Abstract
With the increasing activities in the oil industry more interest is paid to the enhanced oil recovery (EOR). EOR is the area of increasing the producible oil from oil reservoirs. Recently, sea water has been used as a new EOR fluid by tuning its salt content to decrease its salinity and the new water was called low salinity (LowSal) water or smart water. This lead to studying the effect of LowSal water flooding on the recovery factor from oil reservoir due to the thought that LowSal water will interact with the rock surface either by multiple ion exchange or dissolution. Most of the research done confirmed that the presence of anhydrite in the rock is a must for an effective LowSal water flooding as the sulphate ions acts as a catalyst in the rock/fluids interaction. In this study, we will introduce a new chemical EOR method that can be implied in carbonate reservoirs. The new method employed the ability of chelating agent (High pH EDTA, HEDTA) to sequester metal ions in solution and prevent also any solid precipitates in the reservoir. The widely available sea water will be used without any desulphonation processes since there will be no tendency to interact with the formation brine. Coreflooding experiments were performed using carbonate core outcrops at high temperature and different chelating agents' forms and concentrations were used in the flooding process. The results of the coreflooding experiments showed that up to 20% of the original oil in place (OOIP) can be produced by injecting about six pore volumes of 5 wt% chelating-agent/sea water solutions. The increased recovery can be attributed to the dissolution of the carbonate rock surface and liberation of the oil attached to it and in the same time a reduction in the IFT due to the high pH injected fluid (pH=13).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Society of Petroleum Engineers - SPE Saudi Arabia Section Technical Symposium and Exhibition |
Publisher | Society of Petroleum Engineers |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781613993866 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2014 |
Publication series
Name | Society of Petroleum Engineers - SPE Saudi Arabia Section Technical Symposium and Exhibition |
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Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Copyright 2014, Society of Petroleum Engineers.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Fuel Technology