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Low salinity water (LSW) flooding alters rock surface wettability toward more water wetness, and consequently, oil recovery will be increased from a carbonate oil reservoir. Surfactant flooding and polymer flooding enhance oil recovery by oil–water interfacial tension (IFT) reduction and water–oil mobility ratio change, respectively. In this study, a combination of LSW and two non-ionic natural surfactants for enhanced oil recovery was evaluated. Four types of salts (CaCl2, MgCl2, Na2SO4, and MgSO4) at different concentrations in distilled water were used to find optimal LSW based on contact angle (CA) reduction. Two non-ionic natural surfactants (a new natural surfactant from Gemini surfactants (GS) family and Tribulus terrestris surfactant) were applied to obtain their optimum concentration based on IFT reduction. The minimum IFT was achieved in 2000 ppm of GS (4.06 mN/m) and 3000 ppm of TTS (6.21 mN/m). Experimental results showed that the presence of GS in low salinity surfactant solution (1000 ppm of MgSO4 and 2000 ppm GS) is capable to reduce IFT (to 1.02 mN/m) and CA (to 31.25°). Therefore, GS showed good results in IFT improvement and wettability alteration. Finally, the optimal LSS was combined with different concentrations of PHPA polymer and injected into cores. Core flooding results demonstrated 69.7% oil recovery for LSW injection, 82.2% for low salinity GS injection (an increase of 12.5%) and 87.9% for low salinity GS-polymer injection (an increase of 5.7%).

In-situ combustion is a thermal enhanced recovery method which has been considered by many researches in recent years. In this study, six samples of Iranian crude oil were selected to inves...

In the modeling of thermal recovery processes of heavy oil, it is important to know the oil primary relative permeability in the reservoir; moreover we have to be aware of effects of the temperature on oil relative permeability as well. In this study, a sand pack of quartz (SiO2) has been used to simulate and make a porous medium. Quartz is naturally water wet. During experiments there was no change in the pore volume of the media at different temperatures because of the low expansion coefficient of quartz. The fluid used in experiments is engine oil 50. Glass pipes with length of 91cm and diameter of 2.6cm have been used in the experiments. At first, columns have been filled with sand, which sand grains had different diameters, then carbon dioxide was injected to the columns to deplete the air in the pores , then the porous media have been saturated with water to calculate the porosity using the scale model. In addition according to Darcys law in steady state, the absolute permeability was calculated. In the next step, oil was injected to columns until the water saturation reached connate water saturation and finally, water injection was begun to get residual oil saturation (Sor). Experiments results showed that increase of temperature increases the oil relative permeability, note that wetability was constant. Increasing the temperature decreases the oil viscosity then this reduction causes the fluid to move easier and its velocity increases as well.

Transport of particle suspensions in oil reservoirs is an essential phenomenon in many oil industry processes. Solid and liquid particles dispersed in the drilling fluid (mud) are trapped by the rock (porous medium) and permeability decline takes place during drilling fluid invasion into reservoir resulting in formation damage. The formation damage due to mud filtration is explained by erosion of external filter cake. Nevertheless, the stabilization is observed in core floods, which evidences internal erosion. A new mathematical model for detachment of particles is based on mechanical equilibrium of a particle positioned on the internal cake or matrix surface in the pore space. In the current work the analytical solution obtained for mud filtration with one particle capture mechanism with damage stabilization. The particle torque equilibrium is determined by the dimensionless ratio between the drag and normal forces acting on the particle. The maximum retention function of the dimensionless ratio closes system of governing equations for colloid transport through porous medium.