Scale formation in porous media and its impact on reservoir performance during water flooding

A synthetic field was used to simulate the injection and production performance of an incompatible water flooding operation to better study the impact of scaling issue on reservoir performance. In particular, the impacts of scale deposition on reservoir properties and injection pressure were investigated. The results of numerical simulation indicated that scale formation could reduce the reservoir porosity from 0.2 to nearly 0.07. Moreover, the injection bottom hole pressure needed for the operation increases significantly up to nearly 19,000 psi when the reservoir is affected by scale formation.