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Experimental Investigation of Surfactant Flooding for EOR in Layered Heavy Oil Reservoirs using Micromodel Apparatus

Morshedi, Saeid | 2011

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 42391 (06)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Rashtchian, Davood; Massihi, Mohsen; Ghazanfari, Mohammad Hossein
  7. Abstract:
  8. Nowadays, due to limitation of production from conventional oil reservoirs, enhanced recovery from heavy oil reservoirs are of great concern. In heavy oil reservoirs, only 5% of initial oil in place (IOIP) is producible due to high viscosity. Water flooding increases oil recovery just up to 10% which is due to improper mobility ratio. One of popular methods for increasing oil recovery is injection of chemical materials. Chemical methods are used in reservoirs that have high degree of heterogeneity like heterogeneous and layered reservoirs. These heterogeneities cause diversion and loss of injected water which leads to remaining of oil in its place. Using surface active agents, as a popular chemical method, causes extraction of oil droplets from pores by means of reduction of water-oil interfacial tension (IFT), simultaneous formation of emulsion, and changing wettability of porous media. All of these, eventually, increase the process of injection. In this project, we investigate the effect of surfactant on enhanced oil recovery by using micromodel in heterogeneous and layered heavy oil reservoirs. Accurate and fundamental understanding of mechanisms of this process and the effect of heterogeneity and layer geometric properties on enhanced oil recovery from heavy oil reservoirs concerns the experts in surfactant flooding. In the beginning, micromodel flow patterns- with considering heterogeneity and geometric properties of different layers- were designed and fabricated using laser. In all stages of injection, high quality pictures in the same time intervals were taken and saved on a computer, so by analyzing these pictures the amount of oil production was calculated. Also by using microscopic images, details of this process in pore scales were studied. In this research, optimum rate for water flooding and optimum concentration for surfactant solutions of SDS and LABS were obtained, initially. Then by using optimum rate and optimum concentration, properties of porous media such as local and global heterogeneity, existence of different layers in the medium, orientation of layers and sequence of layers were investigated. Then, effect of salt concentration in injected fluid and effect of irreducible water was studied. Finally, we investigated the effect of solutions that containing worm like micelles surfactant which have extremely high surface activity and viscosity in layered heavy oil reservoirs. The results show that the oil recovery from surfactant flooding with SDS is more than LABS and water flooding. In surfactant flooding, increasing layer orientation with respect to main direction of flow, increases oil recovery while in water flooding this trend was not observed. Also location of well injection and well production has dramatic effect on breakthrough time and ultimate oil recovery in layered oil reservoirs. Oil recovery from heterogeneous reservoirs can be more or less than homogenous oil reservoir which depends on permeability around the well injection. Also the results show that flooding with surface active worm like assembly have high efficiency in heterogeneous and layered heavy oil reservoirs
  9. Keywords:
  10. Enhanced Oil Recovery ; Surfactants ; Stratified Reservoirs ; Experimental Studies ; Micromodel ; Surfactant Flooding

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