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Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes
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Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 4874

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Alireza Kazemi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Interests: enhanced oil recovery; reservoir modelling and simulation; carbon storage

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The global demand for energy continues to rise, driven by increasing populations and economic growth. This demand places a significant strain on traditional oil production methods, which are often limited by declining reservoir pressures and the presence of challenging geological formations. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques offer a crucial solution to this challenge, maximizing oil production beyond traditional primary and secondary recovery methods. EOR technologies involve injecting fluids, gases, or heat into reservoirs to mobilize and extract additional oils that would otherwise remain trapped. These techniques are becoming increasingly essential for unlocking the full potential of existing oilfields and for extending their productive life.

This Special Issue will highlight cutting-edge research in EOR, focusing on the latest advancements in experimental studies, modeling and simulation, AI, and innovative equipment development.

We invite researchers to contribute articles exploring various aspects of EOR, including, but not limited to, the following:

  • Smart water flooding;
  • Nanotechnology in EOR;
  • CO2-EOR;
  • Microbial EOR;
  • Low-salinity water flooding;
  • EOR in shale reservoirs;
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) in EOR;
  • Hybrid EOR techniques;
  • EOR for heavy oil;
  • Environmentally friendly EOR.

This Special Issue will showcase the latest breakthroughs in EOR, paving the way for a more sustainable and efficient future in energy. We encourage researchers to submit their work to contribute to this critical area of research.

Dr. Alireza Kazemi
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • smart water flooding
  • nanotechnology
  • CO2 injection
  • microbial EOR
  • low-salinity flooding
  • shale EOR
  • AI in EOR
  • hybrid techniques
  • heavy oil EOR
  • environmentally friendly EOR

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 6158 KiB  
Article
Study of Mechanisms and Protective Strategies for Polymer-Containing Wastewater Reinjection in Sandstone Reservoirs
by Jie Cao, Liqiang Dong, Yuezhi Wang and Liangliang Wang
Processes 2025, 13(5), 1511; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13051511 - 14 May 2025
Viewed by 223
Abstract
Wastewater reinjection is an important measure for balancing the sustainable development of petroleum resources with environmental protection. However, the polymer-containing wastewater generated after polymer injection presents challenges such as reservoir damage and waterflooded zone identification in oilfields. To address this, this study systematically [...] Read more.
Wastewater reinjection is an important measure for balancing the sustainable development of petroleum resources with environmental protection. However, the polymer-containing wastewater generated after polymer injection presents challenges such as reservoir damage and waterflooded zone identification in oilfields. To address this, this study systematically examined the impact of injection water with varying salinities on the flow characteristics and electrical responses of low-permeability reservoirs, based on rock-electrical and multiphase displacement experiments. Additionally, this study analyzed the factors influencing the damage to reservoirs during polymer-containing wastewater reinjection. Mass spectrometry, chemical compatibility tests, and SEM-based micro-characterization techniques were employed to reveal the micro-mechanisms of reservoir damage during the reinjection process, and corresponding protective measures were proposed. The results indicated the following: (1) The salinity of injected water significantly influences the electrical response characteristics of the reservoir. When low-salinity wastewater is injected, the resistivity–saturation curve exhibits a concave shape, whereas high-salinity wastewater results in a linear and monotonically increasing trend. (2) Significant changes were observed in the pore-throat radius distribution before and after displacement experiments. The average frequency of throats within the 0.5–2.5 µm range increased by 1.894%, while that for the 2.5–5.5 µm range decreased by 2.073%. In contrast, changes in the pore radius distribution were relatively minor. Both the experimental and characterization results suggest that pore-throat damage is the primary form of reservoir impairment following wastewater reinjection. (3) To mitigate formation damage during wastewater reinjection, a combined physical–chemical deblocking strategy was proposed. First, multi-stage precision filtration would be employed to remove suspended solids and oil contaminants. Then, a mildly acidic organic-acid-based compound would be used to inhibit the precipitation of metal ions and dissolve the in situ blockage within the core. This integrated approach would effectively alleviate the reservoir damage associated with wastewater reinjection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes)
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21 pages, 15103 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Waterflooding Oil Recovery Efficiency and Influencing Factors in the Tight Oil Reservoirs of Jilin Oilfield
by Jie Cao, Zhou Liu, Zhipeng Zhang, Yuezhi Wang and Liangliang Wang
Processes 2025, 13(5), 1490; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13051490 - 13 May 2025
Viewed by 216
Abstract
During the waterflooding recovery process, water is injected into the hydrocarbon reservoirs and displaces a portion of the oil and gas, thereby improving oil and gas recovery rates and extending the production life of the reservoir. The macro benefits of waterflooding technology are [...] Read more.
During the waterflooding recovery process, water is injected into the hydrocarbon reservoirs and displaces a portion of the oil and gas, thereby improving oil and gas recovery rates and extending the production life of the reservoir. The macro benefits of waterflooding technology are widely recognized; however, the micro-scale effects of water on the reservoir’s pore structure and fluid distribution during the injection process remain underexplored. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the micro-distribution characteristics of fluids in the reservoir during the oil–water displacement process. To further investigate the micro-mechanisms of waterflooding recovery and the factors influencing recovery efficiency, the study focuses on the impact of permeability, pressure gradient, injection volume, and reverse displacement on oil recovery efficiency. A combined qualitative and quantitative analysis approach was employed, using techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), CT scanning, and fluid distribution tomography to comprehensively analyze the fluid evolution patterns within the reservoir. The results show the following: (1) The movable fluids in the oilfield are primarily distributed within pores ranging from 0.1 to 40 μm; the remaining oil is mainly distributed within pores of 0.1 to 10 μm, accounting for over 85% of the total distribution, and these pores serve as the main space for extracting remaining oil in later stages. (2) Increasing the injection volume significantly improves the oil recovery efficiency in pores ranging from 0.1 to 10 μm. Increasing the displacement pressure gradient effectively reduces remaining oil in pores of 0.1 to 5 μm. However, for reservoirs with permeability greater than 10 mD, once the injection volume exceeds 1 PV or the displacement pressure gradient exceeds 1.8 MPa/m, the increase in oil recovery efficiency becomes marginal. (3) With increasing water injection multiples, the oil displacement efficiency of cores with varying permeability levels shows an overall upward trend. However, the extent of improvement varies significantly, with low-permeability cores exhibiting a markedly greater enhancement in displacement efficiency compared to high-permeability cores. (4) Reverse displacement can reduce the remaining oil in pores ranging from 0.1 to 10 μm, and the increase in oil recovery efficiency is more significant in cores with lower permeability than in those with higher permeability. Therefore, increased production cannot solely rely on improving the production pressure differential to develop remaining oil. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes)
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18 pages, 3505 KiB  
Article
Reservoir Surrogate Modeling Using U-Net with Vision Transformer and Time Embedding
by Alireza Kazemi and Mohammad Esmaeili
Processes 2025, 13(4), 958; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13040958 - 24 Mar 2025
Viewed by 449
Abstract
Accurate and efficient modeling of subsurface flow in reservoir simulations is essential for optimizing hydrocarbon recovery, enhancing water management strategies, and informing critical decision-making processes. However, traditional numerical simulation methods face significant challenges due to their high computational cost and limited scalability in [...] Read more.
Accurate and efficient modeling of subsurface flow in reservoir simulations is essential for optimizing hydrocarbon recovery, enhancing water management strategies, and informing critical decision-making processes. However, traditional numerical simulation methods face significant challenges due to their high computational cost and limited scalability in handling large-scale models with uncertain geological parameters, such as permeability distributions. To address these limitations, we propose a novel deep learning-based framework leveraging a conditional U-Net architecture with time embedding to improve the efficiency and accuracy of reservoir data assimilation. The U-Net is designed to train on permeability maps, which encode the uncertainty in geological properties, and is trained to predict high-resolution saturation and pressure maps at each time step. By utilizing the saturation and pressure maps from the previous time step as inputs, the model dynamically captures the spatiotemporal dependencies governing multiphase flow processes in reservoirs. The incorporation of time embeddings enables the model to maintain temporal consistency and adapt to the sequential nature of reservoir evolution over simulation periods. The proposed framework can be integrated into a data assimilation loop, enabling efficient generation of reservoir forecasts with reduced computational overhead while maintaining high accuracy. By bridging the gap between computational efficiency and physical accuracy, this study contributes to advancing the state of the art in reservoir simulation. The model’s ability to generalize across diverse geological scenarios and its potential for real-time reservoir management applications, such as optimizing production strategies and history matching, underscores its practical relevance in the oil and gas industry. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes)
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Review

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18 pages, 1269 KiB  
Review
Exploration and Application of Natural Gas Injection, Water Injection and Fracturing Technologies in Low-Permeability Reservoirs in China
by Xiaoliang Zhao and Xingyan Qi
Processes 2025, 13(3), 855; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13030855 - 14 Mar 2025
Viewed by 548
Abstract
This article provides an overview of low-permeability reservoir development technologies, including carbon dioxide injection, nitrogen injection, air injection, natural gas injection, water injection (unstable water injection, advanced water injection), water–gas alternating injection, and hydraulic fracturing (hydraulic fracturing, repeated fracturing). These technologies have their [...] Read more.
This article provides an overview of low-permeability reservoir development technologies, including carbon dioxide injection, nitrogen injection, air injection, natural gas injection, water injection (unstable water injection, advanced water injection), water–gas alternating injection, and hydraulic fracturing (hydraulic fracturing, repeated fracturing). These technologies have their own strengths and weaknesses in improving crude oil recovery and are significantly constrained by reservoir characteristics. This article uses specific cases such as the increase in CO2 injection pressure in Yaoyingtai oilfield, which significantly improves recovery rate, nitrogen injection in Zhongyuan oilfield, which increases adjacent well production and single-well recovery rate, air injection in a certain block of Changqing oilfield, natural gas injection in Yushulin oilfield, which has the best effect under specific pressure, as well as the effects and problems of water injection technology, the increasing production effect, and potential risks of hydraulic fracturing, to deeply analyze the application effectiveness and influencing factors of various technologies. Through comparative analysis, it can be concluded that CO2 injection has corrosion and gas channeling problems, nitrogen injection is limited by solubility, oxygen consumption in air injection is affected by temperature and pressure, natural gas injection is constrained by reservoir structure, water injection technology is unstable and difficult to determine timings, and fracturing technology faces difficulties in energy replenishment and time determination. Therefore, optimizing and applying these technologies rationally is of great significance for the efficient development of low-permeability reservoirs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes)
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30 pages, 6531 KiB  
Review
Water Inflow Controller Devices as a Solution for Production for Mature Oil Fields: A Literature Review
by Miguel Asuaje, Nicolas Rincón, Nicolas Ratkovich, Andres Pinilla and Ricardo Nieto
Processes 2025, 13(1), 144; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13010144 - 7 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1621
Abstract
The energy transition demands innovative solutions for efficient and sustainable oil and gas production, particularly for heavy and extra-heavy crude. A significant challenge in these operations is the excessive production of water, which increases operational costs and environmental impact. This paper reviews the [...] Read more.
The energy transition demands innovative solutions for efficient and sustainable oil and gas production, particularly for heavy and extra-heavy crude. A significant challenge in these operations is the excessive production of water, which increases operational costs and environmental impact. This paper reviews the application of mechanical water control devices to optimize water management in heavy oil fields. By analyzing over 3140 documents, only a final total of 42 previous peer-reviewed articles were considered, where 58% sought to understand and optimize water flow from the reservoir to the well mainly by well simulation; 19% studied the implementation cases in the fields, highlighting the success cases; 16% mentioned CFD and other simulations tools; and 7% are related to these devices. While simulation studies have been widely employed, there is a need for more comprehensive field implementations and data-driven insights. This paper aims to contribute to the advancement of water management techniques, ultimately enhancing the sustainability and profitability of heavy oil production, emphasizing the most significant findings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes)
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25 pages, 4149 KiB  
Review
Advances and Factors Influencing In Situ Combustion Effectiveness: A Review
by Zhenye Liu, Bo Wang, Shuangchun Yang and Chao Tian
Processes 2025, 13(1), 130; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr13010130 - 6 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1034
Abstract
In situ combustion, as a technology for improving oil recovery efficiency, faces technical and economic challenges. Fire-driven oil recovery technology is renowned for its significant technical advantages, including wide reservoir applicability, efficient crude oil recovery rate, and lower extraction costs. It is particularly [...] Read more.
In situ combustion, as a technology for improving oil recovery efficiency, faces technical and economic challenges. Fire-driven oil recovery technology is renowned for its significant technical advantages, including wide reservoir applicability, efficient crude oil recovery rate, and lower extraction costs. It is particularly suitable for the recovery of high viscosity petroleum resources such as heavy oil and oil sands. However, due to the complexity of the fire-driven mechanism, there are still many problems in the engineering design of fire-driven reservoirs. In particular, the lack of intuitive and accurate understanding of the combustion and fire-driven process in the reservoir makes it difficult to take effective means to accurately judge the underground combustion conditions, monitoring and control of the fire-driven leading edge. This paper reviews the effects of permeability, oil saturation, gas injection rate, injection and extraction well spacing, and reservoir thickness. These findings can help to improve the stability and efficiency of fire-driven technology so as to realise better mining results in practical applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Developments in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes)
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