Abstract
Waterflooding recovers little oil from naturally fractured carbonate reservoirs if the matrix is oil-wet and fracture intensity is high. Laboratory experiments and mechanistic simulations have been conducted to understand the injection of dilute anionic surfactant solutions into oil-wet, fractured reservoirs. In this process, surfactant diffuses into the matrix, lowers IFT and contact angle, which decrease capillary pressure and increase oil relative permeability enabling gravity to drain the oil up. The rate of oil recovery increases with an increase in matrix permeability, a decrease in initial gas saturation, a decrease of fracture height or spacing, and an increase in wettability altering capabilities of the surfactant. Increasing the surfactant concentration does not necessarily enhance the oil recovery rate, because IFT and wettability alterations are not related to surfactant concentration linearly. Adsorption of anionic surfactants on calcite can be suppressed with an increase in pH and a decrease in salinity.
