Miscible Slug Flooding - A Review

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Abstract
Over the past several years the petroleum industry has become increasingly interested in the possibilities of miscible slug flooding as a means of increasing the nation's recoverable reserves. Preliminary studies of this recovery method have demonstrated that substantially complete displacement of oil is obtained in those portions of the reservoir contacted by the miscible slug. A large portion of the published research has been concerned with the volume of solvent slug required to maintain miscibility between the reservoir oil and the scavenging gas. In this paper laboratory results are reviewed with particular emphasis on the general conclusions of the studies as applied to field application of miscible flooding. The factors affecting the portion of the reservoir swept by the miscible slug and reservoir conditions believed desirable for successful operation are discussed. Possible methods for improving the sweep efficiency are considered. Introduction: During its growth, the petroleum production industry has continually sought improved methods for recovery of oil from underground reservoirs. Gas and water injection have been used to flush additional oil from formations and to restore and maintain reservoir pressure. However, even with these injection operations generally from one-third to one-half of the oil originally in place remains unrecovered at the time that further production becomes uneconomical. This lack of complete oil recovery is due to the inability to obtain both complete sweep of all oil-bearing portions of the reservoir (100 per cent volumetric sweep efficiency) and complete displacement of oil from the swept regions (100 per cent displacement efficiency). The volumetric sweep efficiency during any injection operation depends uponthe nature and distribution of reservoir nonuniformities,well pattern effects, andgravity effects caused by the density difference between the oil and the injected fluid.

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