oa Effect of clay content on Tertiary oil recovery

This work deals with the study of oil displacement by surfactant slug driven by a protective slug of a polymer solution against the driving water. The study is performed on a dimensionally scaled laboratory model. The used porous medium consists mainly of packed sand, but with variable percentages of clay. The results indicated that the recoverable oil is generally affected by both the surfactant slug concentration and clay content. It is directly proportional to the surfactant slug concentration and inversely to the clay content. An optimum value of surfactant slug concentration at each clay content was also determined. The Tertiary oil recovery of a sandstone reservoir, like that of the Rudeis formation pay zone in July oil field can by increased with increasing the surfactant slug concentration according to three considerations: (1) In the case where the clay content is less than 10%, it is more efficient to use a large pore volume of surfactant slug with low concentration 4–5% (2) For clay content greater than 15%, it is recommended to use a small pore volume of surfactant slug, with high concentration (greater than 5%) to compensate for the surfactant loss and consumption. (3) When clay content exceeds 20%, it is not recommended to use the surfactant polymer flood method.