EXPERIMENTAL INJECTION STRATEGY FOR SURFACTANT FLOODING ENHANCED BY BRANCHED ALCOHOL ADDITIVE

• Main Author: MOHD NOOR, AHMAD SYAFIQ
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2012
• Subjects: TC Hydraulic engineering. Ocean engineering
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/3440/1/Dissertation_-_Ahmad_Syafiq_B_Mohd_Noor_%2811532%29.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/3440/
• Institution: Universiti Teknologi Petronas

There are few limitations in using surfactant/co-surfactant such as the interfacial activity, adsorption and ionic equilibria which can be control by manipulating the formulation of the injected solution. Other limitations which can be controlled by injection strategy were chromatographic effect, mobility control, flow diversion by precipitates and emulsification. By using the optimum formulation, the first part of the limitations can be reduced. And the second part of limitations can be overcome by investigating the best or optimum method for injecting optimum formulation. The objective of this study is to find the optimum injection strategy of a well formulated surfactant and co-surfactant in enhancing residual oil recovery. Already several methods had been proposed for surfactant / co-surfactant flooding, in this study, topic will be narrowed to, to find the best injection strategy for surfactant flooding with branched alcohol as co-surfactant. Result will be presented on the percentage of residual oil recovered by using different method of injection. Below are the injection strategies which are to be tested. Injection strategies which to be study are: 1) Surfactant and branched alcohol mixed in single formation then followed by chase water 2) Surfactant followed by branched alcohol then followed by chase water 3) Branched alcohol followed by surfactant then followed by chase water Methodology used in this study is based on coreflooding experiment. Briefly, the experiment will be conducted using three (3) Barea cores. Each core first preflooded with synthetic brine at optimum salinity and hardness to saturate the core with brine. Core then will be flooded with crude oil to displace the brine. Then, core will undergo water flooding to displace the crude oil injected to the core. Residual oil saturation then can be calculated from the volume of water produced after the water flood, volume of oil produced during the water flood and pore volume of the core. All the cores then will be injected with chemicals using different methods. The effluent recovered will be measure and the efficiency of each method will be calculated.