Contents

❑ Introduction.
❑ Polymer Flooding.
❑ Surfactant Flooding.
❑ Alkaline Flooding.
❑ Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) Flooding.

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Introduction

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• There are FOUR common types of chemical EOR
methods namely:
1. Polymer Flooding.
2. Surfactant Flooding.
3. Alkaline Flooding.
4. Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) Flooding.

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• To understand each method of chemical EOR,
Advantages, disadvantages, Injection process of
chemicals into the formations and suitable
conditions to be applied have to be considered.
• To do chemical flooding in EOR, new wells have to be
drilled for injection.

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 Polymer Flooding

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 Mechanism

Injecting of chemical materials into the reservoir

(polymer) in order to stop or reduce water production by
increasing its viscosity and there for reduce the mobility
ratio and enhance oil production.

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• The description of the process is to inject polymer
into the formation, followed by water injection for
the purpose of sweep efficiency where it acts like a
piston, polymer has the ability to create oil bank to
increase oil recovery.
• Polymer injection to control mobility ratio, water
injection to improve the sweep efficiency.

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• If water is only injected and due to reservoir
heterogeneity, the swept area will be less and but by
adding polymer the mobility is controlled.

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 Advantages

• Reducing water production by increasing its viscosity.

• Mobility control and flow pattern control.

• Sweep efficiency improvement.

• Lower cost compared with other chemical EOR

methods.

• Recovery factor RF increases.

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 Disadvantages

• High water salinity (if it is more than 100,000 ppm) it

changes and reacts with the polymer composition
leads to adsorption.

• Fracture presence leads to loosing of polymers into

the adjacent formations.

• Presence of clays and strong aquifer results in

polymer adsorption.

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 Conditions to be Applied

• Water-Oil Ratio (WOR) <10, this reason is important

due to polymer is used where water production is high
but before WOR becomes excessively high.

• Clays are undesirable due to adsorption of the polymer.

• Aquifer strength has to be either week or moderate,

polymer flooding is affected by strong aquifer.

• Relatively low oil viscosity.

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• Water salinity and hardness has to be low due to the
effect on the polymer composition.

• If there is a reservoir (sandstone) with high

heterogeneity, polymer can control the flow patterns.

• Relatively low reservoir temperature, to avoid chemical

degradation.

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 Surfactant Flooding

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 Mechanism
• It stands for Surface active agents.
• It is the injection of surfactant into the formation
targeting the surface between oil-water to break the
attractive forces between them (IFT) by producing
soaps at the contact reducing residual oil saturation in
addition to wettability change from oil wet to water
wet, followed by polymer injection to enhance the
sweep efficiency and control the mobility as well as to
stabilize the flow pattern.

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Usually Co-solvents such as alcohol (low molecular weight)
are injected with surfactant:
• In many surfactant systems high viscosity liquid
crystals, emulsions and gels are observed alcohol is
used to break it.
• The optimum salinity can be adjusted by alcohol.
• Alcohol can eliminate the polymer-surfactant
incompatibility.

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 Advantages
• Reduce IFT and work as emulsifier between oil and
water.

• Sor reduction to a very minimum value, which

immediately leads to increase in the recovery factor.

• Wettability change from oil to water wet.

• Trapped (bypassed) oil is produced.

• Injection of polymer leads to pattern flow stabilization

and mobility control.
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 Disadvantages
• Complex process.

• Expensive compared to alkaline and polymer.

• Incompatibility between surfactant-polymer in case of

no co-solvent is used.

• Degradation of surfactant and polymer in case of high

reservoir temperature.

• Strong aquifer leads to both surfactant and polymer

adsorption.
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 Conditions to be Applied
• High remaining oil (Sor).

• Relatively homogeneous formation with no fractures is

preferred.

• High WOR but not excessive < 10.

• Low reservoir temperature to avoid surfactant

degradation.

• Weak to moderate aquifer strength to avoid surfactant

adsorption in the formation during the flooding
process.
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 Alkaline Flooding

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 Mechanism
• Alkaline or caustic flooding is another method by which
oil displacement efficiency can be improved.

• The basic alkaline flooding process starts with injection

of alkaline solution of about 10 to 30 percent PV pore
volume.

• Then followed by injection of a polymer slug behind the

alkaline solution to control mobility.

• lastly followed by water injection to improve sweep

efficiency.
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• The reaction between alkaline and formation oil results
in soaps production at the contact between oil-water
phases, there for IFT is reduced as well as Sor by
producing more trapped oil all of that happens due to
in-situ production of surfactant.

• Alkaline flooding is used in case of high acidity oil.

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 Advantages

• IFT reduction by producing soaps at the contact

between oil and water where oil contains high amount
of acids.
• Sor reduction due to more oil production and RF
increases.
• Mobility reduction, sweep efficiency enhancement and
pattern flow control due to using of polymer injection
behind alkaline flooding.
• Simple and cheap EOR method.
• Wettability change from oil to water wet due to the in-
situ production of surfactant.
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 Disadvantages

• Low recovery factor compared to other chemical EOR

methods.

• Degradation of alkaline in case of high reservoir

temperature.

• Alkaline adsorption in case of strong water aquifer.

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 Conditions to be Applied

• High acid content in oil reservoir.

• High remaining oil Sor.

• Low clay content.

• Low reservoir temperature to avoid alkaline

degradation.

• Weak to moderate aquifer strength to avoid alkaline

adsorption.
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 ASP Flooding

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 Mechanism

• ASP stands for Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer flooding.

• it is the injection of a mixture contains the three

chemical EOR methods.

• The mixing process is usually prepared at the surface in

addition to adding water to the mixture, then it is
injected into the reservoir in order to enhance the oil
production and increase the recovery factor.

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• Alkaline is used to reduce IFT by producing soaps at
the contact between oil-water phases, then followed
by surfactant flooding which is used to reduce Sor as
well as change the wettability from oil to water wet,
polymer is used to control the flow patterns in case of
reservoir heterogeneity is existed and water is used to
improve the sweep efficiency.

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 Advantages

• High recovery factor since all of alkaline, surfactant

and polymer are used.

• Wettability change from oil to water wet.

• Reduce Sor to the minimum values.

• Improve the sweep efficiency by injecting polymer.

• Less adsorption in ASP process.

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 Disadvantages

• Incompatibility between polymer, alkaline and

surfactant in case of the unstable mixture.

• Very high cost compared to other EOR methods due to

use ASP then polymer an lastly water injection.

• Complex process, surface preparation problem and

mixture stability.

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 Conditions to be Applied
• High values of remaining oil volume Sor.

• Weak to moderate aquifer strength.

• Low reservoir temperature.

• Light to intermediate oil is favorable.

• Low clay content to avoid chemical adsorption.

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 Total Acid Number

❑ The total acid number (TAN) is a measurement of

acidity that is determined by the amount of
potassium hydroxide KOH in milligrams that is
needed to neutralize the acids in one gram of oil
❑ It is an important quality measurement of crude oil.
❑ It is usually the naphthenic acids in the crude oil that
causes corrosion problems.
❑ The values of TAN is still not acidity oil unless it
reaches 3-4 mg KOH/g of oil.

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