Due to high oil viscosity and severe heterogeneity

heavy oil reservoirs generally lead to the poorer oil recovery due to the early breakthrough and ineffective circulation of displacing fluids through the prevailing flowing channels. It is necessary to develop the oil-displacing agents or systems which can efficiently generate resistance at low viscosity to achieve better mobility control and significant heterogeneity control. Compared with HPAM

the abilities of

the resistance factor generation

mobility control under homogenous condition and heterogeneity control under heterogenous condition of associative polymer（HAWSP） have been studied at a similar viscosity. The results show that

when at the similar viscosity

the resistance factor generated by HAWSP in the permeability range of （300 ~ 2 000）×10

-3

μm

2

is nearly four times of that generated by HPAM with the permeability of 300×10

-3

μm

2

and HAWSP has a significantly stable displacement front and obtains a higher EOR for oil with the viscosity of 110.7 mPa·s. When under the homogeneous conditions

HAWSP has similar behavior with HPAM in the aspects of polymer production and retention ratio. On the contrary

when under the heterogenous conditions

the former has a significantly higher retention ratio（63.4 %） than the latter（5.2 %）. When at a permeability contrast of 4 times

the fractional flow of HAWSP in the high and low permeability layers exhibits an obvious alternating movement

and HAWSP can enable subsequent water to maintain a high fractional flow in low permeability layer for a long time. When at a permeability contrast of 5 times

HAWSP can displace the most of the cluster-like residual oil trapped in the model

and the phenomenon of "drawing" and "oil bridging" can be also observed in the outer large flow channels. The results indicate that associative polymer has significant abilities to control mobility and adjust heterogeneity

which can also be demonstrated by associative polymer flooding field application in offshore oilfield. In a word

associative polymer has greater application potential in the development of heavy oil reservoirs.