Alkaline Surfactant Polymer Flooding using a Novel Class of Large Hydrophobe Surfactants

Abstract

With recent advances in Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) flooding, the demand for high performance EOR surfactants is rapidly increasing. This is accompanied by the need for a diverse raw material base. We have successfully developed and tested a novel class of hydrophobes for anionic surfactants that satisfy this need at low cost. The hydrophobe for these novel surfactants is Tristyrylphenol (TSP), which is based on the petrochemical feed stocks, phenol and styrene. TSP based surfactants have unique structural features that can be exploited to fit many EOR surfactant needs. We illustrate the performance of this class of TSP surfactants for a waxy crude oil with a high acid number. Selecting a formulation proved difficult due to the high molecular weight of the crude. The TSP surfactant has four benzene rings that enhanced the solubility of the heavy components of the crude oil, including asphaltenes, making it an attractive choice. The dead crude oil was diluted with either decalin or cyclohexane to match the equivalent alkane carbon number (EACN) of the live crude oil. The TSP alkoxy sulfate molecules with varying lengths of propoxy (PO) and ethoxy (EO) chains were tested in microemulsion phase behavior experiments in order to obtain ultra-low IFT at optimum salinity with low microemulsion viscosities. The ASP formulation was successfully tested in reservoir core floods using both surrogate oil and live oil.

Nanoparticle Formation in Stable Microemulsions for Enhanced Oil Recovery Application

“…Formation of viscous phase inside the glass tube prevented mixing of water and oil phases (Figure b). Generally, the viscous structure do not transport well in porous media under low pressure gradients, and often results in high surfactant retention and low oil recovery. , Evidence such as larger average droplets size and formation of viscous phase implies a weak synergistic effect for O332-XOF blend in comparison to other ones. To sum up, identification and screening of synergic effect between surfactant blends is a vital step before utilization of blend for the chemical flooding process including surfactant solution, ME, and ME-NPs for EOR application.…”

Dialkyl Sulfobetaine Surfactants Derived from Guerbet Alcohol Polyoxypropylene–Polyoxyethylene Ethers for SP Flooding of High Temperature and High Salinity Reservoirs

“…Meanwhile, the adsorbed monolayer has a smooth polarity transition along the molecule from the oil‐side to the water‐side, which enhances the interactions of surfactants with both oil and water and thereby improves their interfacial activity (Salager et al, 2019). Up to now many surfactants with inserted PO‐EO chains for EOR purposes have been reported, which are mostly anionic, including sulfates, sulfonates, and carboxylates (Adkins et al, 2012; Baek et al, 2019; Liyanage et al, 2012; Lu et al, 2014a, b; Lv et al, 2018; Puerto et al, 2012).…”

Experimental Study on Optimization of Polymer Preslug Viscosity of ASP Flooding in Interlayer Heterogeneous Well Group Artificial Sandstone Core

“…As a major oilfield in China, Daqing Oilfield has entered the stage of tertiary oil recovery with high water cut after 62 years of exploitation [1][2][3]. The development of conventional homogeneous high-permeability reservoirs using alkali/surfactant/polymer (hereinafter referred to as ASP) ternary compound chemical flooding system can enhance oil recovery by more than 20% for water flooding [4][5][6]. In recent years, due to the increasing cost of chemical agents and the application of ASP flooding in heterogeneous reservoirs, the injection mode of multislug chemical agent combination or the multislug alternate injection of chemical agents of different viscosity systems is adopted in the field test area to save costs [7,8].…”