Laboratory characterization of crude oil and sandstone reservoir for chemical enhanced oil recovery

Abstract

Purpose Because of the increasing global oil demand, efforts have been made to further extract oil using chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) methods. However, unlike water flooding, understanding the physicochemical properties of crude oil and its sandstone reservoir makeup is the first step before embarking to CEOR projects. These properties play major roles in the area of EOR technologies and are important for the development of reliable chemical flooding agents; also, they are key parameters used to evaluate the economic and technical feasibilities of production and refining processes in the oil industries. Consequently, this paper aims to investigate various important physicochemical properties of crude oil (specific gravity; American Petroleum Institute [API]; viscosity; pour point; basic sediment and water; wax; and saturate, aromatic, resins and asphaltenes components) and sandstone reservoir makeup (porosity, permeability, bulk volume and density, grain volume and density, morphology and mineral composition and distributions) obtained from Malaysian oil field (MOF) for oil recovery prediction and design of promising chemical flooding agents. Design/methodology/approach Three reservoir sandstones from different depths (CORE 1; 5601, CORE 2; 6173 and CORE 3; 6182 ft) as well as its crude oil were obtained from the MOF, and various characterization instruments, such as high temperature gas chromatography and column chromatography for crude’s fractions identification; GC-simulated distillation for boiling point distribution; POROPERM for porosity and permeability; CT-Scan and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray for morphology and mineral distribution; wax instrument (wax content); pour point analyser (pour point); and visco-rheometre (viscosity), were used for the characterizations. Findings Experimental data gathered from this study show that the field contains low viscous (0.0018-0.014 Pa.s) sweet and light-typed crude because of low sulfur content (0.03 per cent), API gravity (43.1o), high proportion of volatile components (51.78 per cent) and insignificant traces of heavy components (0.02 per cent). Similarly, the rock permeability trend with depth was found in the order of CORE 1 < CORE 2 < CORE 3, and other parameters such as pore volume (Vp), bulk volume (Vb) and grain volume (Vg) also decrease in general. For grain density, the variation is small and insignificant, but for bulk density, CORE 2 records lower than CORE 3 by more than 1 per cent. In the mineral composition analysis, the CORE 2 contains the highest identified mineral content, with the exception of quarts where it was higher in the CORE 3. Thus, a good flow crude characteristic, permeability trend and the net mineral concentrations identified in this reservoir would not affect the economic viability of the CEOR method and predicts the validation of the MOF as a potential field that could respond to CEOR method successfully. Originality/value This paper is the first of its kind to combine the two important oil field properties to scientifically predict the evaluation of an oil field (MOF) as a step forward toward development of novel chemical flooding agents for application in EOR. Hence, information obtained from this paper would help in the development of reliable chemical flooding agents and designing of EOR methods.