We also appreciate the support
of Chevron management to publish this paper.

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