Impact of Ultra-Low Interfacial Tension on Enhanced Oil Recovery of Ultra-Low Permeability Reservoir

Abstract

Ultra-low permeability reservoirs have the characteristics of complex pore throat structure, generally higher injection pressure and lower oil recovery. By means of casting thin sections, pore structure of selected ultra-low permeability core was surveyed. The core was classified into low porosity, low permeability and without natural fractures. Vast majority of throats of the core varied in width from 2.5 μm to 15 μm. Core displacement experiments showed that surfactant flooding could have certain effect of reducing injection pressure and enhancing oil recovery. When interfacial tension was 5.93×10-2 mN/m, decompression rate reached 7.65%, and recovery was improved by 4.09%. And when interfacial tension was 4.9×10-5 mN/m, decompression rate reached 25%, and recovery was improved by 11.6%. The lower interfacial tension is, the better the effect of reducing injection pressure is, and the higher the extent of enhancing oil recovery is. In general, surfactants have a great application prospect on the oil field development of ultra-low permeability reservoir, and the interfacial tension should be reduced as far as possible. Key words: Low permeability; Surfactant; Interfacial tension; Emulsion; Enhancing oil recovery