Performance Evaluation of Microscale Displacement Efficiency of Alkaline Surfactant Polymer Injection in Sandstone Cores

Abstract

The energy industry is saddled with the challenge of meeting up with an ever-increasing global annual energy demand rate. Industry activities over the years have led to an inexorable reservoir production rate decline; hence considerable emphasis is being placed on enhancing the currently available petroleum reserve. Technological advancements have established a way for new assets to be brought to light, based on the effort to improve the recovery of hydrocarbons from a wide variety of fields through Enhanced Oil Recovery. This work focuses on examining the effect of flooding four different light oil saturated sandstone cores, using an alkalinesurfactant-polymer chemical slug to assess the displacement efficiency of the flooding process vis-à-vis some petrophysical properties of the cores. The experiment used Niger Delta Crude Oil, sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as the alkaline, Shell Enordet O242 surfactant and Hengfloc 63020 Polymer, Core samples (Bentheimer, 2 ROBU cores and Berea), and Brine solution. A flow rate 1cc/min was used, and the flooding experiments were done for the four core samples. In the results, it is observed that the ROBU core (Core β) delivered the highest displacement efficiency and best incremental oil recovery. This is closely followed by Bentheimer (Core α), then ROBU (Core γ) despite having the best porosity, before Berea (Core δ). The results show that ASP flooding could be used in a Pilot test on a Niger Delta reservoir similar in Petrophysical properties to the cores used to improve oil recovery.