NMR-MRI characterization of low-salinity water alternating CO 2 flooding in tight carbonate

Understanding the oil extraction processes at the laboratory scale is critical for designing and implementing the injection fluids to predict the enhanced oil recovery performance at the reservoir scale. Benchtop low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful technique to characterize confined fluids in complex rock pore throat networks. The purpose of this study is to study CO2 alternating low-salinity water (LSW) flooding processes with NMR-MRI to efficiently recover the residual oil from carbonate cores. The in situ NMR-MRI results have shown that the LSW with specific ionic strength can improve the recovery of oil from tight carbonate cores. Our ongoing research using low-field NMR-MRI will also provide consistent measurements between laboratory-scale core analysis and ‘‘reservoir-scale’’ well-logging.