Hazim Al-Attar
United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Pet Environ Biotechnol
Water-flooding is considered as the most common method in the secondary recovery phase of field development. Extensive research in recent years on crude oil/brine/rock systems has revealed that the composition of the injected water can change the wetting properties of the reservoir during a water-flood in a favorable way to improve oil recovery. It has also been found that injection of â??smart waterâ? that consists of favorable ionic composition and salinity can act as a tertiary recovery method. The chemical mechanism of wettability alteration that is promoted by the injected water has been a topic for discussion both in carbonates and sandstones. In this work, the interfacial tension (IFT) of oil/brine system was measured at ambient conditions and at high pressurehigh temperature (HPHT) conditions. The brine that exhibited the least IFT was used as the non-wetting phase with aged trims of rock in oil, for the measurement of contact angle at high pressure-high temperature conditions. The results of this work have shown that sea water of salinity 57,539 mg/l should be used as base brine for improved oil recovery process. All the measurements were conducted on carbonates. Extensive IFT and contact angle studies were performed for diluted and sulphate-spiked sea water, but none of those seemed to have the capability of changing the wettability of rock. Because of its least IFT with oil at HPHT and its ability to change rock wettability as indicated by the least contact angle, sea water is considered to be the smart water for use in the EOR flooding for the selected carbonate reservoir.
Email: hazim.alattar@uaeu.ac.ae