The fifth Caspian Technical Conference and Exhibition (CTCE) was held at Astana’s Palace of Independence starting from the 31st of October until the 2nd of November. The conference included technical presentations and thought-provoking high-level panel discussions. The event brought together a wide range of oil and gas companies and high-profile international speakers among whom was SMG Associate Professor Peyman Pourafshary.
In this conference, Dr Peyman Pourafshary presented a paper entitled “Design and Performance of Smart Water Shock Injection (SWSI) in Carbonate Reservoirs” based on the findings of his research group. In this paper, a novel approach was introduced to improve the oil recovery in carbonate reservoirs by application of smart water. Different studies showed that changing the salinity and ion composition of injected water to oil reservoirs provides higher oil recovery compared to the conventional sea water injection. A major problem in this approach is to adjust the ions composition of the huge volume of the injected brine. In this research, Dr Pourafshary introduced a more practical approach as Smart Water Shock Injection (SWSI) to reduce the pore volume size of the injection. Analytical methods such as contact angle measurement, pH measurement, brine analysis, SEM-EDS, and zeta potential measurement were also utilized to provide comprehensive analyses of the performance of the proposed method. The new sequence of the SWSI makes the low salinity water flooding method more practical and cheaper. Core flooding experiment showed that SWSI as the tertiary oil recovery approach improves the oil recovery by about 5%. Hence, this approach can be used by oil companies especially in Kazakhstan to improve the oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs.
In this conference, Dr Peyman Pourafshary presented a paper entitled “Design and Performance of Smart Water Shock Injection (SWSI) in Carbonate Reservoirs” based on the findings of his research group. In this paper, a novel approach was introduced to improve the oil recovery in carbonate reservoirs by application of smart water. Different studies showed that changing the salinity and ion composition of injected water to oil reservoirs provides higher oil recovery compared to the conventional sea water injection. A major problem in this approach is to adjust the ions composition of the huge volume of the injected brine. In this research, Dr Pourafshary introduced a more practical approach as Smart Water Shock Injection (SWSI) to reduce the pore volume size of the injection. Analytical methods such as contact angle measurement, pH measurement, brine analysis, SEM-EDS, and zeta potential measurement were also utilized to provide comprehensive analyses of the performance of the proposed method. The new sequence of the SWSI makes the low salinity water flooding method more practical and cheaper. Core flooding experiment showed that SWSI as the tertiary oil recovery approach improves the oil recovery by about 5%. Hence, this approach can be used by oil companies especially in Kazakhstan to improve the oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs.