Enhanced Oil Recovery

In this project, student will focused more on chemical processes which is surfactant flooding. In order to drives chemical process, a number of liquid chemicals are used such as surfactants, polymers and hydrocarbon solvents. This process involves the injection of specific liquid chemical that effectively displace oil to reduce the IFT between the displacing oil and liquid. Among chemical flooding methods, surfactant flooding processes are particularly effective for recovering a large fraction of conventional oil (25° API or higher) left in the reservoir after water flood – which could be as much as 60% of the original oil in place. The basic principle behind the use of surfactant flooding is to recover the capillary-trapped residual oil remaining after water flooding by injecting surfactant solution; the residual oil can be mobilized through a strong reduction in the interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water. If the interfacial tension can be reduced between the oil and water, the resistance to flow is definitely reduced. If surfactants are properly selected, a reduction in interfacial tension could be as much as 10-3 dynes/cm, a recovery of 10-20% of the original oil in place, when not producible by other technologies, is technically and economically feasible by surfactant feasible by surfactant flooding.