The purpose of the project is to study the effect of injected water of varying salinity and ionic composition on the mechanical and physical properties of reservoir and outcrop rocks in order to interpret two observations within Enhanced Oil Recovery methods: That variation of the injected water salinity and of its ion balance may result in large additional oil recovery (Webb et. al. 2005), and that variation in pore water salinity can result in changing rock stiffness (Heggheim et. al. 2005).
The scientific objective is thus to identify and quantify the physical processes on a pore scale that are responsible for changes in petrophysical and mechanical properties. The PhD project is part of the collaborative project on the action of “Smart Water”: an aqueous solution with optimum ion concentration.
Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry, elastic wave propagation and electrical resistivity are used to monitor pore fluid distribution during flooding of oil bearing core material from North Sea reservoirs that include chalk and greensand.
The aim of the project is to formulate proposals for pilot water flooding in Danish North Sea oil reservoirs. Being able to understand the mechanisms behind the techniques that describe smart water, we can discover optimum ion concentration and as a result to establish a rock physical model which could lead to improved oil recovery
Supervisor: Prof. Ida Lykke Fabricius, ilfa@byg.dtu.dk