Publications

Oil production in Indonesia is currently experiencing a downward trend of 6% per year. One of the causes is that 90% of Indonesia's total oil production is generated from fields more than 30 years old. It takes considerable investment to slow the rate natural decline and one of the approaches, is the use of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods. Due to its geological setting and the age of the oil production field, Jambi sub basin becomes one of the more suitable locations for EOR development projects. This experiment used chemical surfactant from Methyl Ester Sulfonate with 1-Butanol (Cosurfactant) and bio-surfactant from Clostridium tyrobuyticum. These investigation are compared to evaluate the best result by injecting oil samples directly from selected fields to experimental laboratory scale models. Experimental work is complemented by several literature studies. Based on geological characteristics, the Jambi Sub Basin production comes from the sandstone of the Air Benakat Formation which is characterized by sandstone beds increasing in abundance towards to the top of the formation. The thickness of Air Benakat formation ranges from 1000 to 1500 m thick. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that oil recovery reached 75% of total oil in the reservoir model. It can be concluded, chemical surfactant is more suitable than bio-surfactant in accordance with the geological conditions of the Jambi sub basin. Bio-surfactant has potential to be further developed, but larger amount are required than chemical surfactant.