Papers by Keyword: Surfactant Flooding

Abstract: To enhance oil recovery, surfactant flooding is one of the techniques used to reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) between displacing and displaced phases in order to maximize productivity. Due to high salinity of crude oil in the North of Thailand, surfactant flooding is a suitable choice to perform enhanced oil recovery. The objective of this work is to measure the IFT and observe the effects of parameters such as pressure, temperature, concentration and salinity on IFT reduction. In this study, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate is used as surfactant to reduce IFT. The results show that the major factor affecting reduction of IFT is surfactant concentration accounting for 98.1%. IFT reduces with the increase of salinity up to 86.3% and up to 9.6% for temperature. However, pressure has less effect on IFT reduction. The results of this work can apply to increase oil production in the oilfield in the North of Thailand.

Abstract: We investigate six different surfactants in interfacial tension (IFT) between the surfactant solution and the crude oil from Suijng oilfield. Based on the measurement of interfacial tension, the anion surfactant Heavy alkylbenzene sulfonate (HABS) and non-ionic surfactant alkyl glycoside (APG) are selected for the formulation of mixed surfactant. The IFT between the mixed surfactant solution comprising the HABS and APG and crude oil from Suijing can be reduced to ultralow.The experimental results indicate that the selected mixed surfactant formulation (0.20%HABS+0.10%APG) has a good performance on the tolerance of temperature and salinity and the coreflood test result indicate that the effective of the formulation was high which led to significant oil recovery (56.48%TOR).

Abstract: Complex geological properties of oil reservoirs affect productivity of chemical flooding. Presence of bottom-water aquifer combined with heterogeneous reservoirs has been regarded as a problem which brings out reduction of recovery factor and high water-cut. A numerical reservoir simulator is used to investigate effects of aquifer on the performance of chemical flooding. By including the effects of bottom-water aquifer, productivity decreases significantly compared with that from non-aquifer case. Results from this study emphasize the importance of an accurate assessment of performance before implementing chemical flooding, especially in unfavorable condition such as bottom-water aquifer.

Abstract: In order to increase surfactant compound system injection in low permeability reservoir of Chaoyanggou oilfield, we do research into formula of surfactant compound system according to reservoir condition. By contrasting to interfacial tension of different kinds of surfactants, we choose petroleum sulfonate surfactant T720-40^# as main agent. As equilibrium interfacial tension of this surfactant cannot meet the requirements, so we add Na₂CO₃ as auxiliary agent to decrease interfacial tension. The results of laboratory experiment research show that equilibrium interfacial tension of this multiplex surfactant system can reach 2×10^-2mN/m. It has good thermal endurance, salt resistance, and also has good compatibility with Chaoyanggou injection water and formation water. It can make rock wettability reverse, reduce threshold pressure and displacement pressure and it can improve recovery by 5% contrasting to water flooding.

Abstract: In this paper, simulation study was conducted to investigate the effect of spatial heterogeneity of multiple porosity fields on oil recovery, residual oil and microemulsion saturation. The generated porosity fields were fed into UTCHEM for simulating surfactant flooding in heterogeneous two-layered porous media. From the analysis, surfactant flooding was more sensitive than water flooding to the spatial distribution of multiple porosity fields. Residual oil saturation in upper and lower layers after water flooding was about the same with the reservoir heterogeneity. On the other hand, both residual oil and microemulsion saturation in the two layers after surfactant flooding became more equal as porosity distribution standard increased. Spatial heterogeneity of multiple porosity fields had only a small effect on residual oil saturation and recovery factor. The variation of recovery factor due to the reservoir heterogeneity was under 4.2%.