Evaluation of Permeability Impairment Due to Surfactant Flooding
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In the course of chemical flooding of crude oil reservoirs with surfactants,
retention of surfactant particles in the pores of the reservoir rock can cause a major reduction
of the reservoir permeability. This can cause serious problems thus unfavourably influencing
the economics of oil recovery. An appropriate assessment of the reduction in permeability is
essential for the recovery of hydrocarbons. During tertiary recovery of crude oil, a critical
evaluation of formation damage is necessary to evade operating costs, as the reservoir rock is
extremely sensitive to chemicals injected. The extent to which permeability is reduced cannot
be comprehensive for core field scales; it is consequently paramount to study the reduction in
the permeability of a core at laboratory scale before field scale estimation. In this paper, an
experimental investigation on the reduction in permeability after surfactant injection cores is
presented. Surfactants were used to flood the core samples. The permeability of the cores was
calculated at the beginning and end of every flood by measuring the differential pressure
during surfactant flooding of the cores. From the results, it is evident that there is a strong
influence of surfactants on the process of adsorption on reservoir rocks and consequently
leading to reduction in permeability.
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TP Chemical technology