An Experimental Study of Surfactant Polymer for Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery Using a Glass Micromodel by Adding Nanoclay

Abstract

The nanotechnology has been widely used in several other industries, and the interest in the oil industry is increasing. Nanotechnology has the potential to profoundly change enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and to improve mechanism of recovery, and it chosen as an alternative method to unlock the remaining oil resources and applied as a new EOR method in last decade. Conventional production procedures give access to on average only one-third of the original oil in place, the use of surfactants and polymers allows for recovery of up to another third of this oil. Chemical flooding is of increasing interest and significance due to high oil prices and the need to increase oil production. Objective of this research is Identification of potential of nanoclay as an appropriate agent for improving the efficiency of surfactant polymer flooding in five-spot glass micromodels. In this work a series of solvent injection experiments was conducted on horizontal glass micromodels at same conditions. Observations showed that in the case of nanoclay concentration, the nanoparticles concentration increased the slope of recovery curve and consequently improved the final oil recovery. Also, the results of experiments illustrated that improvement of heavy oil recovery in micromodel test with nanoclay (60.6%).

Keywords:

• nanoclay
• micromodel
• enhanced oil recovery
• surfactant polymer flooding
• nanoparticles