The Development and Application of the Acrylamide Kind Polymers for Tertiary Oil Recovery in China

As many oilfields shift from high permeability and medium-high permeability to low permeability and ultra-low permeability, the complexity and specificity of their formation channels increase, and the requirements on injectivity and liquidity of polymer flooding become increasingly stricter. This paper, from the perspective of the molecular configuration of poly(acrylamide) (PAM), gives an introduction to their respective characteristics, and analyzes the applicability of PAMs in tertiary oil recovery on the basis of the applications of polymer flooding in China. The study suggests that, on the one hand, the problem that urgently needs to be solved at present is achieving the viscosification of polymers with medium-low molecular weight or low molecular weight in high-temperature and high-salt conditions; on the other hand, researchers shall change their original research thoughts, shift from large-scale design of original PAM products to one-to-one “customized” research on and development for meeting specific oilfield demands from the perspective of polymer molecular structure