AVisualized simulation of fine profile control and water plugging in reservoirswith secondary porous channels

Secondary porous channels are formed due to the long time forced water-flooding in unconsolidated sandstone reservoirs, which lead to the invalid circle of injected water and low oil recovery. Research on regular patterns of profile control and water plugging has great significance for field production. With the visualized simulation experiments, process of the improvement of sweep efficiency could be much more intuitive and concrete. The results showed that: sweep efficiency would be higher with the deeper location in theory, which needed the support of plugging agents with high flow capacity and low price; Results of the plugging operations depend on the distribution of remaining oil, plugging agents should be put deeper, if remaining oil was near production well; while this distance should not be so long with remaining oil near injection well; An economic limit was existed for the injection volume of plugging agents, which is about 10 percent under the condition of experiments, and injection twice showed a much better results. For reservoirs with bending channels, areas after the corner and far away from the wells were proved to be a good place to locate the plugging agents, which could make a full use of the high conductivity of porous channels and high pressure drop near wells.