Abstract
Acidic components in crude oil influence the wetting condition through their effect on electrostatic interactions with the mineral surfaces. In this paper, we have extracted water-soluble acids from a crude oil with a high acid number (AN) to study the effect of these acidic materials on the wetting condition. The AN for the original oil was 1.8 mg of KOH/g, while the AN for the oil depleted in water-soluble acids was 1.5 mg of KOH/g. Two crude oils have been studied by a chromatographic wettability test and spontaneous imbibition using seawater as imbibing fluid to determine the differences in the wetting condition and oil recovery. In a spontaneous imbibition process at 110 °C, both the imbibition rate and ultimate recovery were higher in the cores saturated with the oil depleted in water-soluble acids. The difference in the imbibition rate and also ultimate recovery indicates that the carboxylic material from the oil depleted in water-soluble acids can be displaced easily compared to the original oil. ...
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