Surfactants in Enhanced Oil Recovery

Petroleum provides the main energy supply to the world. Within the past 30 years, crude
oil price has been increasing due to the ever-increasing demand for more energy
resources. This has given way to recover more oil from existing resources as primary and
secondary recovery can only recover one-third of the Original-Oil-in-Place (OOIP).
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) implies oil recovery beyond the conventional recovery
stages of primary or secondary recovery.
The title of this report is Surfactants in Enhanced Oil Recovery, the main objective of the
project is to evaluate commercially available surfactant products for their potential as
wettability modifier and interfacial tension reducer by performing spontaneous imbibition
test on cores. Other objectives include literature review on current EOR initiatives and
opportunities in Malaysia and design of spontaneous imbibition cell. A total of 8
preliminary screening tests and 6 second stage test has been conducted to screen 6
commercially available surfactants. The experimental work done has proven that certain
surfactants can increase the recovery of oil by altering the wettability from water wet to
oil. With the addition of alkali, the recovery factor is higher. Recommendations for future
work include conducting the experiments at real reservoir temperature for higher
accuracy results and using chemical systems with different concentrations of surfactants
diluted with different solvent to compare the best system for highest recovery of oil.
The first part of the report gives the background studies of the project with a brief
overview of Malaysia oil and gas industry and EOR status in Malaysia. First part also
includes problem statement and objectives of the project. Second part of the report
detailed on the literature review on mechanisms involve in chemical EOR and chemistry
of surfactants as a potential wettability modifier and interfacial tension reducer. Third
part of the report focus on the experimental work, the experimental procedure,
equipments and chemicals used, design of imbibition cell and discussions of the results
obtained. The recommendations and conclusions are made in the last part of the report.