Dilute Surfactant Methods for Carbonate Formations
There are many carbonate reservoirs in US (and the world) with light oil and fracture pressure below its minimum miscibility pressure (or reservoir may be naturally fractured). Many carbonate reservoirs are naturally fractured. Waterflooding is effective in fractured reservoirs, if the formation is water-wet. Many fractured carbonate reservoirs, however, are mixed-wet and recoveries with conventional methods are low (less than 10%). Thermal and miscible tertiary recovery techniques are not effective in these reservoirs. Surfactant flooding (or huff-n-puff) is the only hope, yet it was developed for sandstone reservoirs in the past. The goal of this research is to evaluate dilute (hence relatively inexpensive) surfactant methods for carbonate formations and identify conditions under which they can be effective. Anionic surfactants (Alfoterra 35, 38) recover more than 40% of the oil in about 50 days by imbibition driven by wettability alteration in the core-scale. Anionic surfactant, Alfoterra-68, recovers about 28% of the oil by lower tension aided gravity-driven imbibition in the core-scale. Residual oil saturation showed little capillary number dependence between 10{sup -5} and 10{sup -2}. Wettability alteration increases as the number of ethoxy groups increases in ethoxy sulfate surfactants. Plans for the next quarter include conducting mobilization, and imbibition studies.
- Research Organization:
- University Of Houston
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC26-02NT15322
- OSTI ID:
- 910178
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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DILUTE SURFACTANT METHODS FOR CARBONATE FORMATIONS
Dilute Surfactant Methods for Carbonate Formations