IFP (a member of the EOR Alliance) was contracted in 1985 to perform screening studies for the giant Daqing field (China), the producing at high water-cut following several years of water injection. IFP recommended polymer flooding to increase the production and reduce the water-cut and subsequently performed the geology, reservoir engineering and laboratory studies for the design of two polymer flood pilots (Chauveteau, Combe, & Dong, 1988).
The two pilots proved highly successful (Wang, et al., 1993) (Delamaide, Corlay, & Wang, 1994) and the polymer flood was later extended to the whole field. Daqing is now the largest polymer flood in the world.