You are on page 1of 26

See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287806819

A Comprehensive Review of Low


Salinity/Engineered Water Injections and their
Applications in Sandstone and Carbonate Rocks

Article in Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering December 2015


DOI: 10.1016/j.petrol.2015.11.027

CITATIONS READS

7 380

1 author:

Emad Waleed Al-Shalabi


Petroleum Institute (UAE)
44 PUBLICATIONS 195 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Modeling the Effect of Engineered Water Injection (EWI) on Oil Recovery from Carbonate Reservoirs
View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Emad Waleed Al-Shalabi on 26 April 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document
and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering


journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol

A comprehensive review of low salinity/engineered water injections


and their applications in sandstone and carbonate rocks
Emad W. Al-Shalabi a,n, Kamy Sepehrnoori b
a
The Petroleum Institute, United Arab Emirates
b
The University of Texas at Austin, United States

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The low salinity/engineered water injection techniques (LSWI/EWI) have become one of the most im-
Received 3 September 2015 portant research topics in the oil industry because of their possible advantages for improving oil recovery
Received in revised form compared to conventional seawater injection. Researchers have proposed several mechanisms for the
14 November 2015
LSWI/EWI process in the literature; however, there is no consensus on a single main mechanism for the
Accepted 26 November 2015
low salinity effect on oil recovery. Because of the latter, there are few models for LSWI/EWI and especially
Available online 21 December 2015
for carbonates due to their heterogeneity and complexity. In this paper, we present a comprehensive
Keywords: state-of-the-art review on low salinity/engineered water injection for both sandstones and carbonates.
Low salinity water injection (LSWI) This review includes descriptions of underlying mechanisms, spontaneous imbibition and coreood la-
Engineered water injection (EWI)
boratory work, eld-scale pilots, numerical and modeling work, implementation, comparison between
Applications of LSWI/EWI
sandstones and carbonates, other LSWI/EWI applications, and desalination methods. List of re-
Comprehensive review on LSWI/EWI
Effects of LSWI/EWI in sandstones and car- commendations and conclusions are provided based on this vast literature review and our experiences.
bonates This paper can be used as a guide for starting or implementing laboratory- and eld-scale projects on low
Synergistic effects of LSWI/EWI salinity/engineered water injections.
& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction dissolution and ne migration processes. Nevertheless, work is


progressing on understanding the chemical interactions between
One of the emerging improved oil recovery (IOR) techniques for crude oil/brine/rock (COBR) in the system.
wettability alteration in carbonate reservoirs is low salinity water Few LSWI modeling studies have been performed so far espe-
injection (LSWI). The popularity of this technique is due to its high cially on carbonate rocks compared to sandstone rocks. One of the
efciency in displacing light to medium gravity crude oils, ease of reasons for this reluctance to investigate the effect of low salinity
injection into oil-bearing formations, availability and affordability water injection on carbonate rocks is the extensive research done
of water, and lower capital and operating costs involved, which on sandstone rocks, which concluded that the presence of clay is
leads to favorable economics compared to other IOR/EOR methods. the main reason for wettability alteration. Moreover, the complex
The only concern with this technique is water sourcing and water chemical interactions between COBR and the heterogeneity of
disposal. carbonate rocks make it difcult to predict the extent of additional
The low salinity water injection IOR technique is also known in oil recovery as a result of LSWI. Other reasons involve the mystery
the literature as LoSalTM by BP, Smart WaterFlood by Saudi Ara- of the chemical mechanism behind the oil increase with low
mco, Designer Waterood by Shell, and Advanced Ion Manage- salinity injection and the discrepancy in some of the published
ment (AIMSM) by ExxonMobil. Several studies have been con- results regarding the effect of low salinity compared to the sea-
ducted on low salinity water injection at laboratory-scale and to a water injection effect.
limited extent at eld-scale. Most studies have conrmed a posi- Dang et al. (2013a) presented a concise review of the current
tive response to low salinity injection, which is translated into understanding of LSWI mechanisms, modeling and numerical si-
mulation, LSWI pilot tests, and Hybrid LSWI projects with focus on
additional oil recovery in both secondary and tertiary injection
sandstone rocks. Moreover, Sheng (2014) provided a review on
modes. Wettability alteration is believed to be the main reason
low salinity water injection in sandstones including history of
behind additional oil recovery due to low salinity water injection;
LSWI, laboratory and eld observations, mechanisms, and simu-
however, some other mechanisms were suggested, such as
lation work. This paper is mainly a comprehensive summary of the
work performed so far in the area of low salinity/engineered water
n
Corresponding author. injections (LSWI/EWI) and their applications in both sandstones

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2015.11.027
0920-4105/& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
138 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

Nomenclature LS contact angle when Sor becomes constant


chemical potential
Symbols
s interfacial tension
phase density
a constant, inection point from curve tting
a1, a2 Langmuir adsorption parameters
Subscripts/Superscripts
Ca mass fraction of salt component in aqueous phase
Cr adsorption isotherm of salt onto rock
high trapping number
e constant, hill slope from curve tting high
HS high salinity water
eij exponent between i and j phases
i initial
eowmax maximum oilwater exponent
LS low low trapping number
eow oilwater exponent when Sor becomes constant
LS low salinity water
F scaling factor
o oil
Is total/stoichiometric ionic strength of solution
OW oil-wet
k formation permeability
w water
k rlow oil-wet phase relative permeability
WW water-wet
k rlww water-wet phase relative permeability
k rl* phase endpoint relative permeability
k ro oil relative permeability Abbreviations
*
k roHS oil endpoint for seawater cycle
* CEC Cation Exchange Capacity
k roLS oil endpoint when Sor becomes constant
k rw water relative permeability CGI Continuous Gas Injection
NT trapping number CWI Carbonated Water Injection
nl phase Corey's exponent DoE Design of Experiment
no oil Corey's exponent EOR Enhanced Oil Recovery
nomax maximum typical oil Corey's exponent EWI Engineered Water Injection
NT trapping number IFT Interfacial Tension
nw water Corey's exponent IOR Improved Oil Recovery
Pc capillary pressure, critical pressure LSWAG Low Salinity Water Alternating Gas
Pcow oilwater capillary pressure LSWI Low Salinity Water Injection
Sl phase saturation MED Multi-Effect Distillation
Slr phase residual saturation MIE Multi-Ion Exchange
Snl phase normalized saturation MMP Minimum Miscibility Pressure
So oil saturation MSF Multi-Stage Flash Distillation
SOB oil bank saturation MVC Mechanical Vapor Compression
Sorw waterood residual oil saturation NF Nano-Filtration
SorHS
residual oil saturation for seawater cycle NMR Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
SorLS
minimum residual oil saturation by LSWI OOIC Original Oil in Core
Swf water shock front saturation OOIP Original Oil in Place
Tl phase trapping parameter PV Pore Volume
PZC Point of Zero Charge
Greek letters RO Reverse Osmosis
RSM Response Surface Methodology
SRB Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria
Ca absorbed calcium cation
SWAG Simultaneous Water Alternating Gas
Mg absorbed magnesium cation
SWCTT Single Well Chemical Tracer Test
* parameter includes heterogeneity and initial oil sa-
TCD Thermo-Compression Distillation
turation effects
TDS Total Dissolved Solids
scaling factor
UTCHEM University of Texas Chemical Simulator
S scaling factor for residual oil saturation
UTCOMP University of Texas Compositional Simulator
rl phase relative mobility
WAG Water Alternating Gas
contact angle, scaling factor
HS contact angle for seawater cycle

and carbonates. In the context of this paper, we refer to the pro- the following: effect of LSWI/EWI on sandstone and carbonate
cess of diluting the injected water as low salinity water injection rocks, proposed chemical mechanisms for sandstone and carbo-
(LSWI); however, hardening or softening of the injected water is nate rocks, comparison of both rocks, modeling of LSWI/EWI, other
referred to as engineered water injection (EWI). LSWI has been applications of LSWI/EWI, and LSWI/EWI desalination methods.
applied for both sandstones and carbonates with more emphasis
on sandstones, whereas EWI has mostly been conducted for car-
bonates. The different applications of LSWI/EWI are also discussed 2. Effect of LSWI/EWI on sandstone rocks
in this paper including conformance control and the combination
of LSWI/EWI along with each of surfactants, polymers, and carbon This section includes the LSWI/EWI effect on sandstone rocks at
dioxide (CO2). This paper includes a detailed description of each of both laboratory-scale and eld-scale, and the mechanisms
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 139

underlying this effect. 2007, 2008; Webb et al., 2005a, 2008).


Several researchers conrmed the low salinity water injection
2.1. Laboratory applications of LSWI/EWI on sandstone rocks effect on oil recovery from sandstone rocks though a total of 214
coreooding experiments in the secondary mode and 188 ex-
For sandstone rocks, extensive laboratory studies have been periments in the tertiary mode (Aladasani et al., 2012a). Gamage
conducted after producing 15% additional oil from Kansas eld and Thyne (2011) showed the advantages of using low salinity
cores when brine was used as injection uid as opposed to fresh water injection in the secondary mode on the tertiary mode by
water (Smith, 1942). In the latter study, the decrease in oil re- producing 6 to 22% more oil through two-phase coreooding ex-
covery with injection of fresh water was due to clay swelling. periments on Berea and eld sandstone cores. Oil recovery due to
Hence, Hughes and Pster (1947) focused on uid physical and low salinity water injection was coincident with decrease in
chemical characteristics to prevent clay swelling. Reiter (1961) pressure drop, increase in pH, and ne migration. Fjelde et al.
evaluated and compared the additional oil produced from Naca- (2012) conducted coreooding experiments on sandstone re-
toch sandstone oil-wet cores using both high salinity water (Na- servoir core plugs from the North Sea to investigate the effect of
catoch connate water) and low salinity water (one-quarter of low salinity water on oil recovery. They found that the high sali-
salinity of Nacatoch water). Results showed that low salinity water nity injected water resulted in a piston-like displacement while
recovered 21.3% greater ultimate oil recovery than the more saline the oil was recovered over a longer period using the low salinity
oods due to clay hydration effect. Bernard (1967) investigated water. This indicated that the rock was water-wet using high
relative effectiveness of fresh and salt waters on oil recovery from salinity oods and converted to less water-wet using low salinity
both synthetic and natural cores, containing clays. Results showed oods. They concluded that the direction of wettability alteration
no effect of saline water 15% to 1% NaCl on oil recovery; however, can be best explained by the ion exchange on the clay surface and
when the NaCl concentration was reduced from 1 to 0.1%, both oil hence, analysis of LSWI/EWI effect should be performed on a case-
recovery and pressure drop across the cores increased. Hence, the by-case basis depending on interactions between formation brine,
incremental oil recovery was related to the presence of clay. injected brine, oil components, and rock type.
Al-Mumen (1990) reported an increase in oil recovery from Suijkerbuijk et al. (2012) studied the impact of injected water,
Berea sandstone cores with increasing salinity up to a certain level formation water and crude oil on wettability alteration by LSWI/
after which recovery did not increase signicantly. Several core- EWI. The study includes spontaneous imbibition experiments on
ood experiments were conducted by Zhang et al. (2007a) to in- both Berea and reservoir sandstone core plugs. They concluded
vestigate the effect of low salinity brine on improving the oil re- that increasing the Ca2 concentration in the injected water turns
covery of Berea sandstone cores oil for both secondary and tertiary the system more oil-wet. Moreover, injection of NaCl in high
modes. Results were promising for the salinity level of 1500 ppm salinity and low salinity improves oil recovery when the formation
NaCl; however, the use of 8000 ppm NaCl had no effect on oil water has low divalent cations concentration and high divalent
recovery, as the reduction in the brine salinity level seemed in- cations concentration, respectively. In addition, they found that
sufcient. The applicability of low salinity waterooding for Alaska the crude oil dictates the wettability state of the rock using LSWI/
North Slope (ANS) was evaluated by Patil et al. (2008) using cor- EWI and most oil-wet rocks resulted in pronounced incremental
eooding experiments in the secondary mode. They observed a oil recovery. In a later work, Suijkerbuijk et al. (2014) evaluated the
reduction in residual oil saturation from 46% to 38% with de- applicability of low salinity waterooding on West Salym Field in
creasing salinity from 22,000 ppm to 5500 ppm. Moreover, oil Russia through their spontaneous imbibition tests and coreoods
recovery increased from 40% to 68% upon reducing water salinity on sandstone cores. The results showed a positive effect of low
from 22,000 ppm to ultralow salinity lake water (5060 ppm). salinity waterooding on oil recovery which was justied by
Webb et al. (2005a) observed low salinity effect on oil recovery at wettability alteration towards a more water-wet state by changing
salinities in the range of 20003000 ppm. The previous studies relative permeabilities and reducing residual oil saturation.
showed that there is a salinity level below which low salinity ef- Moreover, upscaling of coreood results to eld scale showed in-
fect on oil recovery is pronounced. cremental oil recovery of 4% of OOIP in the secondary mode
Both connate and invading brines have major effect on wett- compared to 1.7% in the tertiary mode.
ability and oil recovery at reservoir temperature, as was reported The previous studies show clearly the pronounced effect of low
by Tang and Morrow (1997). Decreasing salinity of both connate salinity on oil recovery from sandstones at laboratory scale. In the
and invading brines or either one causes increasing oil recovery, next subsection, the effect of LSWI on a eld-scale is discussed
especially at high temperature, which increases the water wetness thoroughly.
of the rocks resulting in high recovery. Brine salinity and tem-
perature play a major role in enhancing oil recovery as was in- 2.2. Field applications of LSWI/EWI on sandstone rocks
dicated by Agbalaka et al. (2009) through coreooding experi-
ments on Berea sandstone and shale sandstone core plugs at both Field-scale studies were conducted as well for investigating the
low to high temperatures and using low salinity (o2 wt% NaCl) effect of low salinity water injection on oil recovery from sand-
and high salinity (4 wt% NaCl) brines. Additional oil recovery was stone rocks. Webb et al. (2004) conrmed the laboratory results at
obtained in both secondary and tertiary modes, when reducing the eld-scale using a modied log-inject-log on a giant clastic re-
brine salinity from 4 to 1 wt%. The recovery increased even further servoir, measuring the waterood residual oil saturation (Sorw)
at high temperatures compared to low temperatures. after both high and low salinity water injection. Laboratory studies
Loahardjo et al. (2007) observed that sandstone reservoir cores showed that there is insignicant change in oil saturation for in-
responded better to low salinity water than outcrop cores. They jected brines of salinity over 35,000 ppm. This was consistent with
concluded that low salinity waterood is highly specic to crude the result of this study as there was no signicant difference be-
oil-brine-rock (COBR) interactions and cannot be predicted. This tween high and intermediate salinities, and both of them were
conclusion was based on spontaneous imbibition tests, which used for dening the base remaining oil for low salinity water
showed that secondary recovery enhanced the recovery to 16% injection. Fig. 1 shows results of low salinity water injection, as the
and 29%, whereas for the tertiary mode this was not always the change in remaining oil saturation is obvious between high sali-
case. The incremental oil recovery from sandstone rocks was in the nity and low salinity water injection. Remaining oil saturation out
range of 520% of OOIP as reported by most studies (Lager et al., of this study ranged from 30 to 50% which matched previous
140 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

water, and surfactant. The eld results of low salinity ooding


were not promising compared to the laboratory. They explained
this discrepancy due to the mineralogy in the tested formation
that contains lower clay content and to the low residual oil sa-
turation to water where less action is available for IOR treatment
by LSWI.
Extensive research is still underway to understand the me-
chanism underlying incremental oil recovery by LSWI, and hence
expanding successful eld-scale applications. A description of the
proposed chemical mechanisms behind the effect of low salinity/
engineered water injections on improving oil recovery from
sandstone rocks is included in the next subsection.

2.3. Proposed mechanisms for LSWI/EWI effect on sandstone rocks

Different mechanisms behind low salinity/engineered water


Fig. 1. Remaining oil saturation post-low salinity waterood (Webb et al., 2004). process have been proposed in light of the enormous research
studies; however, no single suggested mechanism has been ac-
laboratory studies. Possible modes of low salinity water injection cepted as the main mechanism for low salinity effect on sandstone
could be applied based on this optimistic result, including low rocks. This is due to the complex nature of the interaction between
salinity alternating regular salinity, low salinity slug, hot low crude oil, brine, and rock, as well as due to a number of conicting
salinity water, low salinity WAG (LSWAG), and others (Webb et al., observations from one suggested mechanism to another. Pre-
2004). viously suggested mechanisms include nes migration, pH in-
Single well chemical tracer tests (SWCTTs) were conducted in crease, multi-ion exchange (MIE), salting in, and wettability al-
Alaska as was reported by McGuire et al. (2005). Results showed teration (Doust et al., 2009; Ligthelm et al., 2009). A description of
an increase in oil recovery between 8 and 19% due to low salinity each of the suggested mechanisms is included in this subsection.
water injection. The authors reported a limit of 5000 ppm salinity
below which low salinity water injection effect is pronounced. 2.3.1. Fine migration
Upper critical salinity limit was observed in several papers for Smith (1942) conducted several lab tests on sandstone cores
having a prominent salinity effect on oil recovery. Another SWCTT using calcium chloride solution and fresh water. Oil recovery was
was conducted to measure the residual oil before and after in- higher for brine solution compared to fresh water and the reason
jection of low salinity brine in the tertiary mode as was reported was the swelling of clays in case of fresh water. Enhanced oil re-
by Seccombe et al. (2008). A 10% decrease in residual oil saturation covery by low salinity water ooding on sandstone cores was
was observed as a result of low salinity water injection performed by Martin (1959) who documented increasing oil re-
(2600 ppm) in two producers. The rst comprehensive inter-well covery as a result of reducing the injection brine salinity and
application was reported by Seccombe et al. (2010) involving an proposed swelling of clays and emulsication as reasons behind
injector and a producer 1040 feet apart. The results were in this increase. Nevertheless, Bernard (1967) found higher oil re-
agreement with the coreoods, single well tracer tests, and in- covery using fresh water in sandstone compared to NaCl brine and
cremental oil recovery versus clay content relationship. Moreover, this was accompanied by high pressure drop. Two scenarios were
Vledder et al. (2010) described a eld scale proof of wettability suggested; swelling of clay leading to less space for oil and water
alteration using LSWI in mixed-to-oil wet sandstone reservoirs in and hence increasing oil recovery; or clay dispersion to ne par-
the Oman Field in Syria. The change in wettability was observed ticles blocking the originally established ow channels and form-
from the dual steps in water cut development. ing new channels where oil recovery increases (Alotaibi and Nasr-
Seven LSWI eld pilots were performed in the Pervomaiskoye El-Din, 2009).
eld in Russia, which resulted in incremental oil recovery of 59% Fine migration chemically initiated from clay occurs once the
OOIP (Akhmetgareev and Khisamov, 2015). The authors in- owing uid has an inadequate total cation concentration or
vestigated the mechanism behind this incremental oil recovery contains inadequate percentage of divalent cations (Ca2 and
through conducting several double displacement tests using Mg2 ). Dispersion of clays is considered a complex phenomenon
sandstone cores of different clay content. They reported that depending on the clay type and brine composition of both owing
wettability alteration of rock surface was the main mechanism for and initially existing waters. Tang and Morrow (1999) proposed
cores with low clay content as twice-decreased residual oil sa- the ne migration mechanism, as the low salinity water could
turation was observed. On the other hand, formation damage by release clay fragments (nes), especially kaolinite detachments
clay migration was the reason for incremental oil recovery by rendering clay minerals more water-wet. Nevertheless, they
LSWI on cores with high clay content, as two-time reduced water highlighted the effect of improvement in microscopic displace-
relative permeability was noticed. Moreover, the authors per- ment efciency due to blocking of pore throats by the released clay
formed numerical modeling of the past-mentioned mechanisms particles and diverting water ow into non-swept pores more than
on a eld-scale using a ne-assisted model. the wettability alteration effect. Doust et al. (2010) summarized
Unsuccessful eld-pilots of low salinity water injection were that the aging temperature of 90 C is the optimum for low salinity
also reported in the literature. Skrettingland et al. (2011) reported water injection effect regardless of the ooding temperature, and
low or no effect of LSWI on oil recovery at the Snorre eld in the clay content affects the low salinity effect as an increase in the clay
North Sea. This nding was concluded from the SWCTT conducted content results in increasing the additional oil recovery from the
in the tertiary injection mode and reasoned by the prevailing system. Another interesting nding is that adsorption of organic
weakly-water-wet conditions in this eld. Callegaro et al. (2014) material is essential for low salinity water effect in sandstone
conducted a SWCTT in a complex clastic reservoir in West Africa. rocks.
The test was designed to measure residual oil saturation after Other researchers did not observe ne migrations in their
three consecutive injection cycles including seawater, low salinity studies, although low salinity effect was prominent (Lager et al.,
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 141

2008). Fine migration is considered an auxiliary mechanism for these organic material. Organic materials are solvated in water by
low salinity water injection, but not the main. formation of a water structure using hydrogen bonds around the
hydrophobic part. Nevertheless, the presence of the inorganic
2.3.2. pH increase material (Ca2 , Mg2 , and Na ) leads to breaking this water
Increasing pH of the system due to low salinity water injection structure and decreasing the solubility of these organic molecules.
was suggested as the reason for the incremental oil recovery ob- Thus, the concentration of the divalent ions has a much stronger
tained by McGuire et al. in 2005 by forming an alkaline ood. effect on the solubility of the organic material in water. Decreasing
Lager et al. in 2006 disagreed by pointing out the need for gen- the salinity of the system below a critical ionic strength can in-
erating in-situ surfactant requires a crude oil with acid number crease the solubility of the organic material in the aqueous phase,
(AN) 40.2 mgKOH/g; however, in some cases the salinity effect which is called the salting-in effect. Doust et al. (2009) veried
was observed on oil samples with AN less than 0.05 mgKOH/g. this mechanism through a preliminary study as desorption of
Moreover, the increase in pH as noticed in many cases is not more 4-tert-butyl benzoic acid in an aqueous suspension of kaolinite
than 1 pH unit which makes the medium slightly basic and cannot increases with the decreasing salinity of brine used.
justify the obtained increments in oil recovery. In addition, the
decrease in interfacial tension (IFT) to ultralow values was not 2.3.5. Wettability alteration
pronounced in the literature. Extensive research work was performed for investigating the
Austad et al. (2010) proposed a chemical mechanism for the effect of low salinity water injection on changing the wettability of
effect of low salinity water injection. This mechanism suggests sandstone rocks. The conditions for the low salinity water injec-
that thermodynamic chemical equilibrium exists initially at re- tion effect to occur can be summarized from the work conducted
servoir conditions of pH (56). The low pH environment enhances by Tang and Morrow (1999) and Lager et al. (2007; 2008). Sand-
the adsorption of both acidic and basic components onto the clay stone as a porous medium must contain clay and type of clay
surface. The chemical equilibrium is disturbed the moment low mineral might play a role. Oil must have polar components and the
salinity water is injected; this causes interaction between brine injected water must contain divalent cations like Ca2 and Mg2 .
and rock to compensate for the loss of cations, especially Ca2 . The salinity of the injected water was usually between 1000 and
This causes H ions to get closer to compensate for the Ca2 loss 2000 ppm; effects were noticed even up to 5000 ppm. The con-
into the low saline water, which creates an increase in the pH close centration of Ca2 vs. Na plays a role and there is a little increase
to the clay surface. Local increase in pH leads to reactions between in pH of the efuent water. Fines migration might occur as pres-
the adsorbed basic and acidic material. sure increase across the core was observed. No temperature lim-
Clay minerals are unique by their cation exchange phenom- itation was reported; most of the experiments were performed at
enon. As a result of failure in the chemical structure, most of the temperatures below 100 C.
clay minerals are permanently negatively charged and so they Wettability alteration is considered the main phenomenon
need cations for balance to occur. This is usually satised by Ca2 behind increasing oil recovery using low salinity water through
cations; as a result of low salinity water injection, exchanging of various mechanisms including ne migration, pH increase leading
Ca2 ions by H ions at clay surface occurs according to Eq. (1), to interfacial tension reduction, multi-ion exchange, and double
which results in a pH increase: layer expansion. The wettability alteration in sandstone rocks was
related to the presence of clay minerals, oil composition, formation
Clay.... Ca2 + + H2 O Clay.... H+ + OH + Ca2 +. (1) water with high concentration of divalent cations (Ca2 , Mg2 ),
salinity level of water (10005000 ppm) (Tang and Morrow, 1997;
The reversibility of the pH can occur due to the injection of high
Suijkerbuijk et al., 2012).
salinity water, which leads to exchanging H ions by Ca2 ions at
Wettability alteration mechanism and oil recovery were re-
clay surface and decreasing pH according to Eq. (2):
ported to be similar to those occurring during alkaline and sur-
Clay .... H+ + Ca2 + Clay .... Ca2 + + H+ . (2) factant waterooding by McGuire et al. (2005). During low salinity
water injection (1500 ppm) experiments into sandstone core, re-
actions occurred and pH increased up to 9, causing generation of
2.3.3. Multi-ion exchange surfactant, which lowers the interfacial tension between oil and
Multi-ion exchange (MIE) mechanism, proposed by Lager et al. water and increases the water wettability leading to higher oil
(2006), states that increasing water wetness due to low salinity recovery. Zhang and Morrow (2006) suggested similar mechanism
water injection is the reason behind improving oil recovery by and they noticed an increase in the efuent brine pH, which never
exchanging ions affecting the interactions between the clay mi- exceeded 10. Clay-free sandstones provided evidence for the im-
nerals and surface-active components in the crude oil controlled portance of clays for reaction with low salinity water. Moreover,
by the presence of divalent ions such as Ca2 and Mg2 . An ad- similar reaction mechanism was suggested by Austad (2008), as
sorption model was suggested where Ca2 acts like a bridge be- with decreasing salinity below a critical value, the solubility of the
tween the negatively charged clay surface and the negatively organic materials in the aqueous phase occurs (salting-in phe-
charged carboxylic material; this organic material is removed by nomenon). As salinity of system decreases and thermodynamic
cationic ion exchange at the surface. equilibrium is disturbed, the cations desorb from the clay surface,
breaking the bridge between the clay surface and the organic
2.3.4. Salting-in material and leading to desorption of these organic material from
Doust et al. (2009) proposed salting-in mechanism, which the clay surface. The release of these cations causes increase in the
states that due to disturbing the thermodynamic equilibrium be- pH of the new equilibrium solution. This increase in the pH of the
tween the phases (water/oil/rock) by injecting low salinity water, system helps in releasing more of the organic material and ren-
the solubility of polar organic components in water changes. dering the system more water-wet (Doust et al., 2009).
Salting-out and salting-in terminologies are well known in the Nasralla and Nasr-El-Din (2011) investigated the effect of cation
chemical literature, as adding salt to the system (salting-out) leads type and concentration in the injected water on oil recovery from
to decrease the solubility of the organic material in water; how- Berea Sandstone cores. Wettability alteration was reported to be
ever, salting-in, which is decreasing the salinity of the system by the reason for oil recovery by changing the electrical charge for
salt removal from the water leads to increase in the solubility of both oil/brine and rock/brine interfaces to highly negative,
142 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

promoting repulsive electrical forces in the double layer and re- mapping of adhesion forces. In the experimental work, the authors
sulting in a more stable water lm and water wetting state. Also, used surfaces from real core samples, carboxylic acid end groups,
they reported the dominance of cation type effect on oil recovery and articial seawater solutions with salinity of 36,000 and
compared to the water salinity. Nasralla et al. (2011a) supported 1500 ppm. They observed a pronounced decrease in adhesion
their previous ndings of wettability alteration by cation exchange forces between the quartz grain surfaces and carboxylic acid when
and reported the advantage of applying low salinity water injec- decreasing the salinity of brine solution from 36,000 ppm to
tion in the secondary mode compared to the tertiary mode. 1500 ppm, which might be responsible for incremental oil re-
Moreover, in another work Nasralla et al. (2011b) showed that covery by LSWI. In a later work, Hassenkam et al. (2014) further
contact angle increases with increasing temperature and pressure, highlighted the use of force mapping combined with core plug
and decreases with decreasing water salinity. In a later work, testing for gathering information about incremental oil recovery
Nasralla and Nasr-El-Din (2012) investigated the expansion of the by LSWI. They observed a salinity threshold of 5000 to 8000 ppm
electric double layer as a primary mechanism by low salinity water for adhesion forces to decrease, which is similar to that of ex-
injection through different coreoods on Berea sandstone cores. perimental core plugs and reservoir tests. Hence, nanometer scale
Results of this study showed that the double layer expansion observations complement and explain those of micrometer and
mechanism is dominant in improving oil recovery by LSWI in the even kilometer scales.
secondary mode. Nevertheless, no additional oil recovery was re- After discussing the low salinity water ooding effect on
ported in the tertiary mode as they proposed that the dis- sandstones, its effect on carbonates is discussed in the section
continuity of oil phase mitigates expansion of the double layer. below.
Moreover, reduction of pH of low salinity injected water reduces
repulsion forces between oil and rock and results in a more un-
favorable oil-wet system. 3. Effect of LSWI/EWI on carbonate rocks
Rivet et al. (2010) reported wettability alteration to be the
reason for the incremental oil recovery due to low salinity water This section includes the LSWI/EWI effect on carbonate rocks at
injection from their coreoods on both Berea and reservoir cores. both laboratory-scale and eld-scale, and the mechanisms un-
This mechanism was supported by observations of decreasing end- derlying this effect.
point water relative permeability and increasing end-point oil
relative permeability. They reported a more stable water front case 3.1. Laboratory Applications of LSWI/EWI on carbonate rocks
when the system is water-wet, which helps in delaying break-
through and improving oil recovery. Moreover, although the re- The effect of low salinity/engineered water injections on car-
sidual oil saturation is lowest when rock is mixed-wet, water-wet bonates is not well covered compared to sandstones due to pre-
case results in the most favorable mobility ratio. Mahani et al. vious thoughts of relating wettability alteration by low salinity
(2014) investigated the mechanism by which wettability alteration water to the presence of clay, which is not the case in carbonate
occurs through their glass micromodel experiments on clay sub- rocks. Nevertheless, the effect of low salinity/engineered water
strate. They observed the decrease in contact angle after injecting injections on oil recovery from carbonate rocks was investigated at
high salinity water followed by low salinity water. They stressed laboratory-scale using both spontaneous imbibition and core-
on the importance of the kinetics of oil detachment when exposed ooding studies, and to a limited extent at eld-scale.
to low-salinity brine. Also, they reported that diffusion alone is not
responsible for the long-time observed for wettability alteration. 3.1.1. Spontaneous imbibition tests
An electro-kinetic ion-transport can explain the delay in formation For spontaneous imbibition experiments, Hognesen et al.
of cation-bridging, direct chemical bonds or acid/base effects. It is (2005) concluded from their experiments on reservoir limestone
worth mentioning that the viscous force was absent in this study cores, outcrop chalk cores, seawater and formation water that in-
and the main present forces were buoyant and adhesion forces. creasing sulfate ion concentration at high temperature leads to
Shehata and Nasr-El-Din (2015) conducted several zeta potential increasing oil recovery because of the role of sulfate ion as a
experiments to evaluate the effects of electrical surface charge and wettability-modifying agent for carbonate rocks from mixed-wet
double layer expansion for common sandstone minerals. Results to water-wet. Webb et al. (2005b) investigated the effect of sulfate
showed that the monovalent cations are more efcient in in- on oil recovery from North Sea carbonate core samples through
creasing the absolute values of zeta potential than divalent cations spontaneous imbibition experiments. They found that seawater
at 25 C. Moreover, with decreasing the salinity of the injected has the ability to alter wettability of the carbonate system to a
brine, the zeta potential becomes more negative. more water-wet state compared to sulfate free water. Moreover,
Sohrabi et al. (2015) focused on uiduid interactions as the Webb et al. (2005b) proved the effect of seawater on Valhall chalk
cause of wettability alteration by LSWI. They reported that the cores from the change in the capillary pressure curves with sea-
injection of low salinity water rearranges the natural active surface water injection compared to formation water. It was noticed that
component of crude oil, which coalesces in the form of micro- 40% of OOIP was recovered from chalk cores spontaneously using
dispersions in the oil phase. These micro-dispersions desorb the seawater compared to formation water and the recovery even
previously adsorbed natural active surface component from the increased from 40 to 60% with forced seawater injection.
rock interface rendering the rock surface more water-wet. The Zhang et al. (2007b) studied wettability alteration of North Sea
authors supported their ndings through direct ow visualization chalk reservoirs in Ekosk eld. The study was performed using an
(micromodel), crude oil characterization through infrared spec- oil with AN of 2.07 mgKOH/g and NaCl brine with different con-
troscopy, coreood, and spontaneous imbibition experiments. centrations of sulfate. Later, the effect of adding calcium or mag-
They claimed that the proposed mechanism works for both nesium ions was investigated at various temperatures. As seen in
sandstones and carbonates, and insensitive to the presence of clay. Fig. 2, they concluded that wettability alteration occurs if the im-
Some of the researchers believe that the effect of low salinity bibing water contains either Ca2 and SO42  or Mg2 and SO42  .
water on incremental oil recovery should be interpreted at the Both spontaneous and forced displacement tests on chalk using
nanoscale rather than the microscale. Hassenkam et al. (2012) a crude oil of AN 1.9 mgKOH/g were conducted by Strand et al.
utilized atomic force microscopy (AFM) to justify the incremental (2008a). This work has veried the improvement in water wetness
oil recovery obtained by LSWI from sandstones by measuring and of carbonate rocks using seawater at high temperature, which
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 143

Fig. 3. About the same results were obtained by a second core-


ooding experiment as a conrmation.
Later, researchers started turning the salinity of the injected
water and checking the effect on oil recovery. Gupta et al. (2011)
performed coreooding experiments on both dolomite cores from
West Texas and limestone cores from the Middle East. Experi-
ments showed incremental 59% OOIP recovery from both dolo-
mite and limestone cores as a result of adding sulfate ions. For
limestone cores, 79% OOIP was obtained due to reducing hard-
ness of the injected water, but not total dissolved solids. Another
interesting nding is 15% and 20% OOIP by using borate (BO33  )
and phosphate (PO43  ) as modied ions, respectively. The study
was performed in the tertiary mode after injecting formation
water as base brine. They concluded that softening of injected
brine contributes to dissolution and hardening contributes to
changing surface charge, both of which are needed for the wett-
Fig. 2. Wettability alteration proposed mechanisms (Zhang et al., 2007b). ability alteration mechanism in carbonate rocks. Moreover, an in-
crease in pH was observed through their coreoods on carbonates
leads to high oil recovery. Also, preliminary experimental studies using modied water with PO43  , BO33  , and NaOH salts.
for the chemical mechanism of wettability alteration in fractured Zahid et al. (2012) conducted coreooding experiments on both
limestone after seawater injection was performed by Strand et al. reservoir and outcrop chalk carbonate plugs to investigate the
(2008b). The study showed a 15% increase in oil recovery from effect of LSWI through injection of seawater followed by different
dilutions in succession. The results showed that there was no
limestone cores when seawater was injected compared to sea-
additional recovery from the outcrop chalk plugs at both high and
water free of sulfate. Seawater was the lowest salinity injected
low temperatures. Nevertheless, an additional recovery was ob-
brine compared to other higher salinity brines used; however, no
tained from reservoir carbonate plugs only at high temperatures
lower salinity brine than seawater was used. This study also con-
combined with an increase in the pressured drop as a sign of ei-
rmed using chromatographic wettability tests that the effect of
ther dissolution or ne migration. Calculations showed that the
wettability alteration and sulfate adsorption is about the same for
critical capillary number was exceeded in this experimental work,
both chalk and limestone rocks. Increased oil recovery using low
which is obvious from the incremental oil recovery obtained by
salinity water injection in limestone formations was noticed by
changing the rate of injection. This excess of critical capillary
Fjelde (2008). The results showed similar oil recovery by sponta- number caused ne migration and loss in coherence of the core
neous imbibition of low salinity water compared to seawater plugs, which led to an increase in pressure drop.
experiments. Other researchers claim no signicant contribution for calcium
ion on incremental oil recovery by LSWI/EWI. Chandrasekhar and
3.1.2. Coreooding experiments Mohanty (2013) investigated the brines that improve oil recovery
For coreooding experiments, Bagci et al. (2001) reported high and the associated mechanisms through contact angle measure-
oil recovery of 35.5% OOIP by using 2 wt% KCl on limestone cores ments, spontaneous imbibition, coreood, and ion analysis on
and high pH efuent brine due to ions exchange reactions with the limestone reservoir rocks at high temperature of 248 F. The re-
clay present in the rock. They considered wettability alteration as sults showed that modied seawater containing Mg2 and SO42 
the reason behind recovering more oil without further explana- and diluted seawater alters the rock wettability to a more water-
tion. Yousef et al. (2011) investigated the applicability of low wet state; however, seawater with only Ca2 was unsuccessful in
salinity water injection (Smart Waterood) on carbonate rocks for changing wettability state. Moreover, the residual oil saturation to
improving oil recovery by using seawater and different dilutions of modied brine injection was about 20%. In addition, multi-ion
seawater. Results of coreooding experiments showed increased exchange and mineral dissolution are responsible for desorption of
oil recovery with stepwise dilution of seawater up to an 18% in- organic acid groups and hence wettability alteration.
cremental oil recovery due to tertiary water injection as seen in On the other hand, some researchers found an optimum con-
centration for potentially determining ions (Ca2 , Mg2 , SO42  ).
Al-Attar et al. (2013) evaluated the effect of applying low salinity/
engineered water injections on carbonate cores from Bu Hasa eld
in Abu Dhabi using seawater and two eld injection waters. Cor-
eoods, interfacial tension (IFT), pH, and contact angle measure-
ments were used at ambient conditions in the assessment upon
which they found an improvement in oil recovery from 63% to
84.5% of OOIP when diluting eld water from 197,362 ppm to
5000 ppm. Moreover, they concluded that shifting the rock wett-
ability from water-wet towards intermediate-wet is responsible
for the incremental oil recovery obtained. In addition, they re-
ported that pH and IFT could not justify the incremental oil re-
covery by low salinity water ooding. In addition, they found that
increasing sulfate concentration up to a certain level has a positive
effect on incremental oil recovery, whereas calcium concentration
has a negative effect. Awolayo et al. (2014) investigated the impact
of sulfate ion on incremental oil recovery by smart waterood
from carbonates. They concluded from their coreoods, contact
Fig. 3. Oil recovery curve for the rst coreood of Yousef et al. (2011). angle measurements, zeta potential tests, and ionic analysis that
144 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

the higher concentration of sulfate ion leads to higher oil recovery cation surfactants affect wettability alteration, turning carbonate
up to a certain limit. They suggested that smart water with four rocks more water-wet at different degrees regarding carbonate
times sulfate concentrations might be the optimum sulfate rock type (Calcite, Dolomite and Magnesite).
concentration. Moreover, Hognesen et al. (2005) conducted imbibition ex-
After discussing the experimental work of LSWI/EWI on car- periments on chalk and limestone cores for investigating the effect
bonates, the limited application on eld-scale is discussed in the of cationic surfactants as well as sulfates as wettability modiers
subsection below. using seawater. They found that with increasing the temperature
(90130 C), sulfate acts as a catalyst causing an increase in oil
3.2. Field applications of LSWI/EWI on carbonate rocks recovery by imbibition in the presence of surfactants. The sulfate
concentration used was 2.31 g/L, even higher than the sulfate
The rst ever LSWI application in carbonate reservoirs was concentration used by Strand et al. (2003), which resulted in a
reported by Yousef et al. (2012a). Two single well chemical tracer higher oil recovery due to the increase of sulfate adsorption on
tests (SWCTTs) were applied in an Upper Jurassic carbonate re- surface. The increase in sulfate afnity to carbonate surface with
servoir using a diluted version of Qurayyah seawater. The tests increasing temperature was veried to be the reason for such
resulted in about 7 saturation units reduction in the residual oil sulfate catalytic behavior at higher temperatures. The increase in
beyond conventional seawater injection. Two wells (A and B) were the afnity of sulfate changes the rock charge locally from positive
selected for the tests based on certain screening criteria. The ob- to negative and causes repulsion with carboxylic group, rendering
jective of the test on well A was to conrm the effect of LSWI in the the system water-wet. The use of cationic surfactants and sulfates
tertiary mode where three slugs were injected: two seawater slugs is in lowering IFT besides wettability alteration. Therefore, in-
to assure achieving residual oil saturation conditions, followed by creasing the temperature of the system not only decomposes the
the smart water slug (10 times diluted). After each slug, three carboxylic group, but also increases the adsorption of sulfates on
tracers were injected to determine the reduction in residual oil
the rock surface, which promotes retention of water wetness. They
saturation. The SWCTT on well B was conducted to determine the
stated that the benet in using sulfate as a wettability modier has
effect of various dilutions of smart water on residual oil saturation,
limitations depending on initial brine salinity and temperature, as
where three slugs were injected: a seawater slug, followed by a
the concentration of Ca2 in the connate brine should be known
twice-diluted smart water slug, and nally a 10 times diluted
with certainty to avoid CaSO4 precipitation.
smart water slug. Results obtained matched with their previous
Wettability alteration in carbonate rocks using LSWI/EWI can be
experimental work (Yousef et al., 2011), which is encouraging to
achieved by injecting water containing SO42 and either Ca2 or
plan a multi-well demonstration pilot.
Mg2 or both of them in the presence of high temperature (490 C).
As seen from this section, most of the conducted laboratory
Both proposed mechanisms for wettability alteration in carbonate
experiments were mainly spontaneous imbibition experiments
rocks are shown in Fig. 4. It was proposed that with increasing
with few coreooding experiments. The reason behind this is the
temperature, the afnity of sulfate to chalk rock surface increases and
attempt to understand the mechanism that controls the increase
sulfate adsorption occurs. At the same time, Ca2 adsorption in-
in oil recovery from carbonate rocks with low salinity/engineered
creases as well as the initial positive charge of the rock decreases.
water injections.
Hence, more excess Ca2 ions are present close to the surface, which
3.3. Proposed mechanisms for LSWI/EWI effect on carbonate rocks reacts with the carboxylic material and releases some of them.
Moreover, with increasing temperature, Mg2 becomes more active,
3.3.1. Wettability alteration Ca 2 substitution by Mg2 occurs, and sulfate becomes less active as
The thermodynamic equilibrium has long been established it reacts with Mg2 . Otherwise, CaSO4 precipitation occurs and
between the rock/oil/formation brine systems initially in the re- causes injection problem. This is shown in Fig. 4 for case (B), while
servoir. Nevertheless, this equilibrium is not favorable in certain case (A) in Fig. 4 shows the effect of low temperature (less than
cases concerning wettability phenomenon, especially in carbonate 100 C), where Mg2 becomes less active and both Ca2 and SO42-
rocks. Extensive research was performed by Austad and other becomes more active and CaSO4 might occur (Zhang et al., 2006).
coworkers (Standnes and Austad, 2000; Hognesen et al., 2005; Both wettability alteration mechanisms by Ca2 and SO42- and by
Zhang et al., 2006; Puntervold et al., 2007), which opened the Mg2 and SO42- at the chalk surface can be seen clearly in Fig. 2,
possibility of wettability alteration and enhancement of oil re- which shows experimental results of the work performed by Zhang
covery from carbonate rocks by modifying the ionic composition et al. (2007b) conrming their proposed mechanism.
in the injected water. Wettability alteration is the main and most
acceptable mechanism for the incremental oil recovery achieved in
carbonate rocks with the use of low salinity/engineered water
injections. The wettability alteration phenomenon can occur due
to change in the surface charge of the rock or dissolution.
For the case of changing the surface charge of the rock, several
researchers related wettability alteration by low salinity water to
sulfate adsorption on rock surface. Strand et al. (2003) investigated
the sulfate concentration on wettability alteration with and
without cationic surfactant solution using chalk, dolomite cores,
and different crystals of carbonate rocks for spontaneous imbibi-
tion. They found that the effect of sulfate as a catalyst for im-
bibition rate in the presence of surfactants is more pronounced at
high temperature and below a certain concentration of 1.0 g/L. The
role of sulfate as a catalyst for improving imbibition rate comes
from adherence on the rock surface. This makes this location
partially negatively charged due to the presence of other positively Fig. 4. Proposed mechanisms for wettability alteration in carbonate rocks (Zhang
charged metal ions. They also concluded that both sulfates and et al., 2006).
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 145

Previous studies indicated that wettability alteration process is (2004) reported that the detachment of oil-wet nes from pore
related to the presence of Ca2 , Mg2 , and SO42  active ions with walls exposes the underlying clean water-wet pore surface.
increasing temperature. Moreover, it was reported that a chemical Schembre et al. (2006) proposed ne migration as a mechanism
mechanism occurs involving interactions between Ca2 and for wettability alteration from their water imbibition tests. One of
SO42  and between Mg2 and SO42  at the chalk surface, which the main proposed mechanisms for wettability alteration is related
cause displacement of negatively charged carboxylic materials in to the presence of key ions (SO42-, Ca2 , Mg2 ) in the injected
crude from the positively charged chalk surface. For Ca2 and water, which enters to the rock matrix by molecular diffusion.
SO42  interactions, the adsorption of SO42  to chalk surface in- Then, a non-thermodynamic equilibrium state is created which
creases with increasing temperature. This leads to decrease in the results in chemical interactions in the aqueous phases as well as
positive surface charge, more attachment of Ca2 to chalk surface interactions between water and rock in terms of precipitation/
as the electrostatic repulsion force is decreased and reactions with dissolution of rock minerals and/or changing the rock surface
carboxylic material occur (Zhang et al., 2007b). This is according to charge (Evje and Hiorth, 2009).
the equation: In case of injecting water containing Mg2 and SO42-, Mg2 has
the ability to substitute Ca2 ions from the surface lattice of the
RCOO Ca CaCO3 (s) + Ca2 + + SO24 = RCOO Ca+ + Ca CaCO3 (s) + SO24 . (3)
chalk. The presence of SO42- plays a catalyst role for the sub-
2 stitution process (Zhang et al., 2007b). The substitution equation is
In this reaction, SO4 acts like a catalyst for promoting the
increase of Ca2 concentration ions close to the surface. Strand as follows:
et al. (2006) observed this mechanism, as with increasing tem- RCOO Ca CaCO3 (s) + Mg 2 + + SO 24 = Mg CaCO3 (s) + RCOO Ca+ + SO 24 . (4)
perature, the retention of SO42  increases and the concentration
of Ca2 decreases. Lager et al. (2007) reported multi-ion exchange The substitution was observed by Strand et al. (2008b); by
(MIE) mechanism in carbonate reservoir when anion exchange ooding sea water through a limestone core at 130 C, they no-
adsorbed on carboxylate. The authors agreed with the Strand et al. ticed that concentration of Ca2 increased, that concentration of
(2006) mechanism of wettability alteration in carbonate rocks Mg2 decreased, and that concentration of SO42  was not much
using seawater. Nevertheless, they stated that MIE does not re- affected as the precipitation of CaSO4(s) was small. Water weak-
quire low salinity to decrease oil saturation, as there is no ex- ening effect of carbonate rocks was reported in the literature by
pandable electric double layer. Therefore, they did not expect low adding SO42  and Mg2 to the imbibing uid causing a decrease
salinity water to work in carbonate reservoir. in the yield point of the chalk rock and dramatic compaction at
The key behind increasing oil recovery from chalk reservoir high temperatures. This means that the chemical interaction be-
using sea water is related to sea water ions (SO42  , Ca2 , Mg2 ) tween components of seawater and the chalk rock affects the
that have the capability of changing rock surface charge, releasing mechanical strength of the chalk. The weakening effect of imbib-
adsorbed carboxylic material to rock surface, altering rock wett- ing water is related to both CaCO3 solubility and substitution of
ability, and eventually improving oil recovery. More pronounced Ca2 by Mg2 . The presence of Mg2 along with SO42  enhances
effect of improving oil recovery using high concentration of sea- the substitution of Ca2 by Mg2 . The different sizes between
water ions, high temperature formations (490 C), and sulfate Ca2 and Mg2 causes stress changes and reduction in the me-
free formation water was addressed (Yousef et al., 2011). chanical strength in the chalk rock. This is added to the formed
Moreover, diluting the injected water was reported as a cause MgCO3 that is more soluble in water compared to CaCO3 (Austad
for wettability alteration. Yousef et al. (2011) conrmed that the et al., 2008).
incremental oil recovery due to low salinity water injection is due Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), contact angle measure-
to wettability alteration, not reduction of interfacial tension (IFT). ment, and zeta potential studies were utilized to demonstrate that
This was possible by measuring both IFT and contact angle at re- wettability alteration is the reason behind LSWI (Yousef et al.,
servoir conditions. Results indicated that IFT has no signicant 2012b). The results showed that wettability alteration occurs
effect on incremental oil recovery due to low salinity water in- through changing the surface charge from the zeta potential
jection and wettability alteration is the main mechanism behind measurements and dissolution of CaSO4 from NMR tests. More-
this additional oil increase. They concluded that incremental oil over, the study addressed the importance of multivalent ions in
recovery due to low salinity water injection is caused by wett- enhancing wettability alteration. They studied the rock surface
ability alteration (uidrock interactions) rather than IFT reduc- chemistry by measuring zeta potential, which describes the
tion (uiduid interactions). They also proposed that wettability magnitude of charge present on a charge particle. Charge particles
alteration due to change in surface charge and dissolution pro- with high zeta potential are self-stabilizing. The change in surface
cesses as a result of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technique. charge of carbonate rocks is supported by NMR tests showing fast
Left shifting in amplitudes obtained for the post test case as well surface relaxation and zeta potential measurements showing
as overlapping between low and high amplitudes, which means shifting towards more negative state with successive injection of
higher rate of relaxation due to change in the carbonate rock seawater dilutions. Later, Yousef et al. (2012c) investigated the
surface charge and improvement in pore by dissolution, respec- applicability of LSWI in both secondary and tertiary modes. The
tively. This study of smart waterooding is different from seawater results conrmed the effect of LSWI in the tertiary mode as about
chalk carbonate rock studies in terms of water salinity as diluted 14% of OOIP was obtained by injection of seawater, twice diluted,
water was used and it was not rich with key ions (SO42  , Ca2 , 10 times diluted, and 100 times diluted in succession. Moreover,
Mg2 ) as seawater chalk carbonate rock case. the study showed the potential of LSWI in the secondary mode as
In the case of rock dissolution, collapsing some of the pore 10% additional oil recovery was obtained using 10 times diluted
spaces occurs and hence oil is expelled. Pressure, temperature, seawater compared to the seawater. Also, the temperature effect
chemistry of pore water, and oil play a role in wettability alteration on wettability alteration was highlighted by comparing the results
and oil recovery by rock dissolution (Hiorth et al., 2010). Tang and of this study with their previous work of Yousef et al. (2011).
Kovscek (2004) reported the decrease in residual oil saturation Romanuka et al. (2012) reported two ways for modifying the
from eld and outcrop diatomite as a result of temperature in- wettability of carbonate rocks using LSWI/EWI, increasing the
crease. They also reported that wettability alteration correlated concentration of surface interacting ions (SO42  , BO33  or PO43  )
with nes production at high temperature. Schembre and Kovscek in the injected brine, and lowering ionic strength of the injected
146 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

brine. Spontaneous imbibition experiments were conducted in the


latter study on both reservoir carbonate and Stevns Klint samples.
Results showed that incremental oil recovery of 4 to 20% OOIP was
obtained from reservoir carbonate samples with reducing the ionic
strength of the injected water. Additional oil recovery was ob-
tained from Stevns Klint samples by increasing sulfate ion con-
centration as no response was noticed with lowering ionic
strength of the injected water. Al-Harrasi et al., 2012 provided a
direct evidence of low salinity water ooding effect on oil recovery
from Omani carbonate rocks through spontaneous and core-
ooding experiments. Wettability alteration was referred as the
reason for low salinity water injection with negligible reduction in
interfacial tension. In addition, they observed the LSWI/EWI effect
Fig. 6. pH-induced wettability alteration (Al-Shalabi et al., 2015a).
on oil recovery at higher water salinity level than the reported in
the literature. Low salinity water injection by lowering the ionic
strength has more pronounced effect on oil recovery from oil-
contact angle and IFT measurements. Results showed that with the
bearing zones cores compared to hardening the injected water.
use of LSWI the rock wettability alters from oil-wet to inter-
Nevertheless, the case is just the opposite for Stevns Klint outcrop
mediate-wet. Moreover, the use of surfactants further shifts the
chalk cores because they are more responsive to hardening of the
wettability from intermediate-wet to water-wet depending on the
injected low salinity water as was reported by Romanuka et al.
salinity of the injected water. IFT measurements showed an in-
(2012) through their spontaneous imbibition experiments.
creasing trend with decreasing the salinity of injected water,
Al-Shalabi (2014) performed an extensive numerical work in
which is not consistent with the observed trend by LSWI. They
the LSWI area especially in carbonates including history matching
measured the efuent ionic concentration for one of the experi-
of recently published coreoods (Yousef et al., 2011, 2012c;
ments, which showed a decrease in Ca2 , Mg2 , Cl  , and SO42 
Chandrasekhar and Mohanty, 2013), modeling of the process,
ions that might be related to a possible multi-ions exchange.
eld-scale predictions, sensitivity analysis, and optimization. In
Mahani et al. (2015) conducted zeta potential and contact angle
light of the extensive conducted work, Al-Shalabi et al. (2015a)
measurements on limestone and dolomite rocks to investigate the
interpreted the mechanism controlling the LSWI effect on oil re-
reason for wettability alteration by LSWI/EWI. They reported that
covery from carbonates based on their ndings. They reported that
a positive effect of LSWI/EWI exists without any dissolution and it
the incremental oil recovery by LSWI in carbonates could be best
is primarily driven by surface-charge change due to electrostatic
explained as wettability alteration caused by both change in sur-
interactions between crude oil and rock. Moreover, the mineralogy
face charge and dissolution (Figs. 5 and 6). In most of the litera-
of carbonate rocks matters as dolomite rock has a smaller response
ture, the emphasis is on pH causing in-situ generation of surfac-
to LSWI/EWI compared to limestone rock, which was conrmed
tants; however, they emphasized pH-inducted wettability where
through zeta potential and contact angle measurements. Austad
the pH of the solution exceeds the point of zero charge (PZC), the
et al. (2015) showed that carbonates containing anhydrite have a
rock surface charge changes, the electrical double layer (EDL) ex-
low salinity effect, which is similar to the one reported previously
pands, the rock wettability alters and the oil recovery increases.
for seawater (Zhang et al., 2006); however, in this case, the sulfate
Moreover, they presented a ow chart describing the LSWI me-
is provided in-situ through anhydrite dissolution. Moreover, they
chanism in carbonates (Fig. 7).
stated that the efciency of wettability alteration in this case is
Alameri et al. (2014) conducted different coreoods at reservoir
mainly related to the increase in concertation of sulfate and de-
conditions to investigate the mechanism controlling the incre-
crease in the NaCl concentration at a given temperature.
mental oil recovery by LSWI from carbonates. They also conducted
Usually, the operators try to remove sulfate from the injected
water to avoid souring (H2S production) and scale problems. The
presence of sulfate in injection water in high concentration causes
scaling problems when combined with high concentration barium
or strontium in formation water. Barium sulfate and Strontium
sulfate scales cause both surface and subsurface problems and
affect ood front breakthrough at the producing wells. Scales re-
moval using workover and mechanical techniques is very ex-
pensive. Moreover, the use of chemical inhibitors postpones the
problem and requires constant monitoring (Healtherly et al., 1994).
In addition, reservoir souring by bacterial activity might occur due
to sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) which produces hydrogen sul-
de gas at the producer wells. This problem might be controlled
using sulde scavengers and biocides (Maxwell et al., 2005).
Nevertheless, the gain in oil recovery might justify the extra cost of
scale inhibitors and sulde preventers.
After discussing the applicability of LSWI/EWI on both sand-
stones and carbonates at laboratory-scale as well as eld-scale, the
modeling work is presented in the section below.

4. Modeling of the LSWI/EWI technique

Fig. 5. Wettability alteration by dissolution (Al-Shalabi et al., 2015a). Few modeling works for LSWI/EWI exist in the literature
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 147

Fig. 7. Flow chart of LSWI mechanism in carbonates (Al-Shalabi et al., 2015a).

because the researchers focused their works on checking the ap- This was conrmed using the viscous ngering theory and 2D
plicability of this technique and understanding the mechanism numerical simulation model. They concluded that low salinity
underlying the related incremental oil recovery. In this section, we water injection is expected to be mildly unstable at the rear front.
highlight the main modeling works for both sandstones and For conventional and fractured medium, Wu and Bai (2009)
carbonates. proposed mathematical model for wettability alteration modeling
Jerauld et al. (2008) introduced one of the simplest models for due to low salinity waterooding. In this model, salt is treated as
predictions of low salinity water injection oil recovery at eld- an additional component in the aqueous phase, which is trans-
scale based on coreoods and single well tests. The proposed ported, by advection and diffusion, including the adsorption effect
model considers salt as an additional single lumped component in on the surface of the rock. Improving oil recovery was in-
the aqueous phase and the density and viscosity of the aqueous corporated by treating relative permeability, capillary pressure,
phase, relative permeability and capillary pressure curves all de- and residual oil saturations as salinity dependent.
pend on salinity. Moreover, both clay content effect and dispersion The importance of dynamic wettability alteration models was
were considered as dispersion was assigned a value of 5% of the highlighted in the literature. Spontaneous imbibition experiments
system's length. Equations included in the model for representing of Stevns Klint Chalk core plugs using low salinity water injection
capillary curves and relative permeability curves with upper and were simulated using a 1D model proposed by Yu et al. (2009). The
lower salinity limits are model accounts for molecular diffusion, salt adsorption, gravita-
HS * LS *
tional and capillary forces for simulating the dynamic wettability
k rw = k rw (S ) + (1 ) k rw (S ), alteration process. The dynamic changes in both capillary pressure
HS * LS *
k ro = k ro (S ) + (1 ) k ro (S ), and relative permeability curves from oil-wet to water-wet were
HS
Pcow = Pcow LS
(S*) + (1 ) Pcow (S*), made dependent on wettability alteration agent or salt con-
centration. In addition, the salt concentration in the model was
( LS
= Sorw Sorw )(
HS
/ Sorw LS
Sorw , ) considered as ca wa 1 (mole fraction) where ca is the mass
S* = ( So Sorw )/( 1 S wr Sorw ). fraction of slat component in aqueous phase, and wa is the mass
(5)
fraction of water component in aqueous phase. Moreover, the
For investigating the stability of the low salinity waterfront, adsorption isotherm of salt onto rock (cr) was introduced and
Tripathi and Mohanty (2008) modeled instability of low salinity made as a function of salt concentration, cr f (ca). The adsorption
water injection oods in the tertiary mode without including coefcient (cr)a1ca/(1 a2ca) with constants a1, a2 4 0 (Langmuir
wettability alteration effect on capillary pressure. The analytical type isotherm relation for adsorption). The effect of wettability
1D solution shows two shocks with probability of instability in the alteration on capillary pressure and relative permeability was
rear shock (low salinity shock) due to the adverse mobility ratio. considered by interpolation between the oil-wet and water-wet
148 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

cases as follows: alteration was considered by dening relative permeability and


capillary pressure curves for both water-wet and mixed-wet cases
k rl = F k rlow + (1 F ) k rlww,
and interpolating in between depending on calcium dissolution
Pc = F Pcow + (1 F ) Pcww, with emphasis on concentrations of sulfate and magnesium ions.
(a* cr ) Moreover, the effect of temperature change was included in light
F (cr ) = ,
a* of the observed experimental behavior. This model was considered
a different from other models, as it is one of the rare models in-
a* = 1 ,
a2 cluding the two-phase behavior with emphasis on both the water
a1ca rock interactions along with modeling the oil recovery.
cr = .
(1 + a2 ca ) (6) The latter model assumes that the rock is initially saturated
with formation brine, which is at equilibrium with rock minerals.
Good history match was obtained between experimental data
Once water with modied ionic composition is injected, the ions
and simulation data with emphasis on the importance of using
are transported to the rock by molecular diffusion forming con-
dynamic wettability alteration compared to xed wettability al-
centration fronts moving with certain speed, and chemical inter-
teration. For dynamic case, the capillary pressure depends on salt
actions occur at and behind these fronts. These reactions are
concentration adsorbed onto rock surface and gradually changes
aqueous reactions for achieving chemical equilibrium and water
from oil-wet to water-wet. Nevertheless, in xed wettability al-
rock interactions, and the waterrock interactions are the one
teration case, the nal wettability altered capillary pressure curve
responsible for wettability alteration by dissolution of calcite. The
is used directly, independent of salt concentration, which leads to
model included various ion species concentrations and reactions
overestimated oil recovery. Alameri et al. (2015) conducted ex-
occurring as result of waterrock interactions like
perimental coreoods and modeled them numerically using a 1D
two-phase BuckleyLeverett model. The experimental work was CaCO3 (s)+H+ Ca2 + + HCO3 (dissolution/precipitation),
history matched successfully using their numerical model with
CaSO4 (s) Ca2 + + SO 24 (dissolution/precipitation),
adjusting of relative permeability functions to account for wett-
ability alteration. MgCO3 (s) + H+ Mg 2 + + HCO3 (dissolution/precipitation). (7)
For capturing ne migration effect on oil recovery, Lemon et al.
In addition to the interactions in the aqueous phase
(2011) provided a simple analytical nes migration model for
justifying incremental oil recovery due to low salinity water in- CO2 + H2 O HCO3 + H+ ,
jection. The model was proposed by combining a modied parti-
cle-detachment model along with Dietz model for waterooding HCO3 CO23 + H+ ,
in a layer-cake reservoir. This model was validated for single ow
H2 O OH + H+ . (8)
phases by comparing laboratory coreooding experiments. They
reported that nes migration effect is more pronounced when This model incorporated the chemical activity of various ions
viscosity ratio and heterogeneity of the reservoir increase, but the along with the denition of the activity coefcient. The ow
model still requires validation for two-phase oil/water system. functions of capillary pressure and relative permeability were
Aladasani et al. (2012a) reported that Sor prediction models have expressed in terms of calcite dissolution (H ( c )), respectively as
poor condence level unless they consider clay content values and the following:
a wettability index. In addition, the reservoir simulations in the
Pc (s , c ) = H (c ) Pcow (s ) + 1 H (c ) Pcww (s ),
same study showed that incremental oil recovery depends on in-
itial and nal wetting states as at strong water-wet conditions; the k (s , c ) = H (c ) k ow (s ) + 1 H (c ) kww (s ). (9)
increase of oil relative permeability is the underlying recovery
mechanism, whereas at weak water-wet conditions, the incre- Moreover, Hiorth et al. (2010) investigated the effect of water
mental oil recovery is driven by low capillary pressure. Moreover, chemistry on surface charge and rock dissolution in a pure calcium
at both weak and strong oil-wet conditions, oil relative perme- carbonate rock, and constructed a chemical model that couples
ability controls additional oil recovery. bulk aqueous and surface chemistry addressing mineral pre-
The effects of dissolution and precipitation processes on in- cipitation and dissolution. Spontaneous imbibition experiments on
cremental oil by LSWI were modeled. Evje et al. (2009) proposed a Stevns Klint outcrop chalk were used to compare the proposed
1D mathematical model for the experimental results obtained by model. The results showed clearly that the strong relation between
Madland (2009) by coupling dissolution/precipitation and trans- oil recovery and temperature cannot be justied based on changes
port processes relevant to chalk weakening effect in carbonate in the surface potential, as at high temperatures the surface po-
reservoirs. The model is composed of a number of convection- tential levels off and thereof surface charge is not the main con-
diffusion reaction equations represented in the water phase, cou- trolling factor for wettability alteration. The proposed justication
pled with ordinary differential equations represented the solid behind oil recovery strong relation with temperature was calcite
phase. The model was evaluated by comparison with experimental dissolution. Calcite is in equilibrium with seawater at low tem-
behavior where mixture of water and MgCl2 was injected at con- perature; however, with increasing the temperature, the calcite
stant rate in a core initially lled with pure water at high tem- and sulfate in seawater reacts resulting in anhydrite precipitation.
perature 130 C. The main characteristics of the model were the Thus, loss in calcium from the aqueous phase requires calcium to
precipitation of MgCO3 and dissolution of CaCO3 with injection of be supplied from the rock for maintaining equilibrium with calcite.
MgCl2 to the chalk core. The source of Ca2 supply is calcium dissolution. If calcium dis-
Later, Evje and Hiorth (2009) proposed a novel mathematical solution happens at the oil adsorption place, this leads to release
model based on laboratory experiments, which considers two of oil droplets.
phases water-oil (pressure driven or capillary driven), aqueous Thus, unstable thermodynamic conditions at high tempera-
chemistry and waterrock interactions, and dynamic wettability tures were proposed as the reason behind wettability alteration by
alteration due to water-rock interactions. The proposed model was calcite dissolution as the main controlling factor than changing
a 1D model for spontaneous imbibition as wettability alteration calcite surface charge, especially in justifying the increase in oil
was related to the dissolution of calcite. Dynamic wettability recovery when positively charge ions (Ca2 and Mg2 ) injected to
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 149

the cores. This study contradicts with the observations from NMR components (e.g., CO2, CH4, and acidic/basic components of the
T2 distribution curves by Yousef et al. (2011) which shows that crude oil) on buffering the aqueous pH and more generally, on the
changing surface charge is more important than dissolution; crude oil, brine, and rock reactions.
otherwise higher amplitudes can be obtained in NMR T2 dis- A systematic way for history matching LSWI coreoods was
tribution curves indicating slower rate of relaxation. also presented in the literature. Al-Shalabi et al. (2014a and 2014b)
Aladasani et al. (2012b) reported that intermediate wetting presented a systematic way of history matching published LSWI
condition is the ideal wettability alteration condition as capillary coreoods including Yousef et al. (2011, 2012c) and Chandrasekhar
pressure is low and the increase in oil relative permeability is the and Mohanty (2013). The study highlighted the sensitivity of re-
main controller of recovery mechanism. Moreover, the validity of sidual oil saturation, capillary pressure curve, and relative per-
the simulator and recovery mechanism presented was conrmed meability parameters (endpoints and Corey's exponents) on LSWI
by matching Yousef et al. (2011) experimental work. This was through history matching both oil recovery and pressure drop data
achieved by considering a linear relationship between salt con- for the coreoods investigated. It is worth mentioning that the
centration and each of residual oil saturation, contact angle and previously discussed LSWI/EWI models have treated the water and
IFT. Nevertheless, some of the disadvantages of this history match oil phases similarly with respect to capillary pressure (Pc) and
are: the original laboratory data were not shown in matching the relative permeability (kr) in the sense that both phases are shifted
data, the overall recovery values were not exactly in match, the using a similar scaling factor. Al-Shalabi et al. (2015b, 2015c)
initial jumps in oil recovery were not properly matched, pressure showed that oil relative permeability is more sensitive to LSWI
drop data were not matched, and the dependence of residual oil compared to water relative permeability and hence water and oil
saturation on trapping number was not considered due to ex- phases should be treated separately. Based on the latter nding,
ceeding the critical trapping number value. we proposed several models for the effect of LSWI on oil recovery
In addition, Omekeh et al. (2012) developed a model that de- from carbonates that are discussed briey. It should be noted that
scribes dissolution/precipitation processes in carbonate rock along the simulation and modeling work at this stage was performed
with multi component ions exchange to simulate the additional oil using the UTCHEM simulator. Moreover, the capillary pressure
recovery by LSWI/EWI. In this mode, the release of divalent cations contributions were neglected in the proposed models as different
from the rock surface changes the relative permeability such that capillary pressure curves were assumed in the simulation runs
additional oil is achieved. A scaling function (F), which depends on with minimal effect added to the facts of using relatively long
desorption of the divalent ions, was dened for interpolating be- cores and applying high pressure gradient in the laboratory for the
tween predetermined high salinity and low salinity sets of relative coreoods investigated.
permeability as follows: An Empirical LSWI Model was proposed by Al-Shalabi et al.
k (S, Ca , Mg ) = F (Ca , Mg ) k HS (S ) + 1 F (Ca , Mg ) k LS (S ) , (10)
(2014c), which was implemented in UTCHEM and captures the
change in residual oil saturation, oil endpoint relative perme-
as Ca and Mg are the absorbed calcium and magnesium ca- ability, and oil exponent while maintaining constant water relative
tions, respectively. The suggested model was validated by history permeability curve. The assumption of using constant water re-
matching a two-phase coreooding experiment. They concluded lative permeability parameters is based on the negligible change in
that calcite dissolution and ion exchange are responsible for the water relative permeability parameters for the coreoods in-
LSWI/EWI effect on oil recovery. vestigated (Yousef et al., 2011, 2012c; Chandrasekhar and Mo-
Some of the presented LSWI models capture the effect of dif- hanty, 2013). In case experimental data are available, an average
ferent geochemical reactions on oil recovery. Dang et al. (2013b) constant water relative permeability values can be considered for
proposed a low salinity water model by coupling a comprehensive the seawater dilution cycles; otherwise, the water relative per-
ion exchange model with geochemical processes to a multi-phase meability values can be assumed constant and equal to the sea-
multi-component ow equation-of-state compositional simulator. water injection cycle. In this model, residual oil saturation, oil
The interpolating factor they used to interpolate between relative endpoint, and oil exponent are functions of contact angle mea-
permeability curves is dened as follows: surements upon which a third degree polynomial function is used
Ca X2 CEC to express contact angle as function of total injected water salinity.
= , Initial and injected water salinities are specied as input para-
CECmax (11)
meters. The injected brine is mixed with the initial reservoir brine
where Ca-X2 is the equivalent fraction of Ca2 on the clay ex- and during the mixing process, the salinity wave moves and
changer, CEC is the cation exchange capacity of clays, and CECmax is changes the contact angle in each gridblock using the proposed
the maximum cation exchange capacity of clay. The proposed polynomial function. Once the contact angle changes, then re-
mode was validated using low salinity coreoods reported by sidual oil saturation, oil exponent, and oil relative permeability
Fjelde et al. (2012) for a North Sea reservoir and heterogeneous endpoint are calculated using the proposed correlations. The
coreoods by Rivet (2009) for a Texas reservoir. equations implemented in the UTCHEM simulator are as follows:
Also, Korrani et al. (2013) coupled IPHREEQC, the state-of-art LS HS
geochemical engine (Parkhurst and Appelo, 2013), with UTCHEM, Sor (Altered) = S Sor + (1 S ) Sor , (12)
a 3D non-isothermal chemical compositional ow simulator de-
veloped at The University of Texas at Austin (UTCHEM 9.0 Tech- ( HS )
S = ,
nical Documentation, 2000), to develop a robust, accurate, and ( LS HS ) (13)
exible tool named as UTCHEM-IPHREEQC simulator. The latter
simulator was used for modeling low salinity water injection and *LS k ro
k ro *HS
other geochemically related IOR/EOR processes. In a later work, * =
k ro *HS ,
+ k ro
e
Korrani et al. (2014) couple IPHREEQC with UTCOMP, a three-di-
1+ ()a (14)
mensional, equation-of-state (EOS) compositional reservoir simu-
lator, developed at The University of Texas at Austin (UTCOMP no max noLS
no = + noLS .
3.8 Technical Documentation, 2011). The motive behind the latter e
coupling is to show the effect of water-soluble hydrocarbon
1+ ()
a (15)
150 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

r 0 kB T
1 = ,
2NA e2I (17)

where r is the relative permittivity (55.42 for water at re-


servoir temperature), 0 is the permittivity of free space
(8.854  10  12 F m  1), kB is the Boltzmann constant
(1.381  10  23 J K  1), T is the reservoir temperature, NA is the
Avogadro constant (6.022  10 23 1/mole), e is the elementary
charge (1.602  10  19 C), and Is is the total/stoichiometric ionic
strength (mole/m3). This approach states that as the salinity of the
injected water decreases, the ionic strength of the solution de-
creases and the EDL thickness increases causing a decrease in the
contact angle towards more water-wet. Some of the related
equations are listed below (Pope et al., 2000; Jin, 1995):
high
Slrlow Slr
Slr = Slrhigh +
1 + Tl (NTl l )
*
(18)
Fig. 8. Cumulative oil recovery match with the Empirical LSWI Model (Al-Shalabi
et al., 2014c).

k . l + g (l l )D
Examples of the history matched cumulative oil recovery data
NTl = ,
for Yousef et al. (2011) (Fig. 3) and the relative permeability curves ll (19)
used are depicted in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively.
In a later work, Al-Shalabi et al. (2014d) presented a model that Bt
= At + ,
captures the main effect of LSWI on improving the microscopic 1 (20)
displacement efciency through modeling residual oil saturation
where is the contact angle in degrees, At and Bt are tting
as a function of trapping number (NT). This model is named as the
parameters, 1 is the EDL thickness in nm, * incorporates both
Fundamental LSWI Model. The model captures the fundamental
heterogeneity and initial oil saturation effects on residual oil sa-
microscopic displacement efciency through adjusting capillary
turation, l is the displaced phase, l is the displacing phase, l is
desaturation curve (CDC) using different trapping numbers and
the gradient of the ow potential, k is the permeability, g is the
trapping parameters (Tl). The main features of the model are: gravitational force constant, and ll is the interfacial tension be-
contact angle is a function of the EDL thickness, trapping para- tween the displacing and displaced phases. As an example, Fig. 10
meter is a function of contact angle, residual oil saturation is a shows the capillary desaturation curve model for Yousef et al.
function of trapping number, constant water relative permeability (2011) where residual oil saturation decreases as trapping para-
parameters, and oil relative permeability parameters are functions meter increases at a constant trapping number, which reects
*
of the term TNT . The proposed model considers total/stoichio- rendering the rock wettability more water-wet.
metric ionic strength ( Is ) of the solution, which can be calculated The importance of geochemical reactions and activity coef-
as follows: cient models was highlighted by Al-Shalabi et al. (2015a). They
presented a comparison between two geochemical simulators,
1
Is = zi2 mi , UTCHEM (UTCHEM technical documentation, 2000) and PHREEQC
2 i (16) (Parkhurst and Appelo, 2013), through modeling uid- and solid-
where zi is the charge of the uid species i and mi is the species concentrations of a recently published LSWI coreood
molality of uid species i in mole per kilogram of water. The cal- (Yousef et al., 2011). In the latter work, the authors highlighted the
culated ionic strength can be used to calculate the thickness of the necessity of considering activity-coefcient models and water ac-
electric double layer (EDL) or the Debye length ( 1) as follows tivity for accurate geochemical predictions of uid- and solid-
(Stumm and Morgan, 1996): species concentrations. Based on the previous ndings, Luo et al.
(2015) improved the geochemical-reactive engine within UTCHEM
by implementing different activity-coefcient models for different
reactive species, cation-exchange reactions, and numerical
Normalized Residual Oil Saturation (Sorn)

1.0
0.9
Sor decreases as Tl
0.8 increases at a constant
0.7 NT due to wettability
0.6 alteration
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
1.0E-10 1.0E-09 1.0E-08 1.0E-07 1.0E-06 1.0E-05 1.0E-04 1.0E-03 1.0E-02 1.0E-01
Trapping Number (NT)
Experimental Data Twice Diluted Seawater
10 Times Diluted Seawater 20 and 100 Times Diluted Seawater
Fig. 9. Relative permeability curves with the Empirical LSWI Model (Al-Shalabi
et al., 2014c). Fig. 10. CDC Model used in the Fundamental LSWI Model (Al-Shalabi et al., 2014d).
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 151

convergence. The updated geochemical simulator was validated 10000


against both PHREEQC and UTCHEM-IPHREEQC showing better 9000

SO4-2 Concentration (ppm)


computational efciency with the same degree of accuracy. 8000
Al-Shalabi et al. (2015d) utilized an updated version of UTCH- 7000
SW SW/2 SW/10 SW/20
EM through proposing a Mechanistic LSWI Model, which ad- 6000
dresses the effect on oil recovery of different geochemical reac- 5000
tions resulting from LSWI. The proposed model was validated and 4000
used to history match recently published coreoods (Yousef et al., 3000
2011, 2012c; Chandrasekhar and Mohanty, 2013). The geochemical 2000
model in UTCHEM was modied to calculate the effective molar 1000
Gibbs free energy of the brine. The molar Gibbs free energy of a 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
solution is dened as follows (Sandler, 2006):
PV Injected of Water
Naq
Experimental Data Updated UTCHEM
G= x i i ,
i=1 (21) Fig. 12. History matched sulfate concentration for coreood of Chandrasekhar and
Mohanty (2013) using the Mechanistic LSWI Model (Al-Shalabi et al., 2015d).
where xi is the mole fraction of each aqueous specie and i is
the chemical potential of each specie. The mole fraction and che-
mical potential of each species are expressed as
Chandrasekhar and Mohanty (2013) using the Mechanistic LSWI
x Model is shown in Fig. 12. The mechanistic model captures the
xi = i ,
xtot (22) effects on oil recovery of both wettability alteration and/or dis-
solution/ne migration through changes in the molar Gibbs free
i = Gio + RT ln ai , (23) energy.
For each of the proposed models, there is a range of applic-
where xi is the number of moles for the specie i, xtot is the total
ability and screening criteria to follow. Al-Shalabi (2014) addressed
number of moles in the solution, Gio is the standard Gibbs free
the screening criteria for the proposed models. The authors believe
energy, R is the universal gas constant, T is the temperature, and ai
is the activity of each specie and dened as that no universal LSWI model can be obtained for the following
reasons:
ai = i Ci , (24)
 Rock type (sandstone, carbonate) matters, as the rock type af-
where i is the activity coefcient of the specie i and Ci is the
fects the wettability alteration process leading to substantial oil
concentration of each specie. An example of effective molar Gibbs
recovery.
free energy calculated for the coreoods of Yousef et al. (2011) is
 Oil recovery mode (secondary, tertiary) is also important.
depicted in Fig. 11.
 Brine injection mode plays a role in the interactions occurring in
In the proposed model, the relative permeability curves in-
the oil-water-rock system which includes LSWI by reducing the
cluding the residual oil saturation are functions of the effective
overall salinity level (ionic strength), and EWI by both softening
molar Gibbs free energy. The scaling factor used in this case for
and hardening of the injected water.
adjusting residual oil saturation as a function of effective molar
 Initial wettability state of the rock matters (oil-wet, weakly-oil-
Gibbs free energy is dened as
wet, neutral-wet, weakly-water-wet, and water-wet) as the
( G G HS ) LSWI effect is more pronounced in oil-wet rocks.
S = ,
( G LS G HS ) (25)
From the previous points, the proposed models address the
where G is the effective molar Gibbs free energy (J/mole) at in- following conditions:
situ conditions of injected-connate mixed solution, G HS is the ef-
fective molar Gibbs free energy (J/mole) at in-situ conditions of  Carbonate rock type
seawater-connate mixed solution, and G LS is the effective molar  Secondary and tertiary oil recovery modes
Gibbs free energy (J/mole) at in-situ conditions of low salinity  Reducing overall salinity level as the brine injection mode
water-connate mixed solution when Sor becomes constant. An (LSWI)
example of history matching efuent sulfate ion concentration for  Weakly-oil-wet to mixed-wet rocks for the initial wettability
state
Cumulative Water Injected (PV)
0 10 20 30 40 50
0.00
For eld-scale applications of LSWI, Al-Shalabi et al. (2014e)
investigated the effect of LSWI on both oil displacement and vo-
Effective Molar Gibbs Free Energy

lumetric sweep efciencies using a quarter 5-spot eld model,


-50.00
which was created by upscaling the coreood of Yousef et al.
(2011). Both fractional ow and tracer methods were consistent in
-100.00
(J/mole)

estimating the volumetric sweep efciency due to LSWI. An ex-


ample of the fractional ow curves showing the improvement in
-150.00 Seawater
displacement sweep efciency using LSWI is depicted in Fig. 13.
Twice Diluted
Up-to-date the sweep efciency is still correlated with the average
-200.00 10 Times Diluted
saturation mobility ratio ( M ) although physically the average sa-
20 Times Diluted
turation is neither existing nor accurate. In the latter work, the
100 Times Diluted
-250.00 authors proposed a new denition of mobility ratio at the tertiary
Fig. 11. Effective Molar Gibbs free energy calculated for coreoods of Yousef et al. mode that best correlates with volumetric sweep efciency and
(2011) using the Mechanistic LSWI Model (Al-Shalabi et al., 2015d). physically makes sense. The proposed denition of mobility ratio
152 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

1 density, and formation volume factor as function of salinity. A salt


tracer was used in association with the water phase to model
0.8
salinity variations. Properties of water at a given salinity were
determined by interpolating between water properties at max-
fw (Fraction)

0.6
imum and minimum salinity. The retention and adsorption of the
0.4
amount of salt as a result of varying the salinity of injected water
were modeled using the Langmuir adsorption isotherm.
0.2 Al-Shalabi et al. (2015e) investigated modeling and simulation
of SWCTT of low salinity water injection in a Middle Eastern car-
0 bonate reservoir using UTCHEM. Both Radial and Cartesian grid
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
models were setup for a eld-scale pilot. Two approaches were
Water Saturation (Sw) (Fraction)
used to estimate remaining oil saturation to LSWI including ana-
First Cycle Second Cycle Third Cycle Fourth Cycle
lytical and numerical methods. The results showed that both ap-
proaches give consistent values for remaining oil saturation for
Fig. 13. Fractional ow curves (Empirical LSWI Model-Quarter 5-spot Field Model) homogeneous Radial grid model. The Cartesian grid model was
(Al-Shalabi et al., 2014e). used to investigate the effect of heterogeneity on SWCTT where a
new numerical approach was proposed for estimating remaining
is as the following: oil saturation. The authors consider the area in which oil satura-
tion is below the original residual oil saturation is affected by the
(r1) S1= S wf LSWI. Hence, the equation used to calculated the average residual
M= ,
(r1 + r2 ) S1= SOB (26) oil saturation is

In this case, the mobility ratio is dened as the ratio of the i So, i Vi HS
Sor = i: So, i < 0.99 Sor ,
relative water mobility at the shock front to the total relative i Vi (27)
mobility at the oil bank front. This denition physically makes
more sense because it maintains the denition of mobility ratio as where Sor is the average residual oil saturation and Vi is the
the mobility of the displacing uid to the displaced uid and the pore volume of gridblock i. The results validate the approach used
chosen saturations physically exist. Fractional ow curves were and the implementation of both tracer reactions and LSWI model
analyzed to nd the shock front and oil bank front saturations at in UTCHEM.
each injection cycle, which is needed for calculating the corre- Minimizing risk and uncertainty is a major part of any pro-
sponding relative mobility values. posed IOR technique by highlighting the most signicant design
Tracers were used to model low salinity water injection. Tracers parameters and optimizing the entire process. Al-Shalabi et al.
are usually used for tracking the details of uid movement in- (2014f) optimized the LSWI process at eld-scale for carbonate
cluding the advancing uid front, the breakthrough, the sweep reservoirs by considering seven uncertain and decision para-
efciency, detection of ow barriers and others. Modeling of tracer meters. 5-spot LSWI pilot models were simulated using UTCHEM
ow helps in interpreting complex eld tracer tests upon which simulator with the Empirical LSWI Model. The Design of Experi-
advectiondiffusion equations are used and the diffusion term is ment (DoE) method was used for sensitivity analysis and screening
usually neglected for most practical cases. Both active and passive out the insignicant parameters (Fig. 14). The Response Surface
traces as well as partitioning and non-partitioning trances are Methodology (RSM) was implemented to optimize the LSWI cu-
included in the model. Passive tracers are the ones that do not mulative oil recovery where a response surface was built (Fig. 15).
change the physical properties of the phase in which they exist In this study, the numerical optimization option in Design Expert
and they used mainly for tracking injected uid. Nevertheless, software was utilized for the optimization process (Design-Expert
active tracers are used for modeling physical and chemical effects Software, 2011). The performed sensitivity analysis showed that
that are not possible to model using black oil or compositional the three most important design parameters are LSWI slug size,
simulators such as variation of water viscosity due to polymer, reservoir heterogeneity characterized through DykstraParson
salinity effect on wettability, residual oil, relative permeability and Coefcient (VDP), and injected water salinity. Moreover, an opti-
capillary pressure, water PVT properties, mixing oils of different mized design was suggested and the results were validated against
viscosity, and oil vaporization effect. Non-partitioning tracer is the UTCHEM.
one exists in a single phase; however, partitioning tracers partition Moreover, Attar and Muggeridge (2015) evaluated the effect of
between phases like single well chemical tracer test in which the
tracer partitions between oil and water phases (Verma et al., Seawater Slug Size and LSWI Slug Size
2009). kv/kh
Verma et al. (2009) described modeling of improved oil re- Sorw and Injected Water Salinity
covery processes using tracers in an unstructured grid simulator. Seawater Slug Size
Design Parameters

Also, modeling single well chemical tracer tests is possible using LSWI Slug Size and Injected Water
this approach, which is used for determining the residual oil sa- Sorw
turation before and after applying improved oil recovery methods.
Soi
Negligible tracer can be used for modeling polymers and salinity
Injected Water Salinity
effect on improving oil recovery. Decoupling of tracer equations
Reservoir Heterogeneity
from other component equations is the main advantage of using
LSWI Slug Size
tracer for improved oil recovery modeling. Verma et al. (2009)
modeled improving oil recovery by low salinity water injection 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
using tracers that affect the rock and uid properties. This was % Contribution
possible by modifying the relative permeability and capillary Fig. 14. Effect of design parameters on cumulative oil recovery (Al-Shalabi et al.,
pressure curves, residual saturations along with water viscosity, 2014f).
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 153

and reduces the absolute permeability in the thief zones. Hence,


the injected uid is diverted into low permeability zones, which
results in improving oil recovery in these zones. Nevertheless,
there is a lack of experimental evidence to support the water
blockage by LSWI/EWI (Dang et al., 2014).

5.2. Heavy oil application

Alzayer and Sohrabi (2013) performed several numerical si-


mulations to investigate the potential of low-salinity and low-
salinity augmented by polymer on heavy oil recovery using a
sector model. The results showed an incremental oil recovery of
approximately 5% OOIP using low-salinity ooding alone; how-
ever, similar incremental recovery was obtained using polymer
ooding alone with much better efciency. The combination of
low salinity and polymer oodings resulted in additional oil re-
covery of 7.510% OOIP. The authors stressed on the need for la-
boratory work to validate the previous ndings using heavy oils.
Jose et al. (2015) presented experimental and numerical works
for evaluating the effect of LSWI on heavy-oil recovery from car-
bonates. The LSWI was conducted in both secondary and tertiary
modes of injection. Results highlighted the potential of LSWI in
recovering heavy-oil from carbonates where an oil recovery of 70%
Fig. 15. 3D surface of cumulative oil recovery at varied values of LSWI slug size (PV)
and injected water salinity (meq/ml) (Al-Shalabi et al., 2014f). OOIP was obtained in the secondary mode. Moreover, the authors
performed sensitivity analysis on different parameters that might
affect the performance of LSWI in heavy-oil carbonate reservoirs.
heterogeneity of numerical simulation of the low salinity water The authors found that seawater injection period before com-
injection using the models of both Jerauld (2008) and Dang et al. mencing LSWI is important as well as the water injection rate.
(2013b) along with vorticity heterogeneity index. They found that
LSWI results in higher oil recovery compared to conventional 5.3. LSWI/EWI and polymer ooding application
seawater injection independent of the heterogeneity level. Also,
they recommended an optimum slug size between 0.6 and 0.8 PV Ayirala et al. (2010) addressed the advantages of using low
for heterogeneous cases due to dilution of the low salinity slug by salinity water as makeup water for polymer ooding. One of these
cross ow between the high and low permeability zones. Usually, advantages is the lower capital and operational costs compared to
the low salinity is implemented in the eld through injection of a seawater, which is related to polymer facilities as the use of low
nite length slug during both secondary and tertiary injection. salinity water reduces the need for more chemicals to meet a
This is because the produced water, which is usually more saline certain viscosity requirement. Moreover, a higher oil recovery can
than the injected low salinity water, is typically re-injected. be obtained by improving the microscopic displacement efciency
Also, Dang et al. (2015) used their previously proposed LSWI using low salinity waterooding and macroscopic sweep efciency
model (Dang et al., 2013b) to highlight the important role of clay using polymer ooding. Kozaki (2012) conducted several core-
distribution and content on oil recovery. The authors proposed an oods in the tertiary mode on Berea sandstone cores using high
approach to model clay distribution and content. Moreover, they salinity/low salinity polymer solutions. He reported a decrease in
presented a new optimization concept based on well placement to residual oil saturation due to low salinity polymer solution by 5
take advantage of the clay distribution. The higher clay content in 10% as opposed to the high salinity polymer solution. Moreover, he
a certain zone leads to higher ion exchange and hence more highlighted the role of low salinity polymer solutions in achieving
wettability alteration towards a water-wet state which is trans- faster oil recovery by improving sweep efciency. The combination
lated into higher oil recovery. of low salinity waterooding and polymer is very attractive as one
More information about the LSWI techniques including la- third or less of polymer is required for polymer oods, added to
boratory, eld, and numerical modeling works are described the 5-times reduction in chemical cost per barrel of oil recovered
elsewhere (Al-Shalabi, 2014). In the next section, the different (Mohammadi and Jerauld, 2012).
applications of LSWI/EWI are discussed. Also, Vermolen et al. (2014) reported that by using low-salinity
polymer ooding, the project economics could improve as the
polymer concentration for achieving a certain viscosity decreases
5. Other applications of LSWI/EWI by a factor two to four. Moreover, they highlighted additional
benets for using low-salinity polymer injection including lower
LSWI/EWI is an emerging technology with other useful appli- sensitivity to mechanical shear, higher stability and usage for high
cations such as conformance control, the combined effects of temperature/high salinity formations, less potential production
LSWI/EWI and polymer ooding, LSWI/EWI and surfactant ood- chemistry issues (scaling, souring, oil/water separation), and pos-
ing, and LSWI/EWI and CO2 ooding. sibly an additional reduction in residual oil saturation by in-
creasing the visco-elasticity of the polymer solution. In addition,
5.1. Conformance control application they stressed on the risks involved including cation exchange, clay
swelling, mixing of low-salinity and high-salinity brines, and
Low salinity/engineered water injection techniques can be used polymer adsorption. The additional polymer retardation factor
in conformance control processes by decreasing the salinity gra- caused by using a low-salinity water leads to delay in oil recovery
dient with sufcient amounts of Ca2 in the injected water. The and might hurt the project economics. In addition, Han and Lee
injected Ca2 mobilizes clay minerals, plugs the porous media, (2014) performed a sensitivity analysis for low-salinity polymer
154 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

ooding by investigating the effects of low-salinity-water slug gas slug size, timing of injection, and WAG ratio (Jiang et al., 2010).
size, water salinity, and polymer viscosity. The results showed that The main experimental and numerical works conducted for in-
both LSWI slug size and polymer viscosity have a pronounced vestigating the combined effect of low salinity water and CO2
effect on low-salinity polymer ooding. Nevertheless, a negligible ooding is discussed.
effect was noticed for water salinity on the process. Kulkarni and Rao (2005) conducted miscible and immiscible
WAG with varying brine composition on Berea sandstone cores.
5.4. LSWI/EWI and surfactant ooding application They reported a decrease in oil recovery with decreasing the
salinity of the injected water due to the increase in the solubility of
Spildo et al. (2012) investigated the effect of combining low CO2 in brine. Jiang et al. (2010) investigated the effect of injection
salinity water injection and reduced capillarity by surfactants in brine salinity on CO2-WAG performance in the tertiary mode on
terms of EOR additional oil recovery and cost efciency. If capillary Berea sandstone cores by changing the salinity of the injected
pressure is high, then re-trapping of the LSWI mobilized oil might brine systematically up to 32,000 ppm. The coreooding experi-
occur. Hence, surfactants are recommended to lower the capillary ments were run at 60 C and at a pressure 20% above the mini-
forces and avoiding re-trapping of the mobilized oil. In the latter mum miscibility pressure (MMP) to ensure miscible CO2 ooding.
study, coreooding experiments were conducted on Berea sand- The results revealed that the WAG recovery increases with in-
stone core plugs. The results concluded that surfactant injection of creasing the salinity of the injection brine; this was explained due
Winsor I phase behavior (lower phase microemulsion) at low to the salting out effect, as the solubility of CO2 in water decreases
salinity yields good recovery and low surfactant retention. Also, with increasing the salinity. This allows more CO2 available for oil
intermediate-water conditions seem to be more favorable com- displacement resulting in higher oil recovery.
pared to water-wet conditions. Moreover, surfactant injection with Other than CO2 solubility, wettability alteration is another im-
low salinity water gives higher oil recovery than the expected portant factor for incremental oil recovery by combined low sali-
performance using only surfactant ooding. nity and CO2 injections. Fjelde and Asen (2010) investigated
Moreover, Alagic and Skauge (2010) investigated the combined wettability alteration during water ooding and CO2 ooding on
effect of injecting low salinity water with surfactant ooding on oil reservoir chalk rocks from the North Sea at different temperatures
recovery from Berea sandstones. The authors conducted several (50 and 130 C). The experimental work started with formation
coreoods and highlighted the positive response obtained using water as a rst phase, followed by seawater as a second phase and
the combined injection. In a later work, Alagic et al. (2011) con- nally a cycle of seawater alternating Carbon Dioxide ooding
rmed their previous ndings on longer cores to minimize capil- (CO2-WAG) as a third phase. The results showed that wettability
lary-end effects and investigated the effect of aging on recovery. alteration towards more water-wet was observed after the WAG
They reported higher oil recovery using the combined injection slug resulting in residual oil saturation between 3 and 5%.
from aged cores compared to unaged cores. They reported that the On the other hand, the combined effect of injection on carbo-
combined low salinity and surfactant oodings prevents re-trap- nates was studied by Aleidan and Mamora (2010). They studied
ping of the mobilized oil by LSWI. Tavassoli et al. (2015) used the the effect of different CO2 injection modes on oil recovery by
UTCHEM-IPHREEQC simulator to investigate the combined effect conducting coreooding experiments including continuous gas
of LSWI and surfactant ooding. The authors history-matched the injection (CGI), water-alternating gas (WAG), and simultaneous
experimental work of Alagic and Skauge (2010) including oil re- water alternating gas injection (SWAG). The experiments were
covery, efuent ionic composition, and pressure gradient data. conducted at 120 F and 1900 psi, which is 100 psi more than the
Moreover, they performed several simulations from which they MMP using outcrop limestone carbonate cores. The salinity of the
concluded that the high salinity surfactant ood performs better injected water was varied between 0, 6, and 20 wt%. The results
than the low salinity surfactant ood. They stressed on the im- showed that waterooding recovery alone was not affected by
portance of surfactant selection and design rather than the ben- salinity; this indicates that wettability alteration is not affecting oil
ets of low salinity on a surfactant ood. recovery and the only controlling parameter is CO2 solubility in
Also, Khanamiri et al. (2015) studied the performance of sur- water. SWAG and WAG resulted in higher oil recovery than CGI
factant injection when low salinity surfactant is combined with due to mobility control of the displacement front. SWAG resulted
LSWI as well as the combination of near optimal salinity surfactant in the highest oil recovery and lowest CO2 requirements. For both
with LSWI. The authors conducted several coreoods on Berea SWAG and WAG, decreasing salinity level leads to increasing CO2
sandstone cores. They concluded that tertiary injection of low solubility in water and increasing oil recovery.
salinity surfactant after a secondary LSWI outperforms after-ter- Moreover, Teklu et al. (2014) conducted several coreoods on
tiary low salinity surfactant when high salinity and low salinity carbonate and sandstone cores to investigate the combined effects
waters are injected in secondary and tertiary modes, respectively. of injecting low salinity water and CO2 on oil recovery. Consecutive
Also, they found that near-optimal salinity surfactant performs injections of seawater, low-salinity water, and continuous CO2
better after a secondary injection of a high salinity water com- resulted in further reduction in the residual oil saturation. Contact
pared to a low salinity water; however, the latter performs better if angle and IFT were measured for the different rock samples and
it is followed with a high salinity chase-water injection. uids to justify the underlying mechanism. Results showed a fur-
ther decrease in both contact angle and IFT using the combined
5.5. LSWI/EWI and CO2 ooding application CO2 and low salinity water. The authors believe that wettability
alteration is furtherly enhanced using the combined LSWI and CO2
Simultaneous water alternating gas (SWAG) and water alter- as reducing the salinity of injected water increases the solubility of
nating gas (WAG) are two proposed injection forms for gas mo- CO2, which deceases the brine-CO2 IFT and the latter even further
bility control. The idea of having a mixture of CO2 and water decreases the CO2-saturated-brine and oil IFT and alters wett-
whether in WAG or SWAG mode, is to contact the bypassed oil ability towards a more water-wet state.
after the CO2 slug. Hence, the properties of the injected water play From a simulation point of view, Dang et al. (2014) presented a
a vital role in affecting the level of incremental oil recovery detailed evaluation of CO2 LSWAG from a one-dimensional het-
(Aleidan and Mamora, 2010). Several factors may affect CO2-WAG erogeneous model into full eld simulation. They highlighted
including reservoir heterogeneity, uid properties, miscibility through simulations the combined benets of gas and low salinity
condition, rock wettability, and WAG parameters such as water water oods by including geochemical reactions associated with
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 155

CO2 injection, ion-exchange process, and wettability alteration. A


scaled ion-exchange equivalent fraction based on calcium ad-
sorption on clay was used to interpolate between two sets of re-
lative permeability representing water-wet and oil-wet systems.
The authors concluded that CO2 LSWAG overcomes the late pro-
duction problem frequently encountered in conventional WAG
processes. CO2 LSWAG resulted in incremental oil recovery of 4.5
9% OOIP. They reported that the success of CO2 LSWAG depends on
clay type and quantity, initial reservoir wettability condition, re-
servoir heterogeneity, reservoir minerals such as calcite and do-
lomite, composition of formation and injected brines, reservoir
pressure and temperature for achieving CO2 miscible condition,
and WAG parameters.
Also, Al-Shalabi et al. (2014g) investigated the combined effect
of injecting low salinity water (LSWI) and carbon dioxide (CO2) on Fig. 16. Comparison between SW, LSWI (SW/20), miscible CO2, and SWAG
oil recovery from carbonate cores using the UTCOMP simulator. (LSWI-SW/20 CO2) (Al-Shalabi et al., 2014g).
They used 1D simulations as well as experimental coreoods for
verifying the results. The simulation work includes miscible and
immiscible continuous gas injection (CGI), simultaneous water- advantages of using SWAG with low salinity water from a frac-
tional ow analysis as less injected solvent is required compared
alternating-gas (SWAG), constant water-alternating-gas (WAG),
to SWAG with seawater and miscible CGI.
and tapered (WAG). Different dilutions of seawater were simu-
Later, Al-Shalabi et al. (2014h) used geochemical modeling to
lated. The CO2 injected was above its minimum miscibility pres-
study the combined effect of LSWI and CO2 on carbonate oil re-
sure (MMP). The authors modied Bakers three-phase relative
servoirs. The geochemical modeling of the coreood of Yousef
permeability model to account for the effect of salinity on the two-
et al. (2011) was performed using the PHREEQC simulator. Geo-
phase water/oil relative permeability as follows (Baker, 1988):
chemical analysis showed that the pH-induced wettability altera-
tion is more pronounced using LSWI only than is the combined
Two-phase oil/water relative permeability
effect of LSWI and CO2 injection. Moreover, the combined effect of
So Sorw eow LSWI and CO2 is most prominent on carbonates with high dolo-
*
k row = k row ,
1 S wirr Sorw (28) mite composition, whereas carbonates with high anhydrite com-
position are most affected by LSWI only.
where eow is the oil/water exponent. Now, we add the low After discussing the different applications of low salinity water
salinity water injection effect on oil/water endpoint relative injection from both laboratory and simulation aspects, the meth-
permeability (krow*), oil/water exponent (eow), and residual oil ods used for desalinating water and preparing low salinity/en-
saturation to water (Sorw) using the Empirical LSWI Model as gineered water injection is presented below.
follows:
LSWI effect on oil/water endpoint relative permeability
*LS k row
k row *HS 6. LSWI/EWI desalination methods
* =
k row *HS ,
+ k row
e
1+ ()
a (29) There are two main methods for seawater desalination; ther-
mal-based and membrane-based. Usually the membrane method
LSWI effect on oil/water exponent
is favorable over the thermal especially offshore where steam is
LS not available and space is limited. Reverse osmosis desalination is
eow max eow LS
eow = + eow ,
e the most common membrane-based method for water desalina-
1+ ()
a (30) tion; however, clay swelling and reservoir souring are two main
LSWI effect on residual oil saturation to water related problems. A novel method was suggested by Ayirala et al.
(2010), which overcomes the previously mentioned problems by
LS HS
Sorw (LSWI ) = Sorw + (1 ) Sorw , (31) using nano-ltration step and reverse osmosis, and is known as
designer water desaturation process.
( HS ) The thermal-based methods include multi-stage ash distilla-
= ,
( LS HS ) (32) tion (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), thermo-compression
distillation (TCD), and mechanical vapor compression (MVC). The
then a minimum value is selected for the residual oil saturation
thermal-based method is based on heating the saline feed water
to water as follows: and collecting the condensed vapor from the distillation process.
Sorw = min (So , Sorw , Sorw (LSWI ) ), (33) On the other hand, the membrane-based method includes reverse
osmosis (RO) and nano-ltration (NF). The latter methods are
The results showed that SWAG, whether using seawater or its pressure driven upon which the pressure is applied to force the
dilutions, outperformed all other tertiary injection modes in terms saline feed water through a membrane and hence separation
of oil recovery. Moreover, the study highlighted the advantage of happens while the selective salts remain. Usually membrane-
using LSWI along with miscible CO2; miscible CO2 displaces the based methods are favored on thermal-based methods, especially
residual oil saturation, whereas the LSWI boosts the production offshore due to space limitation and energy/steam requirements.
rate by increasing the oil relative permeability through wettability The reverse osmosis method is a tight membrane with pore sizes
alteration towards more water-wet state (Fig. 16). The latter nd- less than or equal to 0.0005 m upon which the produced water is
ing was supported by Chandrasekhar and Mohanty (2014) core- just fresh water with no monovalent or divalent ions. Nano-l-
oods, which were conducted in SWAG tertiary mode using sea- tration membranes are looser compared to RO with pore sizes
water and its dilutions. In addition, the study showed the ranging from 0.05 to 0.005 m and the product water is rich in
156 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

monovalent ions (Yousef and Ayirala, 2014). reaction model which illustrates the MIE mechanism in sandstone
Several patents were proposed for membrane-based desalina- with decreasing salinity; there exists a net desorption of adsorbed
tion method in which RO alone or a series conguration of NF/RO ions from the clay surface into the aqueous phase. Doust et al.
is used. Nevertheless, Yousef and Ayirala (2014) highlighted that (2009) reported that salting-in effect does not work in carbonate
the proposed conguration just work for smart waterooding in rock due to strong bonding of organic mater, whereas it is effective
Sandstone. Moreover, they proposed a novel water ionic compo- in sandstone rocks due to the weak bonding of the organic ma-
sition optimization technique upon which nano-ltration and re- terial to the clay surface.
verse osmosis membrane processes are used in parallel cong- At low pH, crude oils are positively charged; as the pH value
uration. The latter conguration generates multiple product water starts increasing, crude oil charge decreases to zero at the iso-
streams to cover the entire range of ionic content and variation, electric point (point of zero charge (PZC)) and then becomes
which are suitable for both sandstone and carbonate rocks. Yousef strongly negatively charged at high pH (Takamura and Chow,
and Ayirala stressed on the importance of the rejected NF and 1985). Sandstone rocks are negatively charged above pH of 2
rejected RO streams, which are important in case of low salinity/ (Menezes et al., 1989). The point of zero charge for limestone is
engineered water injections in carbonate rocks. around 9.2 while the PZC for dolomite is about 7.4 (Gupta and
Mohanty, 2010). The point of zero charge for calcite and dolomite
depends on pH and solution composition, where calcite PZC ran-
7. Discussion: comparison between carbonate and sandstone ges from 7 to 12 while dolomite PZC ranges from 6 to 8.8 (Pok-
rocks rovsky et al., 2002). Lichaa et al. (1993) reported PZC values of
4.6 and 3.4 for two carbonate rocks located in Saudi Arabia. The
This section highlights the main differences in the applicability cores were tested in deionized water and they compose of 40%
of low salinity/engineered water ooding techniques on carbonate calcite and 60% dolomite. The PZC of dolomite is lower than that of
compared to sandstone rocks. Almost all producing sandstone limestone (Alotaibi et al., 2011).
rocks contain clays as a coating on individual sand grains and/or Stability of water lm depends on the electrical double layer
discrete particles mixed with the sand. Carbonates may contain repulsion, which results from the surface charge at both solid/
clays as well, but these clays are usually encapsulated in the rock water, and water/oil interfaces. In case both interfaces have similar
matrix and not signicantly affected by the invading uids. Sands charges, a repulsive electrostatic force occurs maintaining high
that contain clay from 1 to 5% are called clean sands, but dirty sand disjoining pressure and a thick water lm forms, which results in a
is used usually for describing sands with 5 to more than 20% clay. water-wet rock surface (Dubey and Doe, 1993). Lee et al. (2010)
Clay types present in sandstone rocks are usually smectite, illite, measured the water lm thickness using sophisticated physical
mixed-layer clays (primarily illite-smectite), kaolinite, and chlorite chemistry techniques such as the small angle scattering technique.
(Alotaibi and Nasr-El-Din, 2009). They reported that the decrease in water salinity (ionic strength)
Low salinity/engineered water injection disturbs the initially causes increase in water layer thickness, which gives a more wa-
established thermodynamic equilibrium between rock/oil/forma- ter-wet state for both sand and clay type particles. Moreover, a
tion brine, which leads to a new equilibrium between the different lower divalent cation concentration in the injected brine com-
phases resulting in favorable wettability alteration and increase of pared to the connate brine results in a larger low-salinity im-
oil recovery during production period. In this process of wett- proved oil recovery (IOR) response.
ability alteration, the activation energy is important as it controls Ayirala and Yousef (2014) highlighted the importance of water
the rate of chemical reactions between the mineral surface and chemistry for different improved/enhanced oil recovery (IOR/EOR)
injected water. If the reaction rate is too slow, there will be no processes including offshore waterooding. Moreover, they de-
improvement in wettability and oil recovery during the water in- ned SmartWater as a special type of water cocktail consisting of
jection period. Reservoir temperature plays a catalytic role in in- varying composition of different water ions. They stressed on the
creasing the rate of chemical reactions, as there is strong relation need for reducing the non-active salts concentrations (Na and
between activation energy and temperature as was reported by Cl-) as they prevent the accessibility of active potential de-
Puntervold et al. (2007). termining ions to the rock surface. Also, they suggested for oil
The activation energy needed for wettability modication de- recovery improvement from sandstone rocks to use water salinity
pends on both the strength of bonding between the polar oil of less than 5000 ppm with a lower ionic strength and a small
components and the mineral surface, and the reactivity of the ions amounts for divalent cations (o500 ppm) to avoid clay swelling.
present in the injected water. In general, the bonding energy be- On the other hand, low to moderate salinity diluted seawater (2
tween the negative polar crude oil components and carbonates are 10 times dilution/28,0006000 ppm) or modied seawater de-
stronger than the one existing in clays and silicate (sandstone pleted in monovalent ions and enriched in potentially determining
rocks) as reported by Thomas et al. (1993). Doust et al. (2009) divalent ions were recommended for better oil recovery by low
stated that there is difference between the chemical bonding of salinity from carbonates.
crude oil negative polar components (carboxylic material) with In general, the mechanism behind wettability alteration of
positively charged carbonate rocks and negatively charged sand- sandstone rocks using low salinity/engineered water injections is
stone rocks which promotes the difference in wettability alteration considered more complicated compared to carbonates due to the
mechanism. Thus, removal of the organic material in carbonate involved mechanisms with their various contributions including
rock is achieved by increasing the surface reactivity of the po- ne migration, pH increase, multi-ion exchange (MIE), and salting
tential determining ions Ca2 , Mg2 , and SO42 at high tem- in effects (Tang and Morrow, 1999; McGuire et al., 2005; Lager
peratures. Adsorption of organic material is essential for low et al., 2006; Doust et al., 2009).
salinity/engineered water effect in sandstone rocks; however, A comparison between carbonates and sandstones in terms of
desorption of these material at high temperature helps in having incremental oil recovery obtained by LSWI/EWI is presented in
more pronounced effect for LSWI/EWI on carbonate rocks. Table 1. The table shows a summary of the main LSWI/EWI core-
In carbonates, seawater can cause wettability alteration effect; oods conducted in both carbonate and sandstone rocks. Several
however, low salinity water injection (less than 5000 ppm) is re- parameters are listed in the table, which we believe they affect
quired in case of sandstone rocks. As stated by Lager et al. (2006), incremental oil recovery. These parameters are rock type, tem-
contrary to chalk rocks, it is difcult to have a reliable chemical perature, pressure, salinity of injected and formation waters, oil
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 157

Table 1
Summary of main LSWI/EWI coreoods in carbonates and sandstones.

Coreood study Rock type Temperature (C) Pressure Injected water salinity Formation Oil visc- Oil Injection Additional
(psi) (ppm) water sali- osity (cP) TAN model oil recovery
nity (ppm) (mg (% OOIP)
KOH/g
oil)

LSWI in sandstones
Reiter (1961) Sandstone 15.56 14.70 3100 12,100 37.0 @ Secondary 21.3
25.56 C
Bernard (1967) Synthetic and Be- 15.56 14.70 10,0001000 NaCl 150,000 Tertiary 2.636.98
rea Sandstone NaCl
Al-Mumen (1990) Berea Sandstone 90 1500 5500200,000 NaCl 200,000 2.48 @ SC Secondary 810
NaCl
Zhang et al. Sandstone 75 250 1480 SW 29,690 20.1 @ RC 1.46 Secondary 29.2
(2007a) 1500 NaCl FW Tertiary 714
Patil et al. (2008) Sandstone 93 300 550050 SW 22,000 SW Secondary 1428
Webb et al. Sandstone 1500 SW 250,000 FW Secondary 14
(2005a) Tertiary 89
Agbalaka et al. Berea Sandstone 80 1500 10,000 NaCl 40,000 NaCl 8.24 @ SC Secondary 56
(2009) Tertiary 2535
Rivet et al. (2010) Berea and Field 55 14.70 8701140 SW 30,510 SW 7.93 @ RC Secondary 15
Sandstone Tertiary 0
Gamage and Berea and Field 1% FW FW 8.0 0.074 Secondary 1022
Thyne (2011) Sandstone 11.50@ SC Tertiary 26
Fjelde et al. Sandstone 80 72.19 1054.96105.49 SW 105,496 FW 1.5 @ RC Secondary 9
(2012) Tertiary 3
Suijkerbuijk et al. Sandstone 87 14.70 FW 2.95 @ RC 4 Secondary 6
(2014) 0.01 Tertiary 5
LSWI in carbonates
Bagci et al. (2001) Unconsolidated 50 145 10,00040,000 NaCl 46.5 @ RC Secondary 14
Limestone 20,000 KCl 18.4
Yousef et al. Carbonate 100 3000 28,8355,76.7 SW 213,000 FW 1.26 @ RC 0.25 Tertiary 18
(2011)
2
Gupta et al. (2011) Dolomite and 121.11 4000 33,484 SW 4  SO4 181,273 FW 1.13 @ RC 0.11 Tertiary 59
Limestone 33,375 SW 79
29,970 SW BO33  15
29,970 SW PO43  20
Zahid et al. (2012) Carbonate Chalk 90 72.52 28,8352883 SW 213,734 FW 3.21 @ RC 0.96 Tertiary 1520
Outcrop 0
Chandrasekhar Limestone 120 50 2181872 SW 179,700 FW 1 @ RC 2.45 Secondary 40
and Mohanty Tertiary 32
(2013)
Al-Attar et al. Carbonate 25 100 10005000 SW 197,584 3.08 @ SC Secondary 21.5
(2013) 224,987 FW
Awolayo et al. Carbonate 110 3000 43,000 SW 0.58  SO42  261,210 FW 1.927 @ Tertiary 10
(2014) 70 C
Alameri et al. Carbonate 90.56 1800 25,6791027 SW 100,000 FW 3.0 @ RC Tertiary 57
(2015)

SC: Standard Conditions of temperature (60 F) and pressure (1 atm).


RC: Reservoir Conditions of temperature and pressure.
SW: Seawater.
FW: Formation Water.

viscosity, oil total acid number, and injection mode. Rock type obtained in the secondary injection mode compared to the tertiary
matters as previously discussed even at the mineralogical level. injection mode. This might be related to wettability alteration by
Also, it is worth mentioning that the effect of low salinity water is expansion of the double electric layer, where the double layer
more pronounced on eld core plugs as compared to outcrop functions better in the presence of a continuous oil lm as op-
plugs. For temperature and pressure conditions, usually higher posed to the presence of discontinuous oil blobs, which is present
incremental oil recovery by low salinity is obtained at reservoir in the tertiary injection mode. Table 1 shows there are always
conditions for both rock types compared to ambient conditions. exceptions for the trends discussed above. Therefore, the bottom
Hence, it is advisable to conduct experimental coreoods at re- line is that the improvement of oil recovery by LSWI/EWI in both
servoir conditions for more representative results. Sandstones and sandstone and carbonate rocks is case dependent because all the
carbonates result in more incremental oil recovery when the dif- parameters discussed above matters and should be optimized to
ference in salinity between injection and formation brines is more enhance the oil recovery.
pronounced. It should be highlighted that dilution of seawater is
the common practice in sandstones (LSWI); however, tuning of
injected water salinity is common in carbonates (EWI). For oil 8. Concluding remarks
properties, usually lower oil viscosity and higher oil total acid
number result in higher incremental oil recovery for both sand- This paper is a comprehensive state-of-the-art review on low
stones and carbonates. In terms of injection mode, both rock types salinity/engineered water injection for both sandstones and car-
are consistent as mostly higher incremental oil recovery is bonates. The different aspects of low salinity/engineered water
158 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

injection have been thoroughly discussed including mechanisms, recovery efciency. Transp. Porous Media 76 (1), 7794.
laboratory-, eld-, and modeling-works as well as other applica- Akhmetgareev, V., and Khisamov, R., 2015. 40 Years of Low-Salinity Waterooding
in Pervomaiskoye Field, Russia: Incremental Oil. Paper SPE 174182, SPE Eur-
tions. The following represents the recommendations and con- opean Formation Damage Conference and Exhibition, Budapest, Hungary.
clusions based on this vast literature review and our experiences: Aladasani, A., Bai, B., and Wu, U., 2012a. Investigating Low-Salinity Waterooding
Recovery Mechanisms in Sandstone Reservoirs. Paper SPE 152997, SPE Im-
 Wettability alteration is still believed to be the reason for the proved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
Aladasani, A., Bai, B., and Wu, Y., 2012b. Investigating Low Salinity Waterooding
LSWI/EWI effect on oil recovery especially from carbonates. Recovery Mechanisms in Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE 155560, SPE EOR
 Oil relative permeability parameters are more sensitive to LSWI Conference at Oil and Gas West Asia, Muscat, Oman.
Alagic, E., Skauge, A., 2010. Combined low salinity brine injection and surfactant
compared to that of water phase.
ooding in mixed-wet sandstone cores. Energy Fuels 24, 35513559.
 Electrical double layer (EDL) expansion might be contributing to Alagic, E., Spildo, K., Skauge, A., Solbakken, J., 2011. Effect of crude oil ageing on low
the negligible change in the water relative permeability curves salinity and low salinity surfactant ooding. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 78 (2011), 220227.
Alameri, W., Teklu, T.W., Graves, R. M., Kazemi, H., and AlSumaiti, A.M., 2014.
observed in some case studies as the immobile water lm
Wettability Alteration during Low-Salinity Waterooding in Carbonate Re-
thickness increases and hence the relative permeability remains servoir Cores. Paper SPE 171529, SPE Asia Pacic Oil & Gas Conference and
constant. Exhibition, Adelaide, Australia.
 Experimental results should be up-scaled carefully to eld-scale Alameri, W., Teklu, T.W., Graves, R.M., Kazemi, H., and AlSumaiti, A.M., 2015. Ex-
perimental and Numerical Modeling of Low-Salinity Waterood in a Low Per-
as several pore volumes are usually used to obtain a certain meability Carbonate Reservoir. Paper SPE 174001, SPE Western Regional
incremental oil recovery by LSWI/EWI in the laboratory; how- Meeting, Garden Grove, California, USA.
ever, this might mislead at eld-scale. Al-Attar, H.H., Mahmoud, M.Y., Zekri, A.Y., Almehaideb, R.A., and Ghannam, M.T.,
 Experimental-, eld-, and numerical-works show the capability
2013. Low Salinity Flooding in a Selected Carbonate Reservoir: Experimental
Approach. Paper SPE 164788, EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition, London,
of LSWI/EWI on improving both displacement and volumetric United Kingdom.
sweep efciencies. Aleidan, A., and Mamora, D.D., 2010. SWACO2 and WACO2 Efciency Improvement
 There is high potential of a hybrid LSWI/EWI technique with in Carbonate Cores by Lowering Water Salinity. Paper SPE 137548, Canadian
Unconventional Resources and International Petroleum Conference, Calgary,
surfactant, polymer, and CO2 oodings. Alberta, Canada.
 The combined effect of LSWI/EWI is expected to be more pro- Al-Harrasi, A.S., Al Maamari, R.S., and Masalmeh, S., 2012. Laboratory Investigation
nounced at eld-scale especially in cases of channeling and of Low Salinity Waterooding for Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE 161468, Abu
Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition & Conference, U.A.E.
gravity override where the low salinity water contacts the un- Al-Mumen, A.A., 1990. The Effect of Injected Water Salinity on Oil Recovery. King
swept or bypassed zones. Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
 Geochemical modeling of the LSWI/EWI techniques is essential Alotaibi, M.B., and Nasr-El-Din, H.A., 2009. Chemistry of Injection Water and its
Impact on Oil Recovery in Carbonate and Clastic Formations. Paper SPE 121565,
for better understanding of the complex reactions between SPE International Symposium on Oileld Chemistry, The Woodlands, Texas,
rock/oil/brine systems. USA.
 Modeling of LSWI/EWI with more emphasis on oil composition Alotaibi, M.B., Nasr-El-Din, H.A., Fletcher, 2011. Electrokinetics of Limestone and
Dolomite Rock Particles. Paper SPE 148701, SPE Reservoir Evaluation & En-
is recommend, especially for the cases of in-situ surfactant gineering, 14(5), pp. 594603.
generation as a result of crude oil with a suitable acid number. Al-Shalabi, E.W., 2014. Modeling the Effect of Injecting Low Salinity Water on Oil
 The improvement in oil recovery by LSWI/EWI in both sand- Recovery from Carbonate Reservoirs (Ph.D. dissertation). The University of
Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.
stones and carbonates depends on temperature, pressure, rock
Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., Delshad, M., 2014a. Mechanisms behind low
mineralogy, oil type, initial rock wettability state, and injected salinity water injection in carbonate reservoirs. Fuel J. 121, 1119.
water composition, so the results might vary. Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., Pope, G.A., 2014b. Mysteries behind the low
salinity water injection technique. J. Pet. Eng., 111.
Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., Delshad, M., 2015b. Simulation of wettability al-
For future work, research will progress in the area of low sali- teration by low salinity water injection in water-ooded carbonate cores. J. Pet.
nity/engineered water injection including experimental, numer- Sci. Technol. 33 (5), 604613.
ical, and eld works. More work has to be conducted in order to Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., Delshad, M., 2015c. Numerical simulation of the
LSWI effect on hydrocarbon recovery from carbonate rocks. J. Pet. Sci. Technol.
understand the mechanism underlying incremental oil recovery 33 (5), 595603.
by LSWI/EWI. The latter is important for optimizing the recipe of Al-Shalabi, E. W., Sepehrnoori, K., and Pope, G., 2014h. Geochemical Investigation of
low salinity water as well as developing a reliable mechanistic the Combined Effect of Injecting Low Salinity Water and Carbon Dioxide on
Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper GHGT 1202, International Conference on Green-
model for predicting oil recovery at eld-scale. Techniques that are house Gas Technologies (GHGT), Austin, Texas, 63, 76637676.
more complex can be used at nano-scale and integrated with Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., and Pope, G., 2015d. Mechanistic Modeling of Oil
micro- and macro-scales using a reliable simulator for a good Recovery due to Low Salinity Water Injection in Oil Reservoirs. Paper SPE
172770, SPE 19th Middle East Oil & Gas Show and Conference, Manama,
decision making. Moreover, cheaper and less time-consuming Kingdom of Bahrain.
techniques for screening and implementation of LSWI/EWI have to Al-Shalabi, E.W., Luo, H., Delshad, M., and Sepehrnoori, K., 2015e. Single-Well
be investigated at both laboratory- and led-scales under current Chemical Tracer Modeling of Low Salinity Water Injection in Carbonates. Paper
SPE 173994, SPE Western Regional Meeting, California, USA.
oil market conditions. In addition, the synergistic effect of LSWI/
Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., and Delshad, M., 2014f. Optimization of the Low
EWI in combination with other EOR techniques has to be studied Salinity Water Injection Process in Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE 17821, SPE
for boosting the low salinity effect, especially with the consider- International Petroleum Technology Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
able pore volumes needed at laboratory-scale. Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., and Pope, G., 2014e. An Improved Method for
Estimating Volumetric Sweep Efciency of Low Salinity Water Injection. Paper
SPE 172279, SPE Annual Caspian Technical Conference and Exhibition, Astana,
Kazakhstan.
Acknowledgments Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., and Pope, G., 2014g. Modeling the Combined Ef-
fect of Injecting Low Salinity Water and Carbon Dioxide on Oil Recovery from
Carbonates Cores. Paper SPE 17862, SPE International Petroleum Technology
The authors wish to acknowledge Abu Dhabi National Oil Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Company (ADNOC) for funding this research. Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., and Pope, G., 2015a. Geochemical Interpretation
of Low Salinity Water Injection in Carbonate Oil Reservoirs. SPEJ, Paper SPE
169101, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, OK, USA.
Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., Delshad, M., and Pope, G., 2014c. A Novel Method
References to Model Low Salinity Water Injection in Carbonate Oil Reservoirs. SPEJ, Paper
SPE 169674, SPE EOR Conference at OGWA, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
Al-Shalabi, E.W., Sepehrnoori, K., Pope, G., and Mohanty, K., 2014d. A Fundamental
Agbalaka, C.C., Dandekar, A.Y., Patil, S.L., Khataniar, S., Hemsath, J.R., 2009. Core- Model for Prediction Oil Recovery due to Low Salinity Water Injection in Car-
ooding studies to evaluate the impact of salinity and wettability on oil bonate Rocks. Paper SPE 169911, SPE Trinidad & Tobago Energy Resources
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 159

Conference, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. from fractured carbonate rocks. Transp. Porous Media 87 (2), 635652.
Alzayer, H., and Sohrabi, M., 2013. Numerical Simulation of Improved Heavy Oil Gupta, R., Smith, G.G., Hu, L., Willingham, T., Cascio, M.L., Shyeh, J.J., and Harris, C. R.,
Recovery by Low-Salinity Water Injection and Polymer Flooding. Paper SPE 2011. Enhanced Waterood for Middle East Carbonates Cores Impact of In-
165287, SPE Annual Technical Symposium and Exhibition, Khobar, Saudi Arabia. jection Water Composition. Paper SPE 142668, SPE Middle East Oil and Gas
Attar, A., and Muggeridge, A., 2015. Impact of Geological Heterogeneity on Perfor- Show and Conference, Manama, Bahrain.
mance of Secondary and Tertiary Low Salinity Water Injection. Paper SPE Han, B., and Lee, J., 2014. Sensitivity Analysis on the Design Parameters of Enhanced
172775, SPE Middle East Oil & Gas Show and Conference, Manama, Bahrain. Oil Recovery by Polymer Flooding with Low Salinity Waterooding. Interna-
Austad, T., Strand, K., Madland, M.V., Puntervold, T., Korsnes, R.I., 2008. Sea Water in tional Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers, The Twenty-fourth International
Chalk: An EOR and Compaction Fluid. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 11 (4), 648654. Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference, Busan, Korea.
Austad, T., Shariatpanahi, S.F., Strand, S., Aksulu, H., Puntervold, T., 2015. Low Sali- Hassenkam, T., Andersson, H., Hilner, E., Matthiesen, J., Dobberschutz, S., Dalby, K.
nity EOR-effects in limestone reservoir cores containing anhydrite: a discussion N., Bovet, N., Stipp, S.L.S., Salino, P., Reddick, C., and Collins, I.R., 2014. A Fast
of the chemical mechanism. Energy Fuels J. . http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.en- Alternative to Core Plug Tests for Optimizing Injection Water Salinity for EOR.
ergyfuels.5b01099, just accepted manuscript Paper SPE 169136, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, OK, USA.
Austad, T. Smart Water for Enhance Recovery: A Comparison of Mechanisms in Hassenkam, T., Matthiesen, J., Pedersen, C.S., Dalby, K.N., Stipp, S.L.S., and Collins, I.
Carbonates and Sandstones Force RP Work Shop: Low Salinity Water Flooding, R., 2012. Observation of the low salinity effect by atomic force adhesion map-
the Importance of Salt Content in Injection Water, Norway. ping on reservoir sandstones. Paper SPE 154037, SPE Improved Oil Recovery
Austad, T., RezaeiDoust, A., and Puntervold, T., 2010. Chemical Mechanism of Low Symposium, Tulsa, OK, USA.
Salinity Water Flooding in Sandstone Reservoirs. Paper SPE 129767, SPE Im- Healtherly, M.W., Howell, M.E., and McElhiney, J.E., 1994. Sulfate Removal Tech-
proved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. nology for Seawater Waterood Injection. Paper SPE 7593, Offshore Technology
Awolayo, A., Sarma, H., and AlSumaiti, A. M., 2014. A Laboratory Study of Ionic Effect Conference, Houston, Texas, USA.
of Smart Water for Enhancing Oil Recovery in Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE Hiorth, A., Cathles, L.M., Madland, M.V., 2010. Impact of pore water chemistry on
169662, SPE EOR Conference at Oil and Gas West Asia, Muscat, Oman. carbonate surface charge and oil wettability. Transp. Porous Media 85 (1), 121.
Ayirala, S.C., and Yousef, A.A., 2014. Injection Water Chemistry Requirement Hognesen, E.J., Strand, S., and Austad, T., 2005. Waterooding of Preferential Oil-
Guidelines for IRO/EOR. Paper SPE 169048, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Sym- Wet Carbonates: Oil Recovery Related to Reservoir Temperature and Brine
posium, Tulsa, USA. Composition. Paper SPE 94166, SPE EUROPEC/EAGE Annual Conference, Madrid,
Ayirala, S., Ernesto, U., Matzakos, A., Chin, R., Doe, P., and Hoek, P.V.D., 2010. A Spain.
Designer Water Process for Offshore Low Salinity and Polymer Flooding Ap- Hughes, R.V., Pster, R.J., 1947. Advantages of brines in secondary recovery of
plications. Paper SPE 129926, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, petroleum by waterooding. Trans. AIME 170 (1), 187201.
Oklahoma, USA. Jerauld, G.R., Lin, C.Y., Webb., K.J., Seccombe, J.C., 2008. Modeling low salinity wa-
Bagci, S., Kok, M.V., Turksoy, U., 2001. Effect of brine composition on oil recovery by terooding. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 11 (6), 10001012.
waterooding. J. Pet. Sci. Technol. 19 (34), 359372. Jiang, H., Nuryaningsih, L., and Adidharma, H., 2010. The Effect of Salinity of In-
Baker, L., 1988. Three-Phase Relative Permeability Correlations. Paper SPE 17369, jection Brine on Water Alternating Gas Performance in Tertiary Miscible Car-
SPE Enhanced Oil Recovery, Tulsa, Oklahoma. bonate Dioxide ooding: Experimental Study. Paper SPE 132369, SPE Western
Bernard, G.G., 1967. Effect of Floodwater Salinity on Recovery of Oil from Cores Regional Meeting, California, USA.
Containing Clays. Paper SPE 1725, SPE California Regional Meeting, Los Angeles, Jin, M., 1995. A Study of Non-aqueous Phase Liquid Characterization and Surfactant
California, USA. Remediation (Ph.D. dissertation). The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.
Callegaro, C., Masserano, F., Bartosek, M., Buscaglia, R., Visintin, R., Hartvig, S. K., and Jose, S.R., Gachuz-Muro, H., and Sohrabi, M., 2015. Application of Low Salinity
Huseby, O., 2014. Single Well Chemical Tracer Tests to Assess Low Salinity Water Injection in Heavy Oil Carbonate. Paper SPE 174391, SPE EUROPEC, Ma-
Water and Surfactant EOR Processes in West Africa. Paper SPE 17951, SPE In- drid, Spain.
ternational Petroleum Technology Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Khanamiri, H.H., Torsaeter, O., and Stensen, J.A., 2015. Experimental Study of Low
Chandrasekhar, S., Mohanty, K.K., Private Communication, 2014. Salinity and Optimal Salinity Surfactant Injection. Paper SPE 174367, SPE EUR-
Chandrasekhar, S., and Mohanty, K.K., 2013. Wettability Alteration with Brine OPEC, Madrid, Spain.
Composition in High Temperature Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE 166280, SPE Korrani, A.K.N., Jerauld, G.R., and Sepehrnoori, K., 2014. Coupled Geochemical-
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Based Modeling of Low Salinity Waterooding. Paper SPE 169115, SPE Im-
Dang, C.T.Q., Nghiem, L.X., Chen, Z., and Nguyen, Q.P., 2013b. Modeling Low Salinity proved Oil Recovery Symposium, Oklahoma, USA.
Waterooding: Ion Exchange, Geochemistry and Wettability Alteration. Paper Korrani, A.K.N., Sepehrnoori, K., and Delshad, M., 2013. A Novel Mechanistic Ap-
SPE 166447, SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, New Orleans, proach for Modeling Low Salinity Water Injection. Paper SPE 166523, SPE An-
Louisiana, USA. nual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Louisiana, USA.
Dang, C.T.Q., Nghiem, L.X., Chen, Z., Nguyen, N.T.B., and Nguyen, Q.P., 2014. CO2 Low Kozaki, C., 2012. Efciency of Low Salinity Polymer Flooding in Sandstone Cores
Salinity Water Alternating Gas: A New Promising Approach for Enhanced Oil (Master thesis). The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA.
Recovery. Paper SPE 169071, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, OK, Kulkarni, M.M., Rao, D.N., 2005. Experimental investigation of miscible and im-
USA. miscible Water-Alternation-Gas (WAG) process performance. J. Pet. Eng. 48 (1
Dang, C. T. Q., Nghiem, L. X., Chen, Z., Nguyen, Q. P., and Nguyen, Ngoc. T. B, 2013a. 2), 120.
State-of-the Art Low Salinity Waterooding for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Paper Lager, A.K., Webb, K.J., Collins, I.R., and Richmond, D. M., 2008. LoSalTM Enhanced
SPE 165903, SPE Asia Pacic Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition, Jakarta, Oil Recovery: Evidence of Enhanced Oil Recovery at the Reservoir Scale. Paper
Indonesia. SPE 113976, SPE Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
Dang, C., Nghiem, L., Nguyen, N., Chen, Z., and Nguyen, Q., 2015. Modeling and Lager, A., Webb, K. J., and Black, C.J.J., 2007. Impact of Brine Chemistry on Oil Re-
Optimization of Low Salinity Waterood. Paper SPE 173194, SPE Reservoir Si- covery. 14th European Symposium on IOR, Cairo, Egypt.
mulation Symposium, Houston, Texas, USA. Lager, A., Webb, K.J., Black, C.J.J., Singleton, M., and Sorbie, K. S., 2006. Low salinity
Design-Expert Software, 2011. Technical Manual, version 8. oil recovery- An experimental investigation. Proceedings of International
Doust, A.R., Puntervold, T.P., and Austad, T., 2010. A Discussion of the Low Salinity Symposium of the Society of Core Analysts, Norway.
EOR Potential for a North Sea Sandstone Field. Paper SPE 134459, SPE Annual Lee, S.Y., Webb, K.J., Collins, I. R., Lager, A., Clarke, S. M., O'Sullivan, M., Routh, A. F.,
Technical Conference and Exhibition, Florence, Italy. and Wang, X., 2010. Low Salinity Oil Recovery-Increasing Understanding of the
Doust, A.R., Puntervold, T.P., Strand, S., and Austad, T.A., 2009. Smart Water as Underlying Mechanisms. Paper SPE 129722, SPE Symposium on Improved Oil
Wettability Modier in Carbonate and Sandstone. 15th European Symposium Recovery, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
on Improved Oil Recovery, Paris, France. Lemon, P., Zeinijahromi, A., Bedrikovestsky, P., Shahin, I., 2011. Effects of injected-
Dubey, S.T., Doe, P.H., 1993. Base number and wetting properties of crude oils. SPE water salinity on waterood sweep efciency through induced nes migration.
Reserv. Eng. 8 (3), 195200. J. Can. Pet. Technol. 50 (910), 8294.
Evje, S., Hiorth, A., 2009. A mathematical model for dynamic wettability alteration Lichaa, P.M., Alpustun, H., Abdul, J.H., Nofal, W.A., Fuseni, A.B. Wettability Evalua-
controlled by water-rock chemistry. Netw. Heterog. Media 5 (2), 217256. tion of a Carbonate Reservoir Rock. Proc. Advances in Core Evaluation III Re-
Evje, S., Hiorth, A., Madland, M.V., Korsnes, R.I., 2009. A mathematical model re- servoir Management, European Core Analysis Symposium, p.327.
levant for weakening of chalk reservoirs due to chemical reactions. Netw. Ligthelm, D.J., Gronsveld, J., Hofman, J., Brussee, N., Marcelis, F., and Linde, H.V.D.,
Heterog. Media 4 (4), 755788. 2009. Novel Waterooding Strategy by Manipulation of Injection Brine Com-
Fjelde, I., 2008. Low Salinity Water Flooding Experimental Experience and Chal- position. Paper SPE 119835, EUROPEC/EAGE Conference and Exhibition, Am-
lenges Force RP Work Shop: Low Salinity Water Flooding, the Importance of sterdam, The Netherlands.
Salt Content in Injection Water, Stavanger, Norway. Loahardjo, N., Xie, X., Yin, P., and Morrow, N.R., 2007. Low Salinity Waterooding of
Fjelde, I., and Asen, S.M., 2010. Wettability Alteration During Water Flooding and a Reservoir Rock. Paper SCA2007-29, International Symposium of the Society of
Carbon Dioxide Flooding of Reservoir Chalk Rocks. Paper SPE 130992, SPE Core Analysts, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
EUROPEC/EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition, Barcelona, Spain. Luo, H., Al-Shalabi, E.W., Delshad, M., and Sepehrnoori, K., 2015. A Robust Geo-
Fjelde, I., Asen, S.M., and Omekeh, A., 2012. Low Salinity Water Flooding Experi- chemical Simulator to Model Improved Oil Recovery Methods. SPEJ, Paper SPE
ments and Interpretation by Simulations. Paper SPE 154142, SPE Improved Oil 173211, SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium, Houston, Texas, USA.
Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Madland, M.V., 2009. Rock-Fluid Interactions in Chalk Exposed to Seawater, MgCl2,
Gamage, P., and Thyne, G., 2011. Comparison of Oil Recovery by Low Salinity Wa- and NaCl Brines with Equal Ionic Strength. 15th European Symposium on Im-
terooding in Secondary and Tertiary Recovery Modes. Paper SPE 147375, SPE proved Oil Recovery, Paris, France.
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Denver, Colorado, USA. Mahani, H., Berg, S., llic, D., Bartels, W.B., Niasar, V.J., 2014. Kinetics of low-salinity-
Gupta, R., Mohanty, K.K., 2010. Wettability alteration mechanism for oil recovery ooding effect. SPE J. 20 (1), 820.
160 E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161

Mahani, H., Keya, A.L., Berg, S., Bartels, W., Nasralla, R., and Rossen William, 2015. Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
Driving Mechanism of Low Salinity Flooding in Carbonate Rocks. Paper SPE Standnes, D.C., Austad, T., 2000. Wettability alteration in chalk: 2. Mechanism for
174300, SPE EUROPEC, Madrid, Spain. wettability alteration from oil-wet to water-wet using surfactants. J. Pet. Sci.
Martin, J.C., 1959. The Effects of Clay on the Displacement of Heavy Oil by Water. Eng. 28 (3), 123143.
Paper SPE 1411, Venezuelan Annual Meeting, Caracas, Venezuela. Strand, S., Standnes, D.C., Austad, T., 2003. Spontaneous imbibition of aqueous
McGuire, P.L., Chatham, J.R., Paskvan, F.K., Sommer, D.M., and Carini, F.H., 2005. Low surfactant solution into neutral to oil wet carbonate cores: effects of brine
Salinity Oil Recovery: An Exciting New EOR Opportunity for Alaska's North salinity and composition. Energy Fuels 17 (5), 11331144.
Slope. Paper SPE 93903, SPE Western Regional Meeting, Irvine, California, USA. Strand, S., Hognesen, E. J., Austad, T., 2006. Wettability alteration of carbonates
Menezes, J.L., Yan, J., and Sharma, M.M., 1989. The Mechanism of Wettability Al- Effects of potential determining ions (Ca2+ and SO42-) and temperature. Colloids
teration Due to Surfactants in Oil-Based Muds. Paper SPE 18460, SPE Interna- and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 275(1-3), 1-10.
tional Symposium on Oileld Chemistry, Houston, Texas, USA. Strand, S., Puntervold, T., Austad, T., 2008a. Effect of temperature on enhanced oil
Mohammadi, H., and Jerauld, G.R., 2012. Mechanistic Modeling of the Benet of recovery from mixed wet chalk cores by spontaneous imbibition and forced
combining Polymer with Low Salinity Water for Enhanced Oil Recovery. Paper displacement using seawater. Energy Fuels 22 (5), 32223225.
SPE 153161, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Strand, S., Austad, T., Puntervold, T., Hognesen, E.J., Olsen, M., Barstad, S.M.F., 2008b.
Nasralla, R.A., Alotaibi, M.B., and Nasr-El-Din, H.A., 2011a. Efciency of Oil Recovery Smart water for oil recovery from fractured limestone: a preliminary study.
by Low Salinity Water Flooding in Sandstone Reservoirs. Paper SPE 144602, SPE Energy Fuels 22 (5), 31263133.
Western North American Region Meeting, Alaska, USA. Stumm, W., Morgan, J., 1996. Aquatic Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.
Nasralla, R.A., and Nasr-El-Din, H.A., 2011. Impact of Electrical Surface Charges and Suijkerbuijk, B.M.J.M., Hofman, J.P., Ligthelm, D.J., Romanuka, J., Brussee, N., van der
Cation Exchange on Oil Recovery by Low Salinity Water. Paper SPE 147937, SPE Linde, H.A., and Marcelis, A.H.M., 2012. Fundamental investigations into wett-
Asia Pacic Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Jakarta, Indonesia. ability and low salinity ooding by parameter isolation. Paper SPE 154204, SPE
Nasralla, R.A., and Nasr-El-Din, H. A., 2012. Double-Layer Expansion: Is It A Primary Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
Mechanism of Improved Oil Recovery by Low-Salinity Waterooding? Paper Suijkerbuijk, B.M.J.M., Sorop, T.G., Parker, A.R., Masalmeh, S.K., Chmuzh, I.V., Karpan,
SPE 154334, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. V.M., Volokitin, Y.E., and Skripkin, A.G., 2014. Low Salinity Waterooding at
Nasralla, R.A., Bataweel, M.A., and Nasr-El-Din, H. A., 2011b. Investigation of West Salym: Laboratory Experiments and Field Forecasts. Paper SPE 169691,
Wettability Alteration by Low Salinity Water in Sandstone Rock. Paper SPE SPE EOR Conference at Oil and Gas West Asia, Muscat, Oman.
146322, Offshore Europe Meeting, Aberdeen, UK. Takamura, K., Chow, R.S., 1985. The electric properties of the bitumen/water in-
Omekeh, A., Friis, H.A., Fjelde, I., and Evje, S., 2012. Modeling of Ion-Exchange and terface Part II. Application of the ionizable surface group model. Colloids Sur-
Solubility in Low Salinity Water ooding. Paper SPE 154144, SPE Improved Oil faces 15 (1), 3548.
Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Tang, G., Kovscek, A.R., 2004. An experimental investigation of the effect of tem-
Parkhurst, D.L., Appelo, C.A.J. Description of Input and Examples for PHREEQC perature on recovery of heavy-oil from diatomite. SPE J. 9 (2), 163179.
Version 3 A Computer Program for Speciation, Batch-Reaction, One-Dimen- Tang, G.Q., Morrow, N.R., 1997. Salinity temperature, oil composition and oil re-
sional Transport, and Inverse Geochemical Calculations. Chapter 43 of Section A covery by waterooding. SPE Reserv. Eng. 12 (4), 269276.
Groundwater, Book 6 Modeling Techniques. Tang, G.Q., Morrow, N.R., 1999. Inuence of brine composition and nes migration
Patil, S., Dandekar, A.Y., Patil, S.L., and Khataniar, S., 2008. Low Salinity Brine In- on crude oil/brine/rock interactions and oil recovery. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 24 (2-4),
jection for EOR on Alaska North Slope (ANS). Paper SPE 12004, International 99111.
Petroleum Technology Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Tavassoli, S., Korrani, A.K.N., Pope, G.A., and Sepehrnoori, K., 2015. Low Salinity
Pokrovsky, O.S., Schott, J., Mielczarski, J.A., 2002. Surface speciation of dolomite and Surfactant Flooding A Multi-Mechanistic Enhanced Oil Recovery Method.
calcite in aqueous solutions. Encycl. Surf. Colloid Sci. 4, 50815095. Paper SPE 173801, SPE International Symposium on Oileld Chemistry, The
Pope, G.A., Wu, W., Narayanaswamy, G., Delshad, M., Sharma, M.M., Wang, P., 2000. Woodlands, Texas, USA.
Modeling relative permeability effects in gas-condensate reservoirs with a new Teklu, T.W., Alameri, W., Graves, R.M., Kazemi, H., and AlSumaiti, A.M., 2014. Low-
trapping model. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 3 (2), 171178. salinity Water-alternating-CO2 Flooding Enhanced Oil Recovery: Theory and
Puntervold, T., Strand, S., Austad, T., 2007. Waterooding of carbonate reservoirs: Experiments. Paper SPE 171767, Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition
effects of a model base and natural crude oil bases on chalk wettability. Energy and Conference, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Fuels 21 (3), 16061616. Thomas, M.M., Clouse, J.A., Longo, J.M., 1993. Adsorption of organic compounds on
Reiter, Pl. K., 1961. A Water-Sensitive Sandstone Flood Using Low Salinity Water carbonate minerals. Chem. Geol. 109 (14), 227237.
(Master of science thesis). University of Oklahoma, USA. Tripathi, I., Mohanty, K.K., 2008. Instability due to wettability alteration in dis-
Rivet, S., 2009. Coreooding Oil Displacements with Low Salinity Brine (Master of placements through porous media. Chem. Eng. Sci. 63 (21), 53665374.
science thesis). University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA. UTCHEM 9.0 Technical Documentation, 2000. The University of Texas at Austin,
Rivet, S., Lake, L.W., and Pope, G.A., 2010. A Coreood Investigation of Low-Salinity Volume II, Texas, USA.
Enhanced Oil Recovery. Paper SPE 134297, SPE Annual Technical Conference UTCOMP 3.8 Technical Documentation, 2011. The University of Texas at Austin,
and Exhibition, Florence, Italy. Texas, USA.
Romanuka, J., Hofman, J.P., Ligthelm, D.J., Suijkerbuijk, B.M.J.M., Marcelis, A.H.M., Verma, S., Adibhatla, B., Leahy-Dios, A., and Willingham, T., 2009. Modeling Im-
Oedai, S., Brussee, N.J., van der Linde, H.A., Aksulu, H., and Austad, T., 2012. Low proved Recovery Methods in an Unstructured Grid Simulator. Paper SPE 13920,
Salinity EOR in Carbonates. Paper SPE 153869, SPE Improved Oil Recovery International Petroleum Technology Conference, Doha, Qatar.
Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Vermolen, E.C.M., Pingo-Almada, M., Wassing, B.M., Ligthelm, D.J., and Masalmeh, S.
Sandler, S.I., 2006. Chemical, Biochemical, and Engineering Thermodynamics. K., 2014. Low-Salinity Polymer Flooding: Improving Polymer Flooding Technical
Fourth Edition. Feasibility and Economics by Using Low-Salinity Make-up Brine. Paper SPE
Schembre, J., Tang, G.Q., Kovscek, A., 2006. Wettability alteration and oil recovery 17342, SPE International Petroleum Technology conference, Doha, Qatar.
by water imbibition at elevated temperatures. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 52 (14), 131148. Vledder, P., Fonseca, J.C., Wells, T., Gonzalez, I., and Ligthelm, D., 2010. Low Salinity
Schembre, J.M., and Kovscek, A.R., 2004. Thermally Induced Fines Mobilization: Its Water Flooding: Proof Of Wettability Alteration On A Field Wide Scale. Paper
Relationship to Wettability and Formation Damage. Paper SPE 86937, SPE In- SPE 129564, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Oklahoma, USA.
ternational Thermal Operations and Heavy-Oil Symposium, and Western Re- Webb, K.J., Black, C. J.J., and Al-Ajeel, H., 2004. Low Salinity Oil Recovery-Log-Inject-
gional Meeting, California, USA. Log. Paper SPE 89379, SPE Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Tulsa, Ok-
Seccombe, J.C., Lager, A., Webb, K., Jerauld, G., and Fueg, E., 2008. Improving Wa- lahoma, USA.
terood Recovery: LoSalTM EOR Field Evaluation. Paper SPE 113480, SPE Im- Webb, K.J., Black, C.J.J., and Tjetland, G., 2005b. A Laboratory Study Investigating
proved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Methods for Improving Oil Recovery in Carbonates. Paper SPE 10506, SPE In-
Seccombe, J., Lager, A., Jerauld, G., Jhaveri, B., Buikema, T., Bassler, S., Denis, J., Webb, ternational Petroleum Technology Conference, Doha, Qatar.
K., Cockin, A., and Fueg, E., 2010. Demonstration of Low-Salinity EOR at Inter- Webb, K., Lager, A., and Black, C., 2008. Comparison of High/Low Salinity Water/Oil
well Scale, Endicott Field, Alaska. Paper SPE 129692, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Relative Permeability. SCA2008-39, International Symposium of the Society of
Symposium, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Core Analysts, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Shehata, A.H., and Nasr-El-Din, H.A., 2015. Zeta Potential Measurements: Impact of Webb, K.J., Black, C.J.J., and Edmonds, I.J., 2005a. Low Salinity Oil Recovery The
Salinity on Sandstone Minerals. Paper SPE 173763, SPE International Sympo- role of reservoir condition core oods. 13th European Symposium on Improved
sium on Oileld Chemistry, The Woodlands, Texas, USA. Oil Recovery, Budapest, Hungary.
Sheng, J.J., 2014. Critical review of low-salinity waterooding. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 120 Wu, Y., and Bai, B., 2009. Efcient Simulation for Low-Salinity Waterooding in
(2014), 126224. Porous and Fractured Reservoirs. Paper SPE 118830, SPE Reservoir Simulation
Skrettingland, K., Holt, T., Tweheyo, M.T., Skjevark, I., 2011. Snorre low salinity Symposium, The Woodlands, Texas, USA.
water injection-coreooding experiments and single well eld pilot. SPE Re- Yousef, A.A., Ayirala, S.C., 2014. Optimization study of a novel water-ionic tech-
serv. Eval. Eng. 14 (2), 182192. nology for smart-waterooding application in carbonate reservoirs. Oil Gas.
Smith, K.W., 1942. Brines as Flooding Liquids. Seventh Annual Technical Meeting, Facil. 3 (5), 7282.
Mineral Industries Experiment Station, Pennsylvania State College. Yousef, A.A., Al-Saleh, S., Al-Kaabi, A., Al-Jaw, M., 2011. Laboratory investigation of
Sohrabi, M., Mahzari, P., Farzaneh, S.A., Mills, J.R., Tsolis, P., and Ireland, S., 2015. the impact of injection-water salinity and ionic content on oil recovery from
Novel Insights into Mechanisms of Oil Recovery by Low Salinity Water Injec- carbonate reservoirs. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 14 (5), 578593.
tion. Paper SPE 172778, SPE Middle East Oil & Gas Show and Conference, Yousef, A.A., Al Saleh, S, and Al Jaw, M., 2012b. The Impact of the Injection Water
Manama, Bahrain. Chemistry on Oil Recovery from Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE 154077, SPE
Spildo, K. Johannessen, A.M., and Skauge, A., 2012. Low Salinity Waterood at Re- EOR Conference at Oil and Gas West Asia, Muscat, Oman.
duced Capillary. Paper SPE 154236, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Yousef, A.A., Al Saleh, S., and Al Jaw, M., 2012c. Improved/Enhanced Oil Recovery
E.W. Al-Shalabi, K. Sepehrnoori / Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 139 (2016) 137161 161

from Carbonate Reservoirs by Tuning Injection Water Salinity and Ionic Con- recovery in chalk: the effect of calcium in the presence of sulfate. Energy Fuels
tent. Paper SPE 154076, SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, Tulsa, Okla- 20 (5), 20562062.
homa, USA. Zhang, P., Tweheyo, M.T., Austad, T., 2007b. Wettability alteration and improved oil
Yousef, A.A., Liu, J., Blanchard, G., Al-Saleh, S., Al-Zahrani, T., Al-Zahrani, R., Al- recovery by spontaneous imbibition of seawater into chalk: Impact of the po-
Tammar, H., and Al-Mulhim, N., 2012a. SmartWater Flooding: Industry's First tential determining ions Ca2 , Mg2 , and SO42  . Colloids Surf.: Physicochem.
Field Test in Carbonate Reservoirs. Paper SPE 159526, SPE Annual Technical Eng. Asp. 301 (13) 199128.
Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Zhang, Y., and Morrow, N.R., 2006. Comparison of Secondary and Tertiary Recovery
Yu, L., Evje, S., Kleppe, H., Karstad, T., Fjelde, I., Skjaeveland, S.A., 2009. Spontaneous With Change in Injection Brine Composition for Crude Oil/Sandstone Combi-
Imbibition of seawater into preferentially oil-wet chalk cores experiments nations. Paper SPE 99757, SPE Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Tulsa,
and simulations. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 66 (34), 171179.
Oklahoma, USA.
Zahid, A., Shapiro, A., and Skauge, A., 2012. Experimental Studies of Low Salinity
Zhang, Y., Xie, X., and Morrow, N.R., 2007a. Waterood Performance by Injection of
Water Flooding in Carbonate Reservoirs: A Mew Promising Approach. Paper
Brine with different Salinity for Reservoir Cores. Paper SPE 109849, SPE Annual
SPE 155625, SPE EOR Conference at Oil and Gas West Asia, Muscat, Oman.
Technical Conference and Exhibition, Anaheim, California, USA.
Zhang, P., Tweheyo, M.T., Austad, T., 2006. Wettability alteration and improved oil

View publication stats

You might also like