Contents

• 1- Introduction

• 2- Chemical Flooding

• 3- Polymer Flooding

• 4- ASP flooding (Alkali surfactant Polymer Flooding)

• 5-Challenges

• 6-Conclusion

1
 Introduction

• 1- Primary Recovery

• Uses natural pressure of the reservoir to push crude oil to the surface
• Allows about 5% to 10% of the oil in the reservoir to be extracted

2
 Introduction

• 2- Secondary Recovery

• • Injects pressurised gas and water to drive the residual crude oil and gas
remaining after the primary oil recovery phase to the surface wells •

• Allows additional 25% to 30% of the oil in the reservoir to be extracted

3
 Introduction

• 3- Tertiary Recovery
• Injects different materials to improve the flow between oil, gas and rock, and
to recover crude oil remaining after the primary and secondary oil recovery
phases •
• Allows additional 20% to 30% of the oil in the reservoir to be extracted

4
Chemical Flooding

5
 Chemical Flooding

• Application of these methods is usually limited by the cost of the chemicals

and their adsorption and loss onto the rock of the oil containing formation
• Due to technical and economic considerations, chemical flooding, especially
polymer flooding and ASP injection, is currently considered as the preferred
tertiary oil recovery technique
• Main segments: – Chemical selected should not affect the physical & chemical
properties of the oilfield. – After chemical flooding, crude oil is extracted, and
the chemical waste,
• oil sludge and water in the residual liquid is then treated according to
environmental protection standards. The treated water is recycled and reused
for tertiary oil recovery and the oil sludge is disposed.

6
 Surfactant Flooding

• Surfactants are usually organic compounds that are amphiphilic, meaning they contain
both hydrophobic groups (tails) and hydrophilic groups (heads).
• Therefore, a surfactant molecule contains either a water insoluble or oil soluble
component and a water soluble component. Depending on the nature of the
hydrophilic group
• surfactants are classified into four (anionic, cationic, zwitterionic and nonionic) groups

7
 Alkali Flooding

• Alkali reduces adsorption of the surfactant on the rock surfaces and reacts with acids in
the oil to create natural surfactant.
• Alkaline chemicals can cause improved oil recovery through the formation of emulsions.
In alkaline flooding,
• emulsification is instant,

8
Polymer Flooding

9
 Polymer Flooding

• In polymer flooding, the polymers used reduces the "surface tension" between
the oil and the oil-containing rock within the oil reservoir, "freeing" the
trapped oil making it easier to flow to the production well(s).
• Polyacrylamide powder or "PAM" is a non-toxic powder that is having long-
chain molecule is used in polymer flooding
• PAM makes the water "gel" greatly improving the production of oil. The water
injected becomes more "viscous" or thick, much like a gel and is particularly
beneficial in heavy oil recovery
• Benefits : – Improved oil recovery – Increased "sweep efficiency" –
Significantly less water required when compared with typical waterflooding &
steam injection – Superior EOR technology with "heavy oil"
formations/reservoirs with low viscosity and where Steam Assisted Gravity
Drainage (SAGD) is not suitable

10
 Polymer Flooding

Polymer solutions behave like Newtonian fluids at very low and at very high
shear rates.
However, at intermediate shear rates they behave as pseudo-plastics obeying the
powerlaw of the dependency of their viscosity on the shear rate. An overall
behavior of polymer solutions in a wide range of shear rates

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Polymer Flooding

12
ASP flooding

13
 ASP flooding

• A chemical enhanced oil recovery flood that uses two sources of surfactant and
a polymer. Alkaline chemicals such as sodium carbonate react with acidic oil
components in situ to create petroleum soap, which is one of the surfactants

.
• A synthetic surfactant is injected simultaneously with the alkali. A water-
soluble polymer is also injected, both in mixture with the alkali and surfactant
and as a slug following the mixture, to increase the viscosity of the injectant,
thereby improving mobility control of the flood fronts

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 Challenges

• New polymers for high temperatures (>90oC )

• Modeling polymer visco-elastic effects

• Low MW polymers for low perm. reservoirs

• Surfactants with low adsorption and other additives

• Low cost and effective emulsion breakers

• New scale prevention technologies

15
 Conclusions

• 1- We can use EOR chemical methods to increase oil recovery

• 2- we need to study the properties of crude oil and reservoir conditions to choose the most suitable
method to use it

• 3- Polymer and surfactant showed great results in oil recovery

• 4- need of study for availability of chemicals and manage its cost

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 References

• 1- file:///C:/Users/DELL/Downloads/eormethods-150718053009-lva1-app6891.pdf

• 2- https://www.glossary.oilfield.slb.com/en/Terms/a/asp_flooding.aspx

• 3-ttps://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/239928/589681_FULLTEXT01.pdf?sequence=1

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