Blocking a Flow Conductive Inter-well Fault by Fines Detached by a Low-Salinity Water Slug
Transport in Porous Media, ISSN: 1573-1634, Vol: 151, Issue: 3, Page: 403-427
2024
Metric Options: CountsSelecting the 1-year or 3-year option will change the metrics count to percentiles, illustrating how an article or review compares to other articles or reviews within the selected time period in the same journal. Selecting the 1-year option compares the metrics against other articles/reviews that were also published in the same calendar year. Selecting the 3-year option compares the metrics against other articles/reviews that were also published in the same calendar year plus the two years prior.
Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
Citation Benchmarking is provided by Scopus and SciVal and is different from the metrics context provided by PlumX Metrics.
Example: if you select the 1-year option for an article published in 2019 and a metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019. If you select the 3-year option for the same article published in 2019 and the metric category shows 90%, that means that the article or review is performing better than 90% of the other articles/reviews published in that journal in 2019, 2018 and 2017.
Citation Benchmarking is provided by Scopus and SciVal and is different from the metrics context provided by PlumX Metrics.
Article Description
Fines detachment, migration and pore clogging are important processes in diverse problems in underground formations. Recent works have analyzed the idea of employing fines detached by low-salinity water injection to modify water trajectories in a rock formation. In oil and geothermal reservoirs, fines can play, in this context, a beneficial role in water production control. In underground pollution processes, fines can serve as a potential mechanism for isolating soil or water contaminants. In this work, a new application to block the fluid flow in a conducting fault that directly links the injection well with extraction wells by using a slug of low-salinity water is explored. This technique could bear significant relevance, particularly in scenarios where water is injected to displace oil or soil contaminants from the formation into extraction wells. The existence of this type of highly conductive pathways can significantly reduce the efficiency of oil or contaminant sweeping. To analyze the problem, we consider here a low-salinity water slug that is introduced in the injection stream of a standard inverse five-spot well array, in which a high-permeability fault-like streak directly connects the injector with two of the four extraction wells. The mathematical model to describe fines detachment, migration, pore clogging and permeability impairment is revisited and adapted. The nonlinear coupled equation set for single-phase fluid flow, salinity transport and fines dynamics is numerically solved by a finite element method. The efficiency of the low-salinity fines detaching method to block water flow in conductive faults is discussed in terms of slug injection period, slug salinity and flow injection rate. The most sensitive parameters are injection period and injection rate. It was found that fines are equally effective at obstructing broad or narrow faults.
Bibliographic Details
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Provide Feedback
Have ideas for a new metric? Would you like to see something else here?Let us know