Controlling Gas Mobility in Water-Alternating Gas Injection by Surfactant Blend Formulations
Controlling the viscous fingering in water-alternating gas injection, addition of foam with injection water is more favorable. The use of foam surfactant is one of the potential solutions for reducing the gas mobility. The main objective of this study is
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Abstract Controlling the viscous fingering in water-alternating gas injection, addition of foam with injection water is more favorable. The use of foam surfactant is one of the potential solutions for reducing the gas mobility. The main objective of this study is to generate stable foam for gas mobility control using surfactant blend formulations. Surfactant blend synergistically exhibit better foaming properties than those of individual surfactant. The blend contains anionic as primary surfactant and amphoteric as a foam stabilizer. Surfactant blend improves the foam stability and reduces the destabilizing effect of crude oil. Alpha olefin sulfonate (AOSC14−16) is selected as a primary surfactant. Amphoteric surfactant lauryl amido propyl amine oxide (LMDO) is selected as an additive. The foam was generated in the absence of crude oil in porous media by using Berea sandstone core samples at 96 °C and 1400 psi. The increase in differential pressure showed reduction in gas mobility. The average mobility reduction factors of surfactant blend 0.6%AOS and 0.6% AOS + 0.6%LMDO at reservoir conditions were resulted as 2.5 and 4.35, respectively. The experimental results showed that the blend formulations play an imperative role in minimizing gas mobility during water-alternating gas injection.
Keywords Foam Mobility reduction factor Surfactant-alternating gas
Porous media Surfactant blend
1 Introduction Foam liquid is generally a surfactant solution with a good ability to sweep oil from reservoirs. Foam surfactant flooding can not only improve macro-sweep volume but also improve micro-displacement efficiency [1, 2]. In general, foam flooding can increase the 10–25% of oil recovery [3]. Foam can improve gas injection conformance M.K. Memon (&) K.A. Elraies M.I. Al-Mossawy Petroleum Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 32610 Tronoh, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 M. Awang et al. (eds.), ICIPEG 2016, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3650-7_16
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and gas mobility control and hence improve sweep efficiency in secondary or tertiary recovery processes. Mobility is a measure of the ability of a fluid to move through interconnected pore spaces. Mobility reduction factor (MRF) is the ratio of pressure drop caused by the simultaneous flow of gas and liquid through the rock (core sample) in the presence or absence of surfactant [4–7]. Mathematically, MRF ¼
DpðCO2 with foamÞ DpðCO2 Without foamÞ
or MRF ¼
DpFoam Dpwithout foam
ð1Þ
The MRF mechanism was studied by Sanchez and Schechter in 1989. They suggested MRF increase with increasing pressure. A high pressure increases the number of snap-off sites that generate a higher number of lamellae. A lower surfactant concentration is required at high pressure [8]. Strong stable foam should be needed for reducing CO2 mobility in the porous media. Several published literatures suggested that the strong foam can be generated at relatively high oil satur
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