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Surfactant Enhanced Oil Recovery in a High Temperature and High Salinity Carbonate Reservoir

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Journal of Surfactants and Detergents

Abstract

The goal of this work was to find an effective surfactant system for enhanced oil recovery after water injection substituting for oil at a vuggy fractured reservoir with a high temperature and high salinity (220,000 mg/L). Four types of surfactants with concentrations (less than 0.2 %) were screened. Washing oil experiments were conducted in Amott cells. A surfactant system was established by mixing a surfactant with best ultimate recovery and one with best recovery rate. The optimized surfactant system could recover 50 % of remaining oil. To study the mechanism of enhanced oil recovery after water injection substituting oil, interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angle were measured. Experimental results showed that surfactants with good washing ability had low IFT, but surfactants with low IFT may not have a good washing ability. IFT had no obvious relationship with the increased oil recovery or washing ability. The optimized system could not alter carbonate to decrease the oil-wetting capability. Though octadecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride had a good ability wet the carbonate with water, it could not recover much oil. Therefore, except for interfacial tension and wettability alteration, there must be other parameters dominating oil recovery after water injection substituting for oil.

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Acknowledgments

Financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51574266) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2011EEQ 001, ZR2012EEM007) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (14CX06088A) and “Innovation project of China University of Petroleum” (YCX2015012) are gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, China

    Jijiang Ge & Yang Wang

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  1. Jijiang Ge
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  2. Yang Wang
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Correspondence to Yang Wang.

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The authors declare no competiting financial interest.

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Ge, J., Wang, Y. Surfactant Enhanced Oil Recovery in a High Temperature and High Salinity Carbonate Reservoir. J Surfact Deterg 18, 1043–1050 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11743-015-1735-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11743-015-1735-1

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