Dilute Surfactant flooding is one of the significant processes in chemical flooding. Many oil reservoirs became appropriate candidates for surfactant/water flooding when screening criteria developed. Injected surfactant tries to mobilize the residual oil that was trapped in interstice. The main contributing mechanism for oil recovery improvement by surfactant flooding is rock wettability alteration. Wettability is a one of the proper index in choosing the best approach for a successful surfactant flooding which tiny change in wettability alteration will lead to improve oil recovery.
This experimental study investigated the effect of different aging time and temperature on wettability alteration with exact soaking time to find the optimum condition. Afterwards, coreflooding experiments were performed to determine the impact of dilute cationic surfactant slug with huff ‘n’ puff(cyclic 7 days) method on displacement sweep efficiency in the carbonate core from one of the Iranian oil field. Besides, contact angle and interfacial tension (IFT) measurements were done to provide the supplementary data for a surfactant/waterflooding. The optimum concentrations of C19tab, were determined by measuring interfacial tension values of the crude oil in contact with surfactant solutions, which were prepared from synthetic saline water.
The results obtained from laboratory showed a reduction in residual oil saturation by changing contact angle and IFT reduction between oil and water. Aging is known as important parameter for researcher to alter the wettability. Furthermore it proves effect of wettability alteration is more than IFT reduction.
