Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer Flood: From the Laboratory to the Field

Abstract

After two decades of relative calm, chemical EOR technologies are currently revitalized globally. Techniques such as alkaline surfactant-polymer flooding, originally developed by Shell, have the potential to recover significant fractions of remaining oil at a CO2 footprint that is low compared to, for example, thermal enhanced oil recovery, and they do not depend on a valuable miscible agent such as hydrocarbon gas. On the other hand, chemical EOR technologies typically require large quantities of chemical products such as surfactants and polymers, which must be transported to, and handled safely in, the field. Despite rising industry interest in chemical EOR, until today only polymer flooding has been applied on a significant scale whereas applications of surfactant-polymer (SP) or alkaline surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding were limited to multi-well pilots or to small field scale. Next to the oil price fluctuations of the past two decades, technical reasons that discouraged the application of chemical EOR are excessive formation of carbonate or silica scale and of strong emulsions in the production facilities. Having identified significant target oil volumes for ASP flooding, Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), supported by Shell Technology Oman, carried out a sequence of single-well pilots in three fields, sandstone and carbonate, to assess the flooding potential of tailor-made chemical formulations under real subsurface conditions, and to quantify the benefits of full- field ASP developments. The paper discusses the extensive design process that was followed. Starting from a description of the optimisation of chemical phase behaviour in test tubes as well as core-flood experiments, we elaborate how the key chemical and flow properties of an ASP flood are captured to calibrate a comprehensive reservoir simulation model. Using this model we evaluate PDO's single-well pilots and demonstrate how these results are used to design a pattern-flood pilot.

Review of surfactant-assisted chemical enhanced oil recovery for carbonate reservoirs: challenges and future perspectives

“…Additionally, alkali and surfactant may cause corrosion, the formation of a persistent and stable emulsion between injected chemicals and oil and, most importantly, scaling (Bataweel and Nasr-El-Din 2011;Stoll et al 2010).…”

Synthesis and characterization of an associative polymer with an octylphenyl polyoxyethylene side chain as a potential enhanced‐oil‐recovery chemical

“…Chemical injection with polymers, such as polymer flooding, polymer–surfactant flooding, and alkali–polymer–surfactant flooding, is one efficient type of EOR technology that reduces the mobility between water and crude oil, and improves oil recovery in old oil fields. In addition, in recent years, these technologies have been applied to other difficult to explore reservoirs, such as offshore oil fields, heavy oil pools, and reservoirs with higher temperatures and salinities …”

Alkali/Surfactant/Polymer Flooding in the Daqing Oilfield Class II Reservoirs Using Associating Polymer

“…ASP flooding is the chemical flooding method that gives the highest oil recovery rate [1][2][3][4][5]. Despite the controversies on its technical and economic feasibilities [6,7], pilot on-site experiments and examination of its industrial application are continuously carried out [8][9][10][11][12]. The technical issues of ASP flooding mainly include (1) formation damage due to the use of strong base, (2) scale buildup in the injection and production equipment, and (3) difficulties in processing the produced fluid [13][14][15].…”