Effect of Oil and Water Interfacial Tension on Oil Recovery of Surfactant-Polymer Flooding

The oil and water (O/W) interfacial tension affecting on oil recovery of surfactant-polymer (SP) flooding was studied based on Berea core flooding tests. The results of SP flooding physics simulation tests showed that when the O/W interfacial tension decreased, the incremental oil recovery of SP flooding increased accordingly, when the O/W interfacial tension decrease to 5×10-3mN/m level, near the highest oil recovery of SP flooding can be obtained. The SP flooding system with low interfacial tension can obtain 7-15% incremental oil recovery more than that with high IFT system.