Experience of Oil Field Development in the U.S.S.R. Using Waterflooding Process and the Methods of its Improvement

The method of waterflooding is applied on a large scale in the U.S.S.R. while developing oil fields. Wide application of the waterflooding method allowed the achievement in the U.S.S.R. during the 2 last decades of the rapid growth of oil production and high improvement of technical and economical data obtained in this branch of the industry. Further improvement of the waterflooding method to increase its efficiency and especially the recovery factor has especially great importance for the U.S.S.R. oil- producing industry. During recent years work has been done on the investigation and commerical testing of such methods of oil recovery as: (1) essential increase of bottom hole pressure in injection wells; and (2) cyclic change of water injection and recovery rate. In fields of high-paraffin concentration the necessity of the application of not only the maintenance of formation pressure by the formation temperature is also shown. The methods of improvement of flushing properties of water by means of surfactant addition and injection of COD2U are discussed.