Interfacial Tension Measurement of Light Oil from Thailand to Enhance Oil Recovery for Surfactant Flooding Application

Abstract

To enhance oil recovery, surfactant flooding is one of the techniques used to reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) between displacing and displaced phases in order to maximize productivity. Due to high salinity of crude oil in the North of Thailand, surfactant flooding is a suitable choice to perform enhanced oil recovery. The objective of this work is to measure the IFT and observe the effects of parameters such as pressure, temperature, concentration and salinity on IFT reduction. In this study, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate is used as surfactant to reduce IFT. The results show that the major factor affecting reduction of IFT is surfactant concentration accounting for 98.1%. IFT reduces with the increase of salinity up to 86.3% and up to 9.6% for temperature. However, pressure has less effect on IFT reduction. The results of this work can apply to increase oil production in the oilfield in the North of Thailand.