Green water flooding of fractured and heterogeneous oil reservoirs at high salinity and high temperature

Many oil formations contain water having high salinity and/or high concentrations of divalent ions such as calcium or magnesium dissolved therein, and are additionally at high temperatures. Most of the available surfactants used in oil recovery operations are either ineffective in high salinity or high hardness waters, or incapable to stand the higher temperatures encountered in many formations. A powerful natural material that improves enhance oil reservoirs recovery through the reduction of interfacial tension and increases the volumetric sweep efficiency of fractured and /or heterogeneous oil reservoirs is introduced in this paper. The novel green surfactant for EOR is extracted from Sisyphus Spina Christi plant and Aloe Vera plant. The surfactant is 100% natural, safe and environmental friendly. It recovers more than 96% of the oil trapped in any oil reservoir. This recovery is a breakthrough in the field of enhanced oil recovery. It works at high salinity (up to 172000 ppm) and a temperature over than 90o Celsius. It can handle a bivalent ions (14000 ppm for Ca+2 and 3000 for Mg+2) and monovalent ions (57600 for ppm Na+ and 122000 ppm Cl-). The green material is mixed with the formation water and is stable over a wide range of formation temperatures and water salinities and hardness values. Copyright © 2018 VBRI Press.