Macroscopic Scale Interactions of Smartwater with Alkaline Chemicals for Enhanced Oil Recovery in Carbonates

摘要

SmartWater flooding through tuning of injection water salinity and ionic composition is recently gaining good attention for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in carbonates. The development of new hybrid recovery methods by capitalizing on the synergy with SmartWater can provide one potential optimization route for achieving more economic and effective EOR applications in the field. In this experimental investigation, we evaluated the synergy of alkali with SmartWater through interfacial tension and contact angle measurements. These measurements were performed at reservoir conditions (2,500 psi and 70°C) using the crude oil and rock substrates from a carbonate reservoir. The high pH common alkali (NaOH) was used at dilute concentrations of 0.1 wt% in two different SmartWater recipes at a fixed low salinity (5,760 ppm TDS). The SmartWater recipes chosen include; 10-times reduced salinity seawater and low salinity water enriched with sulfates and without the divalent cations together with the seawater as baseline.