No abstract

Amino acid-based surfactants (AASs) and other novel surfactants have recently gained attention to provide a favorable environmental image (“green”) in surfactant application. Yet their potential in enhancing oil recovery is not well investigated. Only a few works have been reported on their potential enhanced oil recovery (EOR) application with less satisfactory results. Here in, sodium cocoyl alaninate (SCA), an acylated amino acid with excellent properties that facilitate its application in other fields, is investigated for its EOR potential. Its effectiveness in lowering the interfacial tension and the emulsifying crude oil–brine mixture were studied. The ability to alter rock surface wettability and its adsorption behavior on the sand surface were studied as well. Then, its oil recovery potential was confirmed through a core displacement experiment. All studies were performed in comparison with conventionally deployed sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The critical micelle concentrations for SCA (CMC = 0.23 wt%) and SDS (CMC = 0.21 wt%) were close, which serves as a good basis for comparing their EOR potential. SCA proved to be more effective in IFT reduction attaining a minimum IFT of 0.069 mN/m (i.e., ~ 98.8% IFT reduction) compared to 0.222 mN/m of SDS (i.e., ~ 96.2% IFT reduction) at the same concentration. Salinity showed a synergistic effect on the interfacial properties of both SCA and SDS but had a more significant impact on SDS interfacial properties than SCA due to low salt tolerance of SDS. The low IFT attained by SCA yielded enhanced emulsion formation and stable emulsion both at 25 °C and 80 °C for a period of one week. SCA also altered quartz surface wettability better via reduction of contact angle by 94.55% compared to SDS with contact angle reduction of 87.51%. The adsorption data were analyzed with the aid of various adsorption isotherm models. The adsorption behavior of SCA and SDS could be best described by the Langmuir model. This means a monomolecular surfactant layer exists at the aqueous–rock interface. SDS also exhibited more severe adsorption on the sand surface with the maximum adsorption density of 15.94 mg/g compared to SCA with the maximum adsorption density of 13.64 mg/g. The core flood data also confirmed that SCA has a better oil recovery potential than SDS with an additional oil recovery of 29.53% compared to 23.83% of SDS. This additional oil recovery was very satisfactory compared to the performance of other AAS that have been studied. This study therefore proves that SCA and other AAS could be outstanding alternatives to conventional EOR surfactants owing to their excellent EOR potential in addition to their environmental benign nature.

No abstract

Even though the black shales in Peninsular Malaysia covered a quarter of the total surface area and have been overlooked for their economic potential except few workers have evaluated their thermal maturity using rock-eval pyrolysis, vitrinite reflectance analysis and illite crystallinity. According to these research works, the shales have been categorized into immature, mature and overmatured successions, which in turn dictated the exploration activities of commercially viable shale gas in the onshore Peninsular Malaysia. In this work, published and unpublished data on the scattered black shales of Peninsular Malaysia were examined to assess exploration potential of shales from various stratigraphic windows. Thus, using comparative evaluation of all the thermal history plots of the black shales from Peninsular Malaysia; areas of thermally matured source rocks are identified. According to the thermal maturation assessment; the Palaeozoic black shales in the Peninsular Malaysia have minimal generative potential for economically viable source rock for hydrocarbon, whereas the younger successions of Oligocene to Miocene have considerable potential to serve as source rocks of feasible prospect, provided permissible geological settings are met.

Peninsular Malaysia is made up of three fundamental stratigraphic belts; the Central Belt, the Eastern Belt, and the Western Belt with little data on their shale lithologies. The Belata Formation is situated in the Western Belt and is at the southernmost part of Tanjung Malim in the Perak State bordering the Selangor State. Belata Formation falls in between the Terolak and the Karak formations to the north and south respectively. Six Carboniferous shale outcrops were discovered during fieldwork. Outcrop description, sample collection, and laboratory studies were conducted on the Belata Formation. The outcrops include shales that range from black to grey. For laboratory investigation, twenty-two samples were obtained from the shale outcrops. Total organic carbon (TOC) analyses carried out on the samples revealed an average of 3.4 wt. %. The black color is possibly introduced in these shales because of organic matter incorporated in the sediments. Hence, these shales tentatively could be regarded as potential shale gas exploration targets in the Peninsular. However, the effect of the regional rnetarnorphisrn which affected the Sibumasu Terrane should be considered even though shales are not affected by contact metamorphism due to their distance further away from the granitic intrusions.