Spotlight on the New Natural Surfactant Flooding in Carbonate Rock Samples in Low Salinity Condition

Abstract

Recently, utilization of surfactant for EOR purposes in carbonate petroleum reservoirs has received the attention of many researchers. Surfactants generally appear to improve oil production through wettability alteration and reduction of interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water phases. Loss of surfactant due to adsorption process is considered as an unfavorable phenomenon in surfactant flooding while conducting an EOR operation. In this study, a new plant-derived surfactant, called Zyziphus Spina Christi (ZSC), with various magnitudes of salinity is employed. The adsorption behavior of this surfactant is investigated using the conductivity approach to explore the impacts of salt concentration on adsorption rate through batch tests. Core flooding tests are also conducted to study the effects of surfactant/salinity on recovery factor and relative permeability. Employing the kinetics and isotherm models, MgCl2 and KCl exhibit the greatest and lowest influence on the adsorption phenomenon, respectively. It is also concluded that the pseudo-second order kinetics and Freundlich isotherm model can satisfactorily describe the adsorption behavior of the surfactant onto carbonates in the presence of salt for the kinetics and equilibrium tests conditions, respectively. According to the production history, it is found that increasing surfactant concentration leads to a considerable increase in oil relative permeability and consequently improvement of oil recovery.