Successful Practices and Development of Polymer Flooding in Daqing Oilfield

Abstract Basing on improving volumetric sweep efficiency and reducing channeling and breakthrough, polymer flooding can yield a significant increase in oil recovery when compared with water flooding. Polymer flooding has been conducted successfully in 13 field tests since 1989 and has been commercially used in the following years. Field tests show that the recovery improving with increasing of concentration and injection volume. By applying polymer flooding, the main formation recovery of Daqing oilfield has reached more than 50%. It is 10% ~ 15% higher compared with the other oilfields. In the 20 years' practices of polymer flooding, Daqing Oilfield has developed a complete series of techniques covering reservoir, production, facilities engineering and produced liquid treatment. Polymer flooding has gradually become an important technique to maintain the high and stable production capability of Daqing Oilfield. Daqing oilfield, being the largest polymer flooding field in the world, has 37 polymer flooding areas which contain nearly 9000 wells by the end of 2005. Now, polymer flood production has achieved 1×109t/a in Daqing Oilfield. In this paper, the reservoir condition, pilot test, solution production and injection, production technology and produced liquid treatment technology are described.