Polymer flooding has been applied for petroleum recovery and the main results of this method are the effective increasing in oil production and the reduction of water circulation The objective of this work is to present a methodology for pre-selecting a polymer to be used in future research on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) by injecting polymer solution. A reservoir was selected and characterized. Seven samples of commercial partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (PHPA) were also selected and characterized. Polymer solutions were prepared and characterized in terms of filterability, viscosity, stability (under reservoir conditions) and mechanical degradation. Polymer-reservoir interaction was also investigated. The results showed that it is very useful to establish a methodology to pre-select the more suitable polymer for fluid injection operations in oil field. Besides, for the conditions used in this study, the best polymer presents hydrolysis degree of 30%, molar mass of 5106 and intrinsic viscosity of 10 ml/g.
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