Application of palm methyl ester sulfonate as green surfactant for interfacial tension and wettability alteration for enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

Oil productions keep depleting due to production problems such as high surface tension and interfacial tension reservoirs. Therefore, chemical flooding is one of the methods used in enhanced oil recovery. Injection of surfactant into an exhausted hydrocarbon (HC) reservoir is one method of lowering remaining oil saturation and thereby increasing crude oil production. These industrial and chemical substances may pose some economic and environmental risks. Stability under hard (or normal) reservoir conditions and excessive adsorption are still problems with surfactant flooding. The Palm (MES), and the synergy between (MES) and Sodium Carbonate has been proposed as a compound for chemical flooding in enhanced oil recovery in this project. The major aim of this study was to measure the effectiveness of Palm (MES), and the synergization between (MES), and Na2CO3 in oil recovery using chemical flooding. After the synergization of surfactant with alkali solution take place, the surface tension and interfacial tension test have been conducted to identify the optimum concentration when various concentrations have been used. The results showed that the optimum concentration for MES is 2000 ppm with surface tension (ST) and interfacial tension (IFT) are 38.5 and 10mN/m respectively. When the Sodium Carbonate alkali were added, it showed that 5000 ppm was the optimum concentration with reduction in surface tension and IFT to 36.5 and 8 mN/m respectively. Palm (MES), and Synergy of Palm (MES) with Na2CO3 changed the oil- wet sandstone to water-wet, and Palm (MES) droplet the contact angle from 960 to 340, and Palm (MES) with Na2CO3 changed the contact angle from 960 to 250. The 5000ppm brine and paraffin oil have been injected into the sand pack followed by waterflooding and chemical flooding to measure the oil recovery. The results from the experiment presented that the oil recovery for waterflooding were in between 27% to 31% therefore, more oil left in the sand pack. Then, surfactant with alkali solution was injected with 5000 ppm of brine as a slug as tertiary recovery. It showed that after Palm (MES) solution the oil recovery increase up to 48%, but after injection of Palm (MES) and alkali the oil recovery increase up to 53%. As a conclusion, it is proved that the synergization of Palm (MES) and Sodium Carbonate is applicable for chemical flooding as tertiary recovery because it can recover up to 68% of oil production.