About The Polymer Flooding Guide
Polymer Flooding is a well-know oil technique with a rather long history. But despite the extensive literature and the wealth of field cases, it is still hard and tedious to find relevant information and knowledge in one place.
This Polymer Flooding Guide aims at solving precisely this challenge: gather the relevant knowledge in one website, and help engineers learn, improve, share and keep track of what is happening in this field.
About the guy behind the guide
Antoine THOMAS
I’m an independent consultant specializing in chemical enhanced oil recovery (cEOR), geoscience, and field monitoring. Over the past 15 years, I’ve worked on the design and implementation of polymer flooding, conformance control, and water shut-off treatments across a wide range of reservoir types.
I started my career at SNF, the world leader in polyacrylamide manufacturing, where I gained hands-on experience with polymer chemistry, formulation, and field deployment. Since then, I’ve supported EOR projects in Kazakhstan, Russia, Argentina, India, Canada, and several parts of Europe—always with a focus on practical, results-driven solutions.
My background combines geology, reservoir engineering, and chemistry, which allows me to approach EOR challenges from both a technical and operational perspective. I’ve helped operators optimize their polymer injection strategies, improve sweep efficiency, and reduce water production.
Beyond consulting, I lead technical training on polymer flooding and water shut-off methods, and I regularly share insights through scientific publications and industry forums. My goal is always the same: deliver effective, field-ready solutions that maximize oil recovery while minimizing uncertainty.
If you’re working on polymer flooding or looking to improve cEOR performance in your field, I’d be glad to help.
About the main contributor & editor of the site
Randall (Randy) Scott Seright
Dr. Randy Seright has developed polymer flooding and gels to improve sweep efficiency in reservoirs since 1978, when he started his career with Exxon. He worked at New Mexico Tech for 36.5 years, making polymer flooding and gel treatments more viable. Randy has been involved with many of the major polymer flooding projects throughout the world, including China, Canada, India, Argentina, Suriname, Kazakhstan, and Alaska. He provided short courses on Polymer Flooding and Water Shutoff in 19 countries. He received the SPE/DOE IOR Pioneer award in 2008 for his work on using polymer and gels to improve oil recovery.
Some memories
September 2023
November 2018 – Tyumen hosted a workshop on polymer waterflooding organized by Messoyakhaneftegaz. Over a hundred specialists took part in the workshop representing 26 Russian and foreign production, research and development and service companies that are engaged in delivery of chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects.
The program of the workshop was divided into three days. The first two days were dedicated to learning theoretical basics and matters related to design and delivery of polymer, surfactant-polymer and ASP polymer waterflooding projects. The main speaker was Antoine Thomas, the author of the “Polymer Waterflooding Basics” book and an international expert with extensive experience of project support around the world. He introduced the audience to the theoretical basics of the technology: physics of the process, characteristics of polymers and principles of their selection, he described how to build an injection strategy, plan a pilot project and move from the pilot to a full field development. The expert discussed with the workshop participants techniques for the method efficiency evaluation and economics of the project. In the end he shared extensive experience of Canada which leads the world in terms of delivery of polymer waterflooding projects.
