ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.

Sec. Economic Geology

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1611943

This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Accumulation Conditions of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources in Complicated Structure AreasView all articles

Investigation into the Microscopic Mechanism Underlying Formation Damage Induced by the Reinjection of Oil-bearing Wastewater

Provisionally accepted
Chao TangChao Tang1Ke DuKe Du1*Gongshuai GuanGongshuai Guan1Xianfu GaiXianfu Gai1Guo LiGuo Li1Qingsong LiQingsong Li1Lichao WangLichao Wang1Hongguang GuoHongguang Guo1Wenping SunWenping Sun1Chao GaoChao Gao1Weiwei XuWeiwei Xu1Zhuoyuan LuZhuoyuan Lu2Junwei SuJunwei Su3Dengke LiuDengke Liu3
  • 1Daqing Oilfield Production Technology Institute, Daqing, China
  • 2Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 3Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China

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The reinjection of treated oilfield water into formations stands as one of the commonly employed methods in oilfield water injection development. However, certain treated waters contain a substantial number of suspended oil droplets, which can lead to the blockage of flow paths and pore channels. At present, there is a deficiency in experimental verification results regarding the reinjection of oily wastewater, and a lack of a reasonable explanation for the micro-mechanism underlying oil droplet migration. Consequently, in order to elucidate the distribution characteristics of oil droplets and the microscopic mechanism of oil droplet migration during the process of oilfield treatment water reinjection, a simulated oil and microfluidic chip were fabricated to conduct relevant experiments. The experimental results reveal that the particle size of oil droplets is the most crucial control indicator affecting reservoir blockage, with a porosity damage rate of 21.9% and a permeability damage rate of 20.9%. The results further indicate that large oil droplets directly block the pores, while small oil droplets blocking the pores exhibit two regional characteristics: saturated blockage and unsaturated blockage. Additionally, the numerical simulation results are in agreement with the experimental findings. This study offers a framework for the implementation of wastewater reinjection in oilfield operations.

Keywords: Reinjected wastewater, Formation damage, Microfluidic chip, microscopic blockage, Fluid flow behavior

Received: 15 Apr 2025; Accepted: 19 May 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Tang, Du, Guan, Gai, Li, Li, Wang, Guo, Sun, Gao, Xu, Lu, Su and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Ke Du, Daqing Oilfield Production Technology Institute, Daqing, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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