Adsorption Inhibitors
Description:
With its Adsorption Inhibitor proprietary technology, the EOR Alliance proposes a novel approach to solving the issue of surfactant adsorption in chemical EOR.
Application:
ASP, SP flooding in hard brine, sandstone and carbonate reservoirs.
Results:
Adsorption of surfactants has been reduced by up to 70% in a broad set of reservoir conditions, including hard brine, high temperature and in carbonate reservoirs.
Chemical EOR becomes economically attractive in a broader set of reservoirs, without water softening and alkali.
Issues
- Surfactants used in chemical EOR formulations tend to adsorb on the reservoir rock, which can result in uneconomical quantities of products required.
- This has been addressed traditionally by the use of alkali such as sodium carbonate in combination with injected water softening. However, such treatments can be extremely costly, and unrealistic for high salinity, high hardness injection water, and ineffective in carbonate formations.
- The quantities of alkali required may represent substantial logistics challenges in remote or offshore locations.
In practice, many reservoirs are left outside of the scope of applicability of ASP/SP flooding.
Need
- To relax water specifications in chemical EOR processes.
- To remove the need to build water softening plants.
- To manage the logistics of soda ash.
- To address the specific challenges of surfactant retention in carbonate reservoirs.
Objective
- To identify the best commercially available adsorption inhibitor that will help to reduce the amount of surfactant used in the ASP/SP flooding process.
