Abstract
Alkaline–surfactant–polymer (ASP) flooding is a promising chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, currently applied in many oilfields in China, USA, India, and Malaysia. ASP has been the worldwide focus of research and field trials for the last decade. In a Malaysian EOR oilfield, a range of ASP concentrations were reported to breakthrough into the separator feed which results in forming stable/tight crude oil emulsions. Stable emulsion makes oil/water separation costly, time-consuming, and contributes to several operational problems in the surface facilities.The contribution of ASP components to the stability of produced emulsions has not been fully investigated. This paper discusses the design of experiments used to investigate the effect of water cut, alkaline concentration, surfactant concentration, polymer concentration, and temperature effect on stabilization of ASP-produced emulsion. A series of batch and continuous experiments are utilized to investigate the effect of various ASP compositions on the coalescence rate, rag layer growth, rheological properties, and droplet size of the generated emulsion after ASP flooding.
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Basyouni, A., Elraies, K.A., Al-Kaieym, H.H. (2017). Investigating Effect of Chemical Composition on Emulsion Stability and Rag Layer Growth During Separation. In: Awang, M., Negash, B., Md Akhir, N., Lubis, L., Md. Rafek, A. (eds) ICIPEG 2016. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3650-7_9
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