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Abstract

Summary

The wettability state of mineral surface relative to water and oil is a key factor for crude oil recovery from reservoirs. It appears particularly relevant to EOR by low salinity brine, where changes towards water wettability are looked for.

A very popular way of characterizing the wettability of the rock is through contact angle measurements. Changes in contact angle are most often attributed to the modification of the rock surface affinity to oil. These changes are then attempted to be correlated to oil production with the aim of identifying reservoir conditions favorable to low salinity injection. However, following Laplace-Young's equation, the contact angle can be changed also by a variation in oil-water interfacial tension. This latter effect has been generally overlooked. In this work, the contribution of interfacial tension change to static contact angle variation has systematically been taken into account by calculating the adhesion tension and the work of adhesion of oil to the rock surface. Two other techniques, namely Washburn capillary rise and flotation were used to investigate the correlation with static contact angle measurements. Washburn capillary rise method allowed calculating the ratio of dynamic adhesion tension of octane to water, while flotation was evaluated as a rapid screening method of wettability alteration. Various crude oils were investigated to check the possibility to anticipate the response to low-salinity water flooding from these laboratory experiments. The endogenous surface active species were first transferred from oil to water and then to the solid surface (silica and carbonate). The effect of changes on water composition (salinity, pH) on oil adhesion has been carefully investigated and the efficiency of low salinity brine to decrease the adhesion of oil (i.e. the work of adhesion) to the substrate, i.e. to remove the organic species adsorbed onto the surface, has been evaluated. The importance of running wettability measurements with synthetic brine, previously equilibrated with the crude oil is demonstrated. In particular, it is shown that neglecting changes in pH promoted by the contact with the crude can yield erroneous conclusions.

Two key points are stressed for proper evaluation of the adhesion of crude oil to the mineral at the lab scale in order to be more relevant in selecting reservoirs amenable to the low salinity injection technology.

-Use pre-equilibrated synthetic brines, more representative of reservoir conditions

-Compare the results through the work of adhesion, a quantity of thermodynamic significance, rather than through direct contact angle.

© EAGE Publications BV
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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900180
2019-04-08
2024-04-20

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Mechanisms Underlying the Adhesion of Crude Oil to Mineral Surfaces: Relevance of Oil-Brine Interactions
Conference Proceedings 2019, 1 (2019); https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.201900180
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900180
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