Study of Surfactant Flooding in Enrich Swelling Mineral Content

Abstract

Surfactant flooding is an enhanced oil recovery process aims to mobilize oil by lowering the interfacial tension between oil and water. Several researches studied the hazardous of surfactant implication in sandstone reservoirs and found various causes, mechanisms and factors affecting it. One of these factors is surfactant loss on sandstone rocks surface. The loss of surfactant attributed to chemo-physical phenomena known as adsorption. The surfactant adsorption increases in the presence of clay mineral.This study aims to address the effect of swelling clay mineral on surfactant flooding insandpacks. Moreover, to predict the oil production and recovery factor after the adsorption. The method used combined two stages: experimental and numerical. The dynamic adsorption experiment was conducted on 5 % montmorillonitesandpack. The effluent concentration reduction examined by UV-vis spectrometer. At the numerical stage, the sand pack was modelled using 1D model with exact physical properties using CMG-STARS.The oil recovery factorof the experiment was 64% compare the simulation results of 69%. The result of this study showed anionic surfactant adsorbed on montmorillonite surface is significant. The surfactant was diminished after 6 pore volume injected. The results should high possibility to apply the surfactant in enrich swelling mineral content.