Unlocking the potentials of gel conformance for water shutoff in fractured reservoirs: Favorable attributes of the double network gel for enhancing oil recovery

The double-network prepared with an in-situ monomer gel and a fast-crosslinked Cr(III) gel is introduced to develop a thixotropic and high-strength gel (THSG), which is found to have many advantages over the traditional gels. The THSG gel demonstrates remarkable thermal stability, and no syneresis is observed after 12 months with high salinity brine (95,500 mg/L). Moreover, the SEM and XRD results indicate that the gel is intercalated into the lamellar structures of Na-MMT, where the gel can form a uniform and compact structure. In addition, the THSG gel has an excellent swelling behavior, even in the high salinity brine. In the slim tube experiments, the THSG gel exhibits high rupture pressure and improves blocking capacity after being ruptured. The core flooding results show that a layer of gel filter cake is formed on the face of the fracture, which may be promoted by a high matrix permeability, a small aperture fracture, and a high injection rate. After the gel treatment, the fracture can be completely blocked by the THSG gel. It is found that a high incremental oil recovery (65.3%) can be achieved when the fracture was completely blocked, compared to 40.2% if the gel is ruptured. Although the swelling of ruptured gel can improve oil recovery, part of the injected brine may be channeled through the gel-filled fractures, resulting in a decrease in the sweep efficiency. Therefore, the improved blocking ability by gel swelling (e.g., in fresh water) may be less efficient to contribute to an enhancement of oil recovery. It is also found that the pressure gradient and residual resistance factor to water (Frrw) are higher if the matrix is less permeable, indicating that the fractured reservoir with lower matrix permeability may require a higher gel strength for treatment. The findings of this study may provide novel insights on designing robust double network gels for water shutoff in fractured reservoirs.