Displacement of Guar Gum in Porous Media to Control Water Mobility

Abstract

Oil recovery is made, firstly, by primary (natural energy or pumping) and by secondary (water flood) methods. However, these conventional methods extract only around 50% of the original oil in place. Therefore, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods should be used to remove the remained oil. In this work the EOR process studied was polymer flooding, using guar gum. A brine solution of this polysaccharide was injected in a core of Botucatu rock, simulating the polymer injection in oil fields. Rheological measurements were realized with an oil sample from RJ-Brazil and with guar gum solutions to obtain the best solution to remove this specific oil. The characterization of the rock was also realized. The results showed that guar gum interaction with Botucatu rock was very strong, and that multilayer adsorption should have occurred due to the high values of resistance factor (RF) and of residual resistance factor (RRF) found.