Spe 200803 Ms

SPE-200803-MS
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Successful in the Lab, Not as Effective in the Field? Uncertainties in the
Field Observations of Low Salinity Water Flooding in Sandstone and
Carbonate Reservoirs-A Critical Analysis
Navpreet Singh and Hemanta Kumar Sarma, University of Calgary
Copyright 2021, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Western Regional Meeting originally scheduled to be held in Bakersfield, California, USA, 27 April – 1 May 2020.
Due to COVID-19 the event was postponed and held virtually on 20 - 22 April 2021. Official proceedings were published online on 10 April 2021.
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Abstract
Low salinity waterflooding has been an area of great interest for researchers for almost over three decades
for its perceived "simplicity," cost-effectiveness, and the potential benefits it offers over the other enhanced
oil recovery (EOR) techniques. There have been numerous laboratory studies to study the effect of injection
water salinity on oil recovery, but there are only a few cases reported worldwide where low salinity water
flooding (LSW) has been implemented on a field scale. In this paper, we have summarized the results of
our analyses for some of those successful field cases for both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs.
Most field cases of LSW worldwide are in sandstone reservoirs. Although there have been a lot of
experimental studies on the effect of water salinity on recovery in carbonate reservoirs, only a few cases
of field-scale implementation have been reported for the LSW in carbonate reservoirs. The incremental
improvement expected from the LSW depends on various factors like the brine composition (injection and
formation water), oil composition, pressure, temperature, and rock mineralogy. Therefore, all these factors
should be considered, together with some specially designed fit-for-purpose experimental studies need to be
performed before implementing the LSW on a field scale. The evidence of the positive effect of LSW at the
field scale has mostly been observed from near well-bore well tests and inter-well tests. However, there are
a few cases such Powder River Basin in the USA and Bastrykskoye field in Russia, where the operators had
unintentionally injected less saline water in the past and were pleasantly surprised when the analyses of the
historical data seemed to attribute the enhanced oil recovery due to the lower salinity of the injected water.
We have critically analyzed all the major field cases of LSW. Our paper highlights some of the key factors
that worked well in the field, which showed a positive impact of LSW and a comparative assessment of the
incremental recovery realized from the reservoir visa-a-vis the expectations generated from the laboratory-
based experimental studies. It is envisaged that such a comparison could be more meaningful and reliable.
Also, it identifies the likely uncertainties (and their sources) associated during the field implementation of
LSW.
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Introduction
The mechanism that leads to incremental recovery due to LSW is debatable. Different authors proposed
different devices for additional oil recovery. Tang and Morrow (1999) first proposed fines migration as the
mechanism behind LSW. They performed experiments on several Berea Sandstone cores and concluded
that mobile fines (clay minerals), initial water saturation and oil absorption were the contributing factors
for the additional oil recovery with LSW. They also observed a reduction in brine permeability due to fines
and reported that clay minerals (fines) such as kaolinite are necessary for increased oil recovery. However,
several other authors (Lager et al.,2008 and Zhang et al., 2007) reported contradictory results where they
observed no fines in the production stream with additional oil recovery. The operator in the Bastrykskoye
field in Russia claimed fine migration as the primary mechanism behind the incremental improvement.
Austed et al. (2010) proposed that the desorption of organic material from the clay surface caused by a
local increase in pH played a vital role in the incremental oil production during LSW. The desorption of the
acidic or basic compounds in the oil activated by the rise in pH (OH-ions) was caused by the substitution
of divalent cations on the clay surface with the protons in the low saline water. The wettability alteration
from oil-wet/mixed state to a water state is the commonly accepted mechanism leading to additional oil
recovery. The Multicomponent Ionic Exchange (MIE) theory proposed by Lager et al. (2008) states that
low salinity brine causes expansion of the double layer and increases the cation exchange capacity of the
clay complex. Due to this phenomenon, the bound polarised components of crude oil are a substitution by
Ca2+ ions leading to increased water wetness of the rock. Thus, we may observe the low concentration of
divalent cations Mg2+ in the effluent stream indicating strong adsorption of these ions on to the clay surface.
However, this theory doesn't hold in those experiments where incremental recovery is observed without
Ca2+ and Mg2+ (Tang et al., 1999 and Austed et al., 2010).
Despite the controversial mechanism that leads to enhanced recovery during flooding experiments, some
operators took an initiative of the pilot project for LSW to see the potential benefit of this emerging technique
at a field scale. Promising results in the laboratory studies prompted them to undertake this project. Although
most of the field cases reported in the literature correspond to the sandstone reservoirs, there are a few
field cases of LSW in carbonate reservoirs as well. The Ekofisk chalk reservoir in the North Sea is one
such case. It has been flooded with sea water since 1987 (Thomas et al., 1987). The tremendous success
of the waterflood (Hermansen et al., 2000) encouraged the operator to explore the benefits of LSW. This
paper discusses some of the field cases in both the sandstone and carbonate reservoirs, compares the field
results with the corresponding laboratory studies and discusses the uncertainties associated with the field
implementation of LSW. These uncertainties may arise from data collected in the field or during the analysis
of the data to quantify the impact of LSW. There have been cases such as the Endicott field and Powder
River Basin, where uncertainties arose during the examination of the data. Contribution of high saline water
from outside the pilot area or the injection of another chemical/polymer in the middle of LSW could be the
some of the causes of uncertainties during the quantification of the impact of LSW.
Endicott field, Alaska, USA

The paper by (Seccombe et al., 2010) was the first published literature on the inter-well field application of
LSW in the Endicott field on the North Slope of Alaska. Before the beginning of reduced salinity flooding in
June 2008, BP was operating this field by crestal gas injection and seawater injection around the periphery
in this sandstone reservoir. The salinity of the formation brine and the seawater brine are almost equal as
shown in Table 1 (McGuire et al., 2005). Various core flood tests, single-well chemical tracer tests (SWCTT)
and simulation studies indicated that the Endicott field showed incremental benefit over secondary water
flooding (Seccombe et al., 2008). Several factors were considered before undertaking the pilot project of
field implementation of LSW. These factors included zone and well selection, reduced salinity water source,
SPE-200803-MS 3
planning and establishing of an effective surveillance program, and determining how to measure water cut
and oil production.
Table 1—Endicott Water Analysis (McGuire et al., 2005)
Endicott Well 3-39A

Species (ppm) Endicott formation water Endicott produced water Endicott seawater
low salinity water
Barium 7 0 0 0
Bicarbonate 2.000 1,868 147 6
Calcium 320 194 402 17
Chloride 17.275 14.946 18,964 821
Iron 10 2 0 0
Magnesium 48 360 1,265 55
Potassium 110 177 386 17
Sodium 11.850. 9,190. 10,812. 468
Strontium 24 7 7 0
Sulfate 63 570 2,645 115
pH 6.5 7.0 7.7
TDS 32.000 28,000 34,644 1,500
A producer and injector pair chosen for the pilot project in the zone S3A2 such that the inter-well
distance between the pair was 1040 ft. Within the pilot area, the target formation had an average inter-well
permeability of ~100 mD (determined from pulse pressure test) and an average porosity of 20%. The zone
S3A2 was chosen because of its relatively high thickness of 30-45 ft, higher clay content ~ 12% (dominantly
kaolinite followed by illite) which should improve EOR response. In addition, it was separated from other
sands by underlying and overlying shales. Figures 1 and 2 shows the cross-section and the structure map
of the pilot area.
Figure 1—Pilot area cross section between the injector and the producer (Seccombe et al., 2010)
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Figure 2—Pilot area structure map (Seccombe et al., 2010)
LSW did not commence until the water cut in the producer had reached 95% and the tracer tests indicated
that enough water had been injected to fill up the pore volume between the producer and injector. LSW
began in June 2008 and continued for eleven months (i.e.1.6 PV injected) by trucking water from a gravel
pit nine miles away and followed by high salinity post flush. All the injection facilities were set up such that
the injection pumps never ran dry. The surveillance program was planned in such a way that measurements
of water cut, oil and the chemical analysis of the produced water were done frequently.
After two months of injection, the producer 3-37 showed an increase in oil rate and a decrease in water
cut. This event was marked by the arrival of low salinity water (Figure 3). The wellhead measurements
of the water cut and the data from the test separator suggested that the water cut dropped from 95% to
92% (Figure 4) and it had sustained for a few months before gradually rising back to 95%. The water cut
drop experienced in the field was less than the expected decline that was predicted by the core flood tests.
However, it should not be a surprise; for, the laboratory tests were 1-dimensional displaced tests and the
field tests are 3-dimesnsional tests. Water composition analysis showed that only 55% of the water was
coming from the pilot area and the rest 45% of the water was coming from outside the pilot area (Figure
5). The realistic water cut drop was calculated out to be 5.5% after correcting for the production outside
the pilot area.
Figure 3—Oil rate increase in the producer well marked with the arrival of low salinity water (Seccombe et al., 2010)
SPE-200803-MS 5
Figure 4—Water cut response in the producer well (Seccombe et al., 2010)
Figure 5—Normalized iron concentration, 1= reservoir water, 0= reducted salinity injection water (Seccombe et al., 2010)
It is interesting to note that the EOR response was associated with an increase in iron concentration
although iron wasn't present in either injected water or the formation of water. It was also not found in the
other nearby producers (Figure 6). This phenomenon confirms the multi-ion exchange theory postulated as
the wettability changing mechanism behind LSW. The authors claimed that the iron which was deposited
on the surface of kaolinite, was acting as a bridge between the organic compounds and the clay surface.
These bridges must have been removed during LSW which released polar organic compounds and free iron
which led to incremental recovery.
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Figure 6—Iron concentration as measured in the producer (Seccombe et al., 2010)
A vital analysis showed that incremental oil recovery positively correlated with the clay content (Figure
7). Based on the Figure 7 correlation, the new recovery was expected to be around 13% for 12% clay
content. Further oil recovery from this pilot flood was ~10% of the pore volume swept after eleven months
of injection (1.6 PV injected) which is in line with the correlation in Figure 7 if we take areal and vertical
sweep efficiency into account. Although the authors claimed the positive benefits of the LSW in the Endicott
field, some critical observations from this pilot flood are worth a mention.
Figure 7—Incremental recovery Vs clay content (Seccombe et al., 2010)
1. As per the authors, viscous fingering and mixing of low salinity and high salinity water were not the
problems in EOR as they had expected. Had it been the case, the pilot test would not have been on
track with the core tests and SWCTTs.
2. The authors did not mention about the salinity of the injected water in the paper. Although one of the
documents (McGuire et al., 2005) talks about the salinity of the injected water during the SWCTT test,
the pilot test did not explicitly indicate the concentration of ions in the low salinity pilot waterflood.
It is very critical to get a measurement of the salinity o f the water injected at frequent intervals in any
field trial to assess the quality of water injected.
3. It appears that there is a gap in oil production from the last week of August 2008 to the first two weeks
of September 2008, as shown in Figure 3. It is possible that the producer well was shut for some time
before opening it again which might have led to the reduced water cut and increased oil production for
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the first few days (flash rate), which is a commonly observed phenomenon in the field when opening
up the well after long shut-in due to separation of oil and water by gravity.
4. To rule out the possibility of increased oil rate due to increased injection rate, the produced liquid
rate of the producer, the voidage replacement ratio (VRR) and injection rate of the injector should
be plotted together against the same time scale. Doing so would serve as a tool for the diagnosis and
confirmation.
Bastrykskoye field, Russia

The Bastrykskoye field is an oil field in Russia where LSW has been ongoing for over 25 years. Zeinijahromi
et al. (2015) published a paper on the results of 25 years of reduced salinity flooding in this field. The
operator had been injecting fresh water into the reservoir since 1988, and they were pleasantly surprised
when the waterflood exceeded their expectations in terms of the incremental oil recovery achieved. This
field consists of two sandstone layers: the upper Tula layer and the lower Bobrik layer. The properties of
the rock and the reservoir fluid are given in Table 2.
Table 2—Properties of rock and fluid in Bastrykskoye field (Zeinijahromi et al., 2015)
Layer
Characteristic
Tula Bobrik
Reservoir top depth, m -916.8 -927

Reservoir type porous porous
Formation thickness, m 24.4 10.3
Net pav thickness, m 2.1 3.6
Relative thickness of sandstone layers 0.81 0.62
Initial oil saturation 0.83 0.86
Risersoir temperature, °C 25 25
Initial reservoir pressure, MPa 11.4 11.6
Bubble point pressure, MPa 1.1$ 4
GOR. m /ton
3 6.07 14.2
Oil density under resen oir conditions, kg/m3 848.8 851.5
Oil density under surface conditions, kg/m3 864.7 878.3
Oil viscosity under reservoir conditions, mPּas 12.6 6.83
Formation volume factor 1.03 1.064
Water density under resen ov conditions, kg/m 3 117.15 117.15
Water viscosity under reservoir conditions, mPּas 1.75 1.75
Specific-productivity index, m1 (day MPּam) 3.11 3.11
Displacement efficiency obtained from core floods 0.652 0.663
The main reservoir is supported by an active aquifer, which provides pressure support to the reservoir.
The injectors are located on the periphery of the tank below the water-oil contact (WOC). The production
from this field began in 1982 and LSW started in 1988. The composition of fresh water drawn from a lake,
and that of the formation of water are given in Table 3.
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Table 3—Composition of fresh lake water injected and the formation water (Zeinijahromi et al., 2015)
formation water
Conc. %
MW g/mol Conc. mol/L Conc. mg/L Conc. B/L
(W/W)
NaCl 58.439 3.26534 190823.3 190.8233 79.71
MgCl2 95.205 0.12336 11744.2 11.7442 4.91
MgSO4 120.367 0.00625 751.8 0.7518 0.31
CaCl2 110.978 0.32437 35997.7 35.9977 15.04
NaHCO3 84.006 0.00090 75.7 0.0757 0.03
Ionic Strength 4.63 mol/L
fresh lake water Injected
NaCl 58.439 0.00034 20.1 0.0201 2.37

MgCl2 95.205 0.00029 28.1 0.0281 3.31
MgSO4 120.367 0.00115 137.8 0.1378 16.25
CaCl2 110.978 0.00250 276.9 0.2769 32.64
NaHCO3 84.006 0.00459 385.5 0.3855 45.44
Ionic Strength 0.0179 mol/L
The high salinity in the formation of water is mainly due to the presence of sodium chloride, while the
calcium and magnesium are the dominant ions in the injected freshwater. So, the ion exchange between the
two was expected to occur during the flooding. The reservoir is heterogeneous with permeability ranging
from a few Darcies to a few milli-Darcies. The Tula layer has a relatively higher permeability than Bobrik.
However, the Bobrick layer is laterally more continuous than the Tula layer.
A history matched simulated model was used to compare the results of the injection of the low salinity
water and formation water. Simulation results showed an insignificant incremental oil recovery with the
injection of low salinity water compared to injection formation water. The recovery factor (RF) with LSW
was estimated at ~ 50% while the RF with formation water estimated around 48%. The low incremental
recovery with LSW attributed to the fact that the field had already produced a lot of water (WC~15%)
by the time LSW commenced in 1988, meaning that the high saline formation water had already partially
swept the oil. However, another comparative study performed to estimate the additional benefit of LSW in
a 5-spot pattern (four producers with a central injector). A two-layer cake model was built to compare the
recovery from the low salinity water and formation water in a 5-spot designed with similar heterogeneities
as in the Bastrykskoye field. LSW showed an additional incremental recovery of 8% over FW flooding in
the injection time of total 1400 days and it also registered a delayed water breakthrough in the producers.
The RF with LSW was estimated to be ~66% while the RF with FW was estimated to be ~58%. The higher
additional increment was attributed to the fact that LSW had begun at the outset of the production. The
authors claimed that better sweep was achieved due to the water permeability reduction by the formation
of fines in the high permeable water-invaded zones which led to the diversion of the flow into the unswept
zones resulting in delayed water breakthrough.
It must be noted that the authors did not consider the other effects of LSW, such as wettability change and
residual oil reduction in their simulation studies. If such effects were considered, LSW would show have
probably shown more incremental recovery. It was proposed that LSW caused fines migration which led to
additional recovery of oil. However, no physical evidence of fines migration in the field has been reported
in the published paper. There is also no mention of the salinity of the produced water in the wells to offer
a clearer evidence of the impact of LSW. The frequent collection of wellhead samples of oil and produced
water could corroborate the theoretical assumption. However, there were some laboratory studies done by
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Zeinijahromi et al. (2015) for the Russian field core which suggested fine migration as the root cause for
enhanced oil recovery during LSW.
Field A: North Africa

A LSW study was carried out by Eni for an onshore field in North Africa. Eni had developed its own
internal workflow for the screening of LSW study in an area. Rotondi et al. (2014) stated that some of
the key criteria for low salinity EOR are: high clay content, polar components in the oil and the presence
of divalent ions in the formation of water. Based on these criteria, Eni selected a highly heterogeneous
sandstone reservoir which was heavily faulted. It is characterized by light crude oil (39°API) and a viscosity
of 0.5 cP at reservoir conditions.
The first tertiary core flooding experiments were conducted in 2007 and those experiments showed
2-8% incremental recovery over the high salinity flood (33,000 mg/l). Simulation studies suggested an
incremental recovery of 2-3% in the whole field with LSW compared to high saline water. Single well tests
were carried out in between December 2013 and January 2014. Reverse osmosis technology used to inject
low salinity water (1000-5000 mg/l). SWCTT did not show a reduction in residual oil saturation despite the
good indications from the core flood experiments which showed saturation reduction by 0-3 units. It is not
very clear from the published paper why LSW didn't work in a single well case. No reason or field evidence
is mentioned in the paper which suggests the same. Further investigations are underway, and the operator
plans to conduct inter-well tests to investigate the potential benefit of LSW.
Powder River Basin, Wyoming, USA

Robertson (2007) looked at the historical waterflood data in the Powder RiverBasin, which could lead to
coincidental evidence of enhanced oil recovery due to the use of low saline water. Numerous fields in the
basin were operating under waterflooded using low salinity water (~1000 ppm) obtained from Madison
limestone or Fox hill sandstone formation. He identified three fields in the Minnelusa formation with similar
characteristics, as shown in Table 4, to compare the effect of dilution/salinity ratio with the recovery factor.
The formation water, in general, is more saline than the injection water. Water flooding with freshwater
was a common practice in this formation and hence it provided a suitable basis for comparative analysis
of the field data.
Table 4—Reservoir characteristics of the three fields used for RF comparison (Robertson, 2007)
RESERVOIR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WEST SEMLEK, NORTH SEMLEK, AND MORAN MINNELUSA FIELDS.
West Semlek North Semlek Moran
Average reservoir permeability, md 225 - 78

Porosity, % 19.4 15.8 144
Water saturation, % 25.0 20 37.1
Initial reservoir pressure, psia 2847 2700 4381
Bubble point pressure, psia 165 300 475
API gravity, °API 23 22.5 22.3
Initial formation volume factor, res bbl/STB 1.049 1.049 1.07
Solution GOR, scf/STB 10 10 50
Reservoir temperature, °F 144 140 200
Depth to productive formation, ft below surface 7240 7270 8715
Oil recoveries of the fields were plotted against the total produced fluid in pore volumes (see Figure 8).
It was observed that the improvements were dependent on the salinity or the dilution ratio of the injection
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water (Figure 9) with lower salinity ratio yielding higher oil recovery (see Table 5 for the different salinity
ratios). It is important to note that the data analysis done by Robertson was limited to only three fields, and
it may not be adequate to conclude the effect of the salinity ratio on the recovery.
Table 5—Reservoir characteristics of the three fields used for RF comparison (Robertson, 2007)
SALINITY OF INITIAL FORMATION AND INJECTION WATERS USED FOR THE THREE WATERFLOODS ANALYZED.
—Salinity, ppm—
Fields Initial formation water Injection water Salinity ratio
West Semlek 60,000 10.000 0.1667

North Semlek 42.000 3.304 0.0787
Moran 128,000 7.948 0.0621
Also, these three areas had been injected with polymer (~15cP) for a certain period of time during the
production phase to increase the recovery.
Figure 8—Reservoir characteristics of the three fields used for RF comparison (Robertson, 2007)
Figure 9—Reservoir characteristics of the three fields used for RF comparison (Robertson, 2007)
Thyne and Gamage (2011) did another study of 130 different fields under water injection in the Powder
River Basin using the records from the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (WOGCC) and
classified 55 areas as under "low salinity water injection", 52 as "mixed salinity" and 23 as "high salinity
SPE-200803-MS 11
injection". Most fields had less than ten wells with oil gravity in between 20-40 °API. The Minnelusa
fields had formation water salinity ranging from 1,134 to 261,982 ppm. Salinity contours were drawn to
estimate the salinity of the areas where the salinity data was missing. The presence Na, Cl, Ca, and SO4
ions characterizes the Minnelusa formation water, as the primary ions for higher TDS and dominated by
Ca, SO4 for lower TDS. Fields with RF greater than 80% and less than 30% were excluded in the analysis
for the impact of LSW. Fifty-one areas were analyzed and out of those 51 fields, thirty-one fields had been
injected with polymer for a short duration of up to one year. The fields which underwent chemical flood had
a higher mean value of RF of ~53.4% compared to the ones where there was no chemical flood (50.9%).
The authors found that out of the 51 fields, the fields under low saline injection had an average RF
of ~ 52.2%, while the areas under mixed saline/high saline injection had RF of ~52.6%. This data was
further broken down to discount the effect of chemical injection. Out of the 20 fields without polymer
injection, RF was calculated to be~ 50.8% for the areas with low saline injection whereas the fields with
high salinity injection had an average RF of ~ 51.4%. The authors also found that there was no correlation
between delayed water breakthrough and salinity ratio. They also did not observe dual step water cut profiles
associated with the wettability change during LSW (Vledder et al., 2010). They reported that the lack of
incremental production might be due to the lack of mobile fines which were observed in the core flood tests
or due to the large variability of the recovery factors (30%-70%).
It is also complicated to compare RF in different fields based on just one parameter (salinity of water).
There are numerous other parameters in an area such as heterogeneity, permeability, fluid and rock properties
which affect RF in any field. Therefore, a comparison of RF of different fields and with core flood tests is
difficult which makes the quantification of the impact of LSW challenging.
Omar field, Syria

A detailed paper by Vledder et al. (2010) is one of the very few documented proofs of wettability change
due to LSW on a reservoir scale, which is now a widely accepted mechanism of LSW. The Omar field in
Syria is a sandstone reservoir and characterized by low viscosity oil (0.3 cP). It also has a presence of clay
minerals 0.5-4% of which 95% is Kaolinite. The formation of water has salinity ~90,000 mg/l with a high
content of divalent cations ~5,000 mg/L. The field was discovered in 1987 and the production began in
1989. However, its production rapidly declined from a peak of 80kbopd to 2kbopd within a year due to a
lack of any aquifer support. To revive the production, water injection was implemented in 1991 using river
water which was the only water source at that time. The salinity of the injection water was around 500 mg/
l with bivalent ions concentration less than 100 mg/l. Water was injected in the oil leg during the flooding.
The wettability of the reservoir rock was determined to be oil-wet from the core flood tests and specialized
core analysis methods. Spontaneous imbibition tests showed an additional recovery of up to 24% PV using
low salinity water after high saline water. Similar results observed in the field from the log-inject-log analysis
in a watered out well showed that the wettability index reduced from 1 (oil-wet) to 0.2-0.4 (water-wet). Log
data showed that an initial oil saturation of ~95% and remaining oil saturation of 15% after LSW. However,
there was an uncertainty of 10-30% in the saturation determination as the saturation calculation from logs
depends upon the salinity value. Water cut measurements are the most general observations on a field scale
that indicate the wettability change. As shown in Figure 10, Well OMA125 observed dual step water cut
development as predicted by the Buckley-Leverett theory (Jerauld et al., 2006) which is expected during
LSW. They found similar trends in the total of thirteen wells (see Figure 11).
12 SPE-200803-MS
Figure 10—Water Saturation Response from Buckley Leveret Theory for High
Salinity and Low Salinity Flooding in an Oil Wet System (Jerauld et. al, 2006)
Figure 11—Oil and Water Production (top) and watercut development (bottom) for
OMA125 showing behaviour consistent with Buckley-Leverett Theory (Vledder et. al, 2010)
A total of 21 different wells were observed that indicated a change in the wettability. There were also
indications from BSW, OHL, RFT, salinity measurement to substantiate that effect, but most of them were
related to the water cut development. The operator (Al Furat) believed that these observations were enough
to prove wettability alteration on a reservoir scale. Different analyses indicated that that wettability change
from 0.8-1 to 0.2 could be a possible reason that gave an incremental oil recovery of 17% over that of the
high salinity flood. However, the comparison of high salinity and low salinity floods across other fields in
the asset indicated that gradual recovery around 5-15% STOIIP could be possible.
SPE-200803-MS 13
Field X, Saudi Arabia

Yousef et al. (2012) reported two different well trials with SWCTT for a carbonate reservoir in Saudi
Arabia. This case is the first published field trial for LSW in a carbonate reservoir. Following the successful
laboratory studies, including extensive coreflooding tests, Saudi Aramco decided to conduct single-well
field trials. There were various criteria such as well type and completion, reservoir water chemistry, reservoir
thickness, well productivity, etc., that were considered before choosing the test wells for field trial. Field
trials in both test wells confirmed that the residual oil saturation decreased by 7% when using the low-
saline water. The depth of investigation for SWCTT was 20ft around the wellbore. The authors argue that
the field trials agreed with the laboratory studies (Yousef et al., 2010). Predications made based on their
simulation studies, too, seemed to be in line with the observations made from the field trials. This field
trial also signified the importance of surveillance program, the proper planning before implementing the
field trial, and the quantification of the impact of LSW in terms of their type and incremental oil recovery
achieved. These trials also helped understand the process uncertainties better. Further interwall trials are
underway to demonstrate the impact of LSW on ultimate recovery and reserves.
Conclusion and Recommendations

The LSW process is still an evolving EOR process, and hence, it is in its infancy. Likewise, the R&D
activities in this process have emerged as an area receiving much attention worldwide, for both clastics and
carbonate reservoirs (Awolayo et al., 2018). The interest in the latter is particularly noteworthy, given the
fact the many giant carbonate reservoirs are nearing its peak in terms of their primary production and could
soon be considered as candidates for low salinity waterflood. To date, there have been only a limited number
of field applications of LSW. The majority among them have shown a positive impact on the incremental oil
recovery but not as high as it was anticipated based on the preparatory prior laboratory assessment studies,
both experimental and simulation based. This is an expected outcome that we must recognize; for, we often
mimic the "ideal" conditions in the laboratory, which is not the case in the field. Moreover, most of our
laboratory displacements tests are conducted as one-dimensional flow tests, and often, without resorting to
physically-scaled modelling consideration. This is reason why one is often challenged to make the laboratory
studies more meaningful and relevant to the field conditions. Therefore, laboratory tests should be compared
using physically scaled-up model to make them more relevant and representative of the field situation.
Furthermore, where possible, all laboratory test regime should honor the site-specific reservoir conditions
of pressure and temperature using representative rock-fluid samples.
It is also difficult to assess the impact of LSW due to uncertainties associated with the data (for instance
water saturation determination from logs) and its analysis because several challenges are faced in the
field scale with regard to operational aspects, surface facilities and subsurface geological uncertainties
due to heterogeneities and complex variations in the mineralogy. We may not see heterogeneities on the
same scale in the laboratory. To implement LSW in the field, prior site-specific laboratory and simulations
studies are a must. In so doing, the key factors and parameters that affect the process mechanisms need
to be identified and accounted for various factors like the presence of clays, formation and injection brine
composition, oil polarity, wettability of the rock and the interfacial tension between the oil and water needs
to be considered in the flooding tests to determine their impact on the recovery. One must not forget to study
the geochemical reactions that impact the oil-rock-brine interactions during LSW. Recent advancements
with Zeta potentiometric studies, NMR and Atomic force microscopy (AFM) have allowed researchers
around the world to study these interactions and use different modified brines depending on the experimental
results.
A carefully planned surveillance program can help detect, and then alleviate certain limitations,
understand the degree and extent of uncertainties on the quantification of the impact of LSW. To this end,
it is very crucial to collect field data at regular intervals. The positive outcomes from the field trials will
14 SPE-200803-MS
hopefully continue to encourage more operators around the world to continue more field trials. The largest
LoSal® field implementation project in the offshore by BP in a sandstone formation has been in Clair
Ridge, North Sea and it has received much attention these days. With the beginning of its first oil production
from this project in 2018, the industry awaits keenly for its performance review in the field in terms of the
incremental oil recovery and the challenges that have been faced. A thorough analysis of the Clair Ridge
LoSal® project will help identify the knowledge gap between to the lab-to-field studies and will contribute
towards developing and designing a more robust laboratory protocol for laboratory studies. Needless to
say, the success of LSW on the field scale will largely depend on the success of this project in the next
decade. BP expects to recover 42 million bbl of oil out of the total recoverable 640 million bbl of oil due
to implementation of LoSal®.
Acknowledgement
Authors would like to thank University of Calgary for the permission to present this paper. Authors also
thankfully acknowledge that this study has been funded partly by a Discovery Grant from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
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11–14 November

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Navpreet Singh and Hemanta Kumar Sarma, University of Calgary

Copyright 2021, Society of Petroleum Engineers

Endicott field, Alaska, USA

Table 1—Endicott Water Analysis (McGuire et al., 2005)

Endicott Well 3-39A

Figure 7—Incremental recovery Vs clay content (Seccombe et al., 2010)

Bastrykskoye field, Russia

Reservoir top depth, m -916.8 -927

NaCl 58.439 3.26534 190823.3 190.8233 79.71

NaCl 58.439 0.00034 20.1 0.0201 2.37

Field A: North Africa

Powder River Basin, Wyoming, USA

West Semlek North Semlek Moran

Average reservoir permeability, md 225 - 78

West Semlek 60,000 10.000 0.1667

Omar field, Syria

Field X, Saudi Arabia

Conclusion and Recommendations

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