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Interfacial Rheology at the Crude Oil/brine Interface - A Microscopic Insight of SmartWater Flood
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, IOR 2017 - 19th European Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, Apr 2017, Volume 2017, p.1 - 12
Abstract
SmartWater flooding (SWF) has been proven as an effective and successful recovery method for carbonates, in which the injected water alters the carbonate rock wettability to produce incremental oil. Core-scale displacement experiments have demonstrated significant incremental recoveries of SmartWater in both secondary and tertiary modes and single-well chemical tracer tests have demonstrated this potential in the field at a larger scale. Still, the underlying mechanisms responsible for SmartWater wettability alteration of carbonates are not well understood. In this study, we are investigating the effect of salinity and ionic composition on a crude oil monolayer using Langmuir trough technique. Solely ions brines were used (CaCl2, MgCl2, Na2SO4, NaCl) in addition to seawater dilutions. Results confirmed the sensitivity of the interfacial monolayer to brine composition: a salinity decrease increases interfacial compressibility while sulfate and magnesium ions have shown interfaces with higher compressibility compared to sodium and calcium ions. The ultimate goal of this study is to enhance our understanding of carbonate wettability alteration by integrating interfacial rheological properties and its dependency on various parameters. These efforts will ultimately lead to additional oil recovery trough optimization of the fluid/fluid interactions involved in oil/brine/rock systems during SmartWater flooding.