Wettability Changes and Interfacial Tension Reduction in Alkali Polymer Flooding of High and Low Tan Number Oils

Abstract

Abstract Injection of chemicals into sandstones could lead to wettability alteration, where oil characteristics such as the TAN (Total Acid Number) may determine the wetting-state of the reservoir. By combining the spontaneous imbibition principle (Amott-Harvey method) and interfacial tension indexers’ evaluations, we propose a workflow and a comprehensive assessment to evaluate wettability alteration and IFT when injecting chemical EOR agents. The study focused on examining the effect of alkaline and polymer solutions (alone) and alkali-polymer. The evaluation focused on comparing the effects of chemical agent injection on wettability and IFT due to: core ageing (non-aged, water-wet and aged, neutral to oil-wet); brine composition (no divalent and with divalent ions); core mineralogy (~2.5% and ~10% Clay) and crude-oil type (Low and high TAN). Amott experiments were performed on cleaned water-wet core plugs as well as on samples with restored oil-wet state. IFT experiments were compared for a duration of 300 minutes. Data was gathered from 48 Amott imbibition experiments with duplicates. IFT and baselines were defined in each case for brine, polymer and alkali on every set of experiments. When focusing on the TAN and aging effects it was observed that in all cases, the early time production is slower and final oil recovery is larger comparing to non-aged core plugs. This data confirms the change of rock surface wettability towards more oil-wet state after ageing and reverse wettability alteration due to chemical injection. Furthermore, application of alkali with high-TAN oil resulted in a low equilibrium IFT. In contrast, alkali alone fails to mobilize trapped low-TAN oil, but causes wettability alteration and neutral-wet state of the aged core plugs. Looking into brine composition, the presence of divalent ions promotes water-wetness of the non- aged core plugs and oil-wetness of the aged core plugs. Divalent ions act as bridges between mineral surface and polar compound of the in-situ created surfactant, hence accelerating wettability alteration. Finally, concerning mineralogy effects, high clay content core plugs are more oil-wet even without ageing. After ageing, a strongly oil-wet behaviour is exhibited. Alkali-polymer is efficient in wettability alteration of oil-wet core plugs towards water-wet state. Three main points are addressed in the paper: A comprehensive methodology to evaluate wettability and IFT changes for different oil and mineralogy types is presentedIn particular, for alkali injection, substantial wettability change effects are observed.For high TAN number oils, wettability and IFT effects can be quantified using the methodology and applied for screening of chemical agents for various rock types.