Immiscible Foam for Enhancing Oil Recovery: Bulk and Porous Media Experiments

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports a laboratory study of foam for improving immiscible gas flooding. The study is relevant for both continuous and Water Alternating Gas (WAG) injection schemes. The effect of oil on the longevity of nitrogen and air foams was studied in bulk for a selected set of surfactants. Foam heights were measured in a glass column as a function of time, in the absence and presence of mineral and crude oils. From the column experiments it was found that foam longevity increases as the carbon chain length in the oil molecule increases, i.e. foam is more stable for higher viscosity oils. A surfactant formulation that gave the most stable foam in the presence of oil was used in the core-floods. Oil recovery with CO2 and with N2 foams from natural sandstone cores was studied with the aid of X-ray Computed Tomography, varying the injection rates, foam quality and surfactant concentration. The core-floods revealed that foam increases the oil recovery by as much as 20% of the oil initially in place (OIIP) over water flooding while injection of gas increased oil recovery by 10% only. Thus, foam adds up to 10% additional recovery on top of gas injection. This confirms that foam is potentially an efficient Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method.