A STUDY ON ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY USING BIO-SURFACTANT

Abstract

The oil trapped inside the reservoir need to be maximum extracted to meet the ever increasing demand for petroleum products. Primary and secondary flooding results in only one third recovery of oil and the rest remains in the bed. Therefore, tertiary flooding is employed to increase the oil recovery. Tertiary flooding includes flooding of gas, chemical and biochemical. Gas flooding includes CO2 injection, however due to the environmental effects, it is less used these days. Chemical flooding generally include surfactants. In the present study effect of different surfactants, such as Tergitol, Tween 60, Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS), have been studied on enhanced oil recovery. The critical micelle concentration is calculated and set of parameters are created to perform experiments. Further, the effect of salinity, surfactant concentration, and flow rate of fluid injection is reported on enhanced oil recovery. The maximum enhanced oil recovery is found for Tergitol (84.4%), then for SDS (83.21%) and least for that of Tween 60 (81.73%). However, Tergitol forms the most stable emulsion and is difficult to separate while SDS is less stable and can be easily separated to oil and water. Bio-surfactant used in the study is Rhamnolipid. It forms an unstable emulsion which is separated easily by gravity separation. The enhanced oil recovery for Rhamnolipid is found to be 82.81% which is nearly same as those of chemical surfactants.