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Collaborating Authors
Adsorption Inhibitors: A New Route to Mitigate Adsorption in Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery
Tay, A.. (The EOR Alliance) | Oukhemanou, F.. (The EOR Alliance) | Wartenberg, N.. (The EOR Alliance) | Moreau, P.. (Solvay) | Guillon, V.. (The EOR Alliance) | Delbos, A.. (The EOR Alliance) | Tabary, R.. (IFPen)
Abstract In this paper, we present a new route to mitigate surfactant retention in chemical EOR projects. Surfactants retention, either through adsorption on reservoir rocks or phase trapping, is one of the main constraints to achieve high performance and economical chemical EOR. Specific injection strategies thus need to be developed to mitigate surfactants retention. The use of alkaline and/or salinity gradient approaches present the disadvantage of being restricted to very specific conditions. For example, in hard brine environments, alkalis cannot be used because they can cause scaling. In an offshore environment, as sea water is the only injection water available, water treatment is required in order to use alkali or to perform a salinity gradient. The new route to mitigate adsorption proposed in this paper is based on the use of specific, cost effective, chemical additives which allow mimicking the effect of salinity gradient. The resulting processes, when properly optimized, can achieve very high performances in terms of oil recovery with a limited amount of injected chemicals. Final performance, at lab scale, is comparable to the highly performing ASP/ SP processes in soft brines with salinity gradient.
- Research Report > New Finding (0.68)
- Research Report > Experimental Study (0.68)
- Geology > Mineral (0.69)
- Geology > Rock Type > Sedimentary Rock (0.53)
Surfactant Adsorption Evaluation in the Presence of Crude Oil at High Reservoir Temperature Condition
Belhaj, Ahmed Fatih (Universiti Teknologi Petronas) | Elraies, Khaled Abdalla (Universiti Teknologi Petronas) | Shuhili, Juhairi Aris (Universiti Teknologi Petronas) | Mahmood, Syed Mohammad (Universiti Teknologi Petronas) | Tewari, Raj Deo (Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd)
Abstract The application of surfactants in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) has over the years, revealed various challenges that impose limitations on successful implementation of surfactant flooding. Surfactant adsorption is one of the major criteria that strongly dictates the feasibility of surfactant flooding in chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR). This paper presents the impact of the presence of crude oil on surfactant adsorption and the influence of surfactant partitioning on the adsorption quantification. In this study, static adsorption experiments were conducted for a mixture of Alkyl Ether Carboxylate (AEC) and Alkylpolyglucoside (APG) in the absence as well as the presence of crude oil. Partitioning experiments were carried out to evaluate the surfactant partitioning between the aqueous surfactant solution and the crude oil, in order to determine the partitioning influence on the adsorption results in the presence of crude oil. The mixtureโs adsorption and partitioning behaviors were studied at a fixed salinity of 32,000 ppm and temperatures of (80 ยฐC and 106 ยฐC). High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was utilized in measuring the surfactant concentration throughout adsorption and partitioning tests. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were utilized for rock characterization prior to and after adsorption with and without crude oil being present. Static adsorption outcomes displayed the adsorption of APG, AEC, and the overall mixture with and without crude oil being present, as all having a similar increasing trend as concentration increases. However, the adsorption values were much higher when crude oil was present as compared with the adsorption values when crude oil was absent; this is due to not considering the impact of surfactant partitioning. A significant amount of what was adsorbed belongs to AEC due to its increased chainโchain interactions with APG; hence, AEC is the greatest contributor in the overall surfactant mixtureโs adsorption. Also, the AEC:APG mixture was affected by temperature increase, showing that APG has a greater sensitivity to temperature in comparison to AEC. The surfactant partitioning results were used to validate the surfactant adsorption outcomes in the presence of crude oil. After eliminating the partitioning effect, the surfactant adsorption isotherms in the presence and absence of crude oil were almost identical. The results highlighted the importance of measuring surfactant partitioning, and the impact that partitioning has on the total surfactant losses during the surfactant flooding process. XRD and XPS results explained that the change of the rock structure after adsorption in the presence of crude oil was due to the rock dissolution phenomena. It was concluded that adsorption and partitioning take place in the water/oil/rock system simultaneously, and taking that into account allows for the improved and proper designing of the surfactant flooding.
Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the maximum amphoteric surfactant adsorption by studying parameters like rock type, salinity, alkali type, alkali concentration and surfactant concentration and to evaluate optimum parameters that would provide minimum amphoteric surfactant adsorption. The amphoteric surfactant was studied had been tested in Malaysiaโs first chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) pilot in Angsi Field. Hence, it is very important to properly understand the adsorption mechanism, parameters and potential for this surfactant to reduce uncertainty. First rock samples were characterized. Existing static adsorption methodogy was being improved to reduce redundant samples and long experiments duration to produce repeatable results. Then, actual experiments with varying adsorption parameters were carried out. Amphoteric adsorption increased when clay content of reservoir rock increase and so did the surface area. Alkali had been demonstrated to significantly decrease adsorption of amphoteric surfactants and a novel kind of alkali, organic alkali and ammonia are introduced with advantages of lowering adsorption better than the conventional alkali (sodium carbonate). The dynamic adsorption experiments were performed by injecting the chemical solution through reservoir core until an equilibrium state was reached. The dynamic method better described the adsorption process and the result was more reliable. Dynamic adsorptions were about 10 to 13 times lower than static adsorption. Further studies incorporating surface area, grain size, accessible pore volume and mineralogy including clay type were required to build robust correlation from static to dynamic adsorption.
Surfactant Flooding in Challenging Conditions: Towards Hard Brines and High Temperatures
Tabary, R.. (1The Chemical EOR Alliance: IFP Energies nouvelles) | Bazin, B.. (1The Chemical EOR Alliance: IFP Energies nouvelles) | Douarche, F.. (1The Chemical EOR Alliance: IFP Energies nouvelles) | Moreau, P.. (2Solvay) | Oukhemanou-Destremaut, F.. (2Solvay)
Abstract Surfactant flooding processes become challenging in hard brines and/or at high temperatures. When hard brine is used as surfactant make-up brine (injection brine), chemical adsorption is high using conventional injection strategies. This makes the overall process performance limited. High temperature (>80ยฐC) raises thermal stability issues with subsequent loss of effectiveness. This paper illustrates recent progresses achieved in those difficult conditions. We show that good performances can be obtained by combining appropriate formulations with adapted injection strategies, i.e. slugs design, depending on reservoir conditions. A particular emphasis is set on solutions that can be applied in the field. High performances solutions first rely on selecting appropriate surfactants and polymers from an extended portfolio of industrial products. We demonstrate that ultra-low interfacial tension formulations can be successfully designed for a wide range of conditions, i.e. from mild to difficult conditions, including very hard brines, very high salinities (>200 g/L) and/or high temperatures (up to 120ยฐC). Various coreflood experiments are then reviewed to define guidelines to address challenging conditions: Starting from mild conditions, i.e. soft brine at moderate temperature, we show that performance of surfactant flooding relies on the combination of properly designed chemical formulation and appropriate injection strategy. In soft brine, a salinity gradient is shown to provide high performance; In hard brines, surfactant adsorption is significantly higher than in soft brines. We demonstrate that a conventional salinity gradient injection strategy becomes ineffective when hardness is increased. Surfactant adsorption is drastically reduced (<0.2 mg/g) when using appropriate adsorption inhibitors. This results in a very high oil recovery (~90 %ROIP) with performances comparable to the one achieved in soft brine conditions; For high temperatures (>70โ80ยฐC), adapted protocols are required to address thermal stability issues and subsequent loss of performances. New surfactants, polymers and additives are available to address these conditions. Successful oil recovery experiments done up to 120ยฐC are discussed. The paper will demonstrate how surfactant flooding can be successfully applied in challenging reservoir conditions opening new opportunities for chemical EOR.
- Asia (0.68)
- North America > United States > Missouri (0.28)
Experimental Studies of Surfactant Adsoption Under Conditions of ASP Flooding at West Salym Field
Volokitin, Y. E. (Salym Petroleum Development N.V.) | Koltsov, I. N. (Salym Petroleum Development N.V.) | Evseeva, M. Ya. (Salym Petroleum Development N.V.) | Nurieva, O. A. (Gazpromenft NTC) | Akhatov, I. S. (Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology) | Kovaleva, L. A. (Bashkortostan State University) | Zinnatullin, R. R. (Bashkortostan State University) | Mavletov, M. V. (Bashkortostan State University) | Kudasheva, F. H. (Bashkortostan State University)
Abstract To minimize risks related to ASP flooding at West Salym field, experiments have to be carried out to study surfactant adsorption in the formation. Initially one should develop a necessary and sufficient list of experiments, as well as their conditions and interpretation of results. Therefore, two objectives were set: 1) determine the adsorption of anionic surfactant blend in static conditions adding NaCl, Na2CO3, and polymer within the working range of concentrations; 2) determine the adsorption rate of an ASP formulation in coreflood experiments for water- and oil-saturated cores under formation temperatrue. The main reliability criterion for the results was the reproducibility of the surfactants adsorption experiments and achieving adsorption values within confidence interval. That is why, development of the methods that allow both to achive reproducibility of the results, and to identify sensitivity factors, is a critical aspect of the experiments. The work presents an interpretation of the experiments for subsequent modeling of processes using mathematic simulators with the view to evaluate surfactant losses in formation during ASP flooding. The achieved results allow further optimization of the ASP cocktail and return a realistic value for surfactant losses in the course of its filtration, as well as ascertain the economic risks inherent to the project.
- Research Report > New Finding (0.41)
- Research Report > Experimental Study (0.41)