Publications

One method utilized in chemical enhanced oil recovery (cEOR) to boost oil production is surfactant flooding. Surfactants work by reducing the Interfacial Tension (IFT) at the interface between oil and water or when the wettability changes from oil-wet to water-wet. Sulfonate surfactants, such as Alkyl Ester Sulfonate (AES), are the most frequently applied surfactants for cEOR. This study aims to investigate AES for chemical injection screening. The study was carried on AES with various concentrations 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0%.at room and reservoir temperature (60ºC). The IFT is used to determine the ability of surfactant to lower the oil/water IFT to 10-3 dyne/cm. Moreover, the IFT that was used to estimate the critical micelle concentration (CMC) for deciding the proper concentration and the concentrations that were chosen are moving on to the following testing step. Phase behavior test were conducted to determine the Winsor Type of surfactant solutions. The test conducted in a period time (210 days). Thermal stability test, adsorption test, and injectivity test of AES are used to determine the stability of surfactant solutions. Based on the surfactants screening, the IFT test showed two lowest (AES) concentrations, 0.3% and 0.5% yield IFT 1.0E-02 and 6.4E-03 dyne/cm, respectively. From behavior analysis, 0.3% and 0.5% inflict Winsor type III in the third and second days consecutively. The AES is in this phase until the 90th day and change to Winsor type I in the 120th to 210th day period for both concentrations. For thermal stability test, the IFT value was degraded in reservoir temperature, the IFT value of 0.5% decreased from 10-3 dyne/cm to 10-1 dyne/cm after 210 days. The adsorption test showed 2,669 µg/gr and 5,226 µg/gr of AES is adsorbed for 0.3% and 0.5% respectively. Injectivity test indicates that residual resistance factor (RRF) at injection rates of 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8 cc/min were 1.17, 1.29, and 1.41. RRF close to 1 clarifies that there will be no plugging after surfactant injection.