Investigation of the Effect of ASP Slug Sizes on Oil Recovery

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) flooding is considered as a promising method for enhanced oil recovery since 1980’s. ASP formulations have been developed using defined screening processes established through experiments in labs around the world. Due to recent advances in chemical enhanced oil recovery, surfactant flooding can be used to extend the life of mature reservoirs The objective of this research is to find high performance surfactant formulations and design efficient core floods by comparing ASP slug sizes for Berea sandstone cores with Indonesia X-field oil and brine samples. All of Surfactants were from Aekyung chemical technology company.
Microemulsion phase behavior experiments were conducted to identify best ASP formulation in low salinity condition which is from X-field brine samples.
Finally, a series of coreflooding experiments was performed to evaluate the performance of additional oil recovery after ASP injection. The result indicated that the ASP design with higher PV*C (37) gave more oil produced than lower PV*C (9). Comparison for the same condition of surfactant quantity, the result of oil recovery showed that a lower ASP slug size with higher surfactant concentration better than a higher ASP slug size with lower surfactant concentration.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Chapter 1: Introduction 1
• 1.1 General background and Motivation 1
• 1.2 Summary of chapters 2
• Chapter 2: Concepts and Technique on Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer EOR Process 4
• 2.1 Concepts on Chemical Flood EOR Mechanism 4
• 2.2 Role of ASP-EOR Chemicals 6
• 2.2.1 Alkali 6
• 2.2.2 Surfactant 11
• 2.2.3 Polymer 14
• 2.2.4 Co-solvent 15
• 2.3 Phase Behavior Screening 16
• 2.3.1 Microemulsion Characterization 16
• 2.3.2 Microemulsion and Interfacial Tension 17
• 2.4 Core Flood Design 18
• 2.5 Crude Oil Evaluated 19
• Chapter 3: Experimental Description 20
• 3.1 Phase Behavior Screening Description 20
• 3.1.1 Equipment 20
• 3.1.2 Phase Behavior Experimental Procedure 25
• 3.1.3 Phase Behavior Methodology 26
• 3.1.4 Phase Behavior Data Analysis 28
• 3.2 Core Flood Description 30
• 3.2.1 Core Flood Equipment 30
• 3.2.2 Core Flood Experimental Procedure 36
• 3.2.3 Core Flood Methodology 38
• 3.2.4 Core Flood Data Analysis 42
• Chapter 4: Experimental design and results 50
• 4.1 Development of ASP Formulation for Crude Oil 50
• 4.1.1 Crude Oil 50
• 4.1.2 Reservoir Brines 51
• 4.2 Optimization of ASP Fomulation 53
• 4.2.1 Optimized Surfactant Formulation 53
• 4.3. Coreflooding Experiment 58
• 4.3.1 Berea Sandstone Coreflood A 58
• Formulation for Berea Sandstone Coreflood A 59
• Core Data 59
• Brine Flood 60
• Oil Flood 60
• Waterflood 60
• ASP chemical Flood 60
• Polymer Viscosity 61
• 4.3.2 Berea Sandstone Coreflood B 66
• Formulation for Berea Sandstone Coreflood 66
• Core Data 67
• Brine Flood 67
• Oil Flood 67
• Waterflood 68
• ASP chemical Flood 68
• Polymer Viscosity 68
• 4.3.3 Berea Sandstone Coreflood C 72
• Formulation for Berea Sandstone Coreflood 72
• Core Data 73
• Brine Flood 73
• Oil Flood 73
• Waterflood 74
• ASP chemical Flood 74
• Polymer Viscosity 74
• 4.3.4 Berea Sandstone Coreflood D 78
• Formulation for Berea Sandstone Coreflood 78
• Core Data 79
• Brine Flood 79
• Oil Flood 79
• Waterflood 80
• ASP chemical Flood 80
• Polymer Viscosity 80
• 4.4. Coreflooding Experiment Result and discussion 85
• Chapter 5: Conclusions and Future Work 86
• 5.1. Conclusions 86
• 5.1.1. Summary of phase behavior in Alkali/Surfactant/Polymer 86
• 5.1.2. Summary of results of the ASP Coreflood 87
• 5.2. Future Work 88
• References 89
• 국문초록 95