SPE 153570

ASP Formulation Design for Heavy Oil

Jieyuan Zhang, SPE, Ravi Ravikiran, SPE, David Freiberg, and Charles Thomas, SPE, TIORCO LLC

Copyright 2012, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Eighteenth SPE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, 14–18 April 2012.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to correction by the author(s). The material does not necessarily reflect any position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its
officers, or members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is prohibited. Permission to
reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words; illustrations may not be copied. The abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgment of SPE copyright.

ABSTRACT
The objective of the work detailed was to develop an alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) and achieve good oil recovery at low
surfactant concentrations. A combination of phase behavior tests, interfacial tension (IFT) measurements (by spinning drop
tensiometer) and coreflood tests were used to develop a solution for an oil that had an API gravity of 15 and viscosity of
2,000 cP.

The percentage of heavy oil in world oil production continues to rise as more light oil reservoirs have either depleted or
reached their economic limit. However, the recovery factor from heavy oil reservoirs by both primary and secondary
production is low, making these reservoirs candidates for chemical EOR technologies.

Phase behavior tests were used as the primary screening method to identify surfactant formulations qualitatively and the
promising candidates were validated by IFT measurements (between the surfactant solution and oil) at different salinities to
identify the lowest IFT formulation. Static adsorption tests with reservoir core material were used as a further screening step
to ensure formulation was a viable option. Finally, linear coreflood tests were performed at reservoir temperature to validate
the formulation and optimize chemical concentration. In one coreflood, 80% of waterflood residual oil was recovered using
only 0.15% total surfactants and 2,000 ppm polymer.

The success of the ASP coreflood validates the ASP design for this heavy oil. Typically, heavy oil reservoirs may require
lower surfactant concentrations due to higher permeability. As a result, such projects could potentially have a higher reward-
risk ratio than ASP projects in conventional oil reservoirs.

INTRODUCTION
With the ever increasing global demand for energy and reducing number of discoveries of new oil plays, enhanced oil
recovery (EOR) technologies have become a viable solution to deal with world oil shortage in the future. Thermal or Steam
flooding and CO2 flooding contribute to majority of the current EOR oil recovery. Chemical EOR technologies such as
polymer flooding and A/SP flooding show the most growth potential in the future. Steam flooding is limited by the
availablity of good quality water available naturally or at a reasonably low desalination cost. CO2 floods have been widely
used with some success, but is limited by the availability of CO2 and sources close to point of use. Another limitation of CO2
EOR is the level of investment required to build CO2 pipe lines to transport CO2 from natural sources (CO2 fields are the most
common source or natural gas fields with a high proportion of CO2 in the produced gas) to the oil field. CO2 flooding using
anthropogenic CO2 may become more popular if CO2 sequestration becomes a major avenue to reduction of CO2 emissions
in the future. On the other hand, due to improvements in chemisty (to handle various salinities and temperature), chemical
EOR techniques are becoming more common place. Daqing Oilfield has conducted over a dozen ASP pilots in recent years ,
and the cost of chemicals (alkali/surfactant/polymer) per barrel of incremental oil is between $11 to $15 based on
incremental recovery of 18 to 20% OOIP over waterflooding. (Shutang et al., 2010 and Adam et al., 2009)
2 SPE 153570

Many operators are targeting heavy oil as a potential way to meet the increasing demand for energy. The total world reserves
are estimated to be between 9 to13 trillion barrels, of which 30% is conventional oil, 40% is heavy oil, and 30% is oil shale
and bitumen (Heavy oil fact sheet, 2006). Because of the high density (from 10 to 20ºAPI) and high viscosity (higher than
100 cP), the recovery factor of heavy oil from both primary and secondary production is only 5 to 20% OOIP from heavy oil
reservoirs, leaving a big potential for tertiary recovery techniques. (Meyer et al., 2003)

The tertiary techniques for heavy oil include thermal and chemical methods. The most common thermal methods are Cyclic
Steam Stimulation (CSS) and Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). (Gina et al. 2011) Although thermal methods have
been applied in many heavy oil fields around the world, it is not suitable to use thermal method in deep reservoirs, reservoirs
with thin pay zones, or off-shore without steam generation facility. On the other hand, environmental problems are becoming
a bigger impediment for thermal methods. (Chang, 2011 and Shashvat et al., 2011)

Chemical EOR methods attempted include CO2-foam injection, surfactant enhanced thermal recovery, alkali flood, alkali
surfactant, polymer, alkali polymer, surfactant polymer and alkali surfactant polymer. (Alireza et al., 2011, Mingzhe et al.,
2011, Srivastava et al., 2011, Wassmuth et al., 2009, David et al., 2011) Because of the properties of heavy oil, the recovery
using individual components - alkali, surfactant, or polymer individually is limited. Because most heavy oils have high total
acid number, the combination of alkali, surfactant, and polymer (ASP) has the greatest potential for recovery.

EXPERIMENTAL DESCRIPTION
Materials
Crude oil: The properties of the heavy crude oil from the field are shown in Table 1. The oil had an API gravity of 15.0, and
viscosity of 2,000 cp at reservior temperature (28°C). The IFT between deionized (DI) water and crude oil as measured by
spinning drop tensiometer was 23.2 dynes/cm, which confirmed absence of any surface-active contaminants. Total acid
number (TAN) of the crude oil was determined to be 0.7 mg KOH/g oil.

Property Value Unit

API Gravity 15.0 °
Temperature 28 °C
Viscosity @ reservoir temperature 1,977 cP
IFT between DI water and oil 23.2 dyne/cm
TAN (Total Acid Number) 0.7 mg KOH /g oil

TABLE 1. Property of the Oil

Rock: The core plugs were fresh drilled from the field and preserved immediately after drilling. They are unconsolidated
sandstone. The permeability of the unconsolidated sandstone plugs was around 2 D to brine and the porosity was about 31%.

Brine: The connate water had a TDS of about 25,000 ppm and 380 ppm divalent cations. The injection water had a TDS of
about 23,000 ppm and 330 ppm divalent cations.

Phase behavior tests and formulation design

Drawing on the experience of the chemists and research engineers at TIORCO, and water and oil analysis data, a short list of
surfactants were deemed most suitable for this project. These chemicals were then subjected to a high throughput phase
behavior screening procedure (Adam et al., 2008 and Ping et al., 2008) to determine optimum salinity and oil solubilization
ratio. Each surfactant formulation was mixed in tubes with water and oil at some interval of increasing salinity. These tubes
were then mixed thoroughly and allowed to equilibrate at reservoir temperature for a period of two weeks to months. The
development of a middle phase was observed, and the volume of oil and water dissolved in the middle phase was carefully
noted.

However, for heavy oil, the interfaces between oil and microemulsion and between microemulsion and water are not always
clear. In this case, the phase behavior tests were just used as qualitative tests, and IFT was measured directly using spinning
drop tensiometer at different salinities.
SPE 153570 3

Static surfactant adsorption

The second screening process consisted of static surfactant adsorption experiments, which were performed using crushed
field core samples. Crushed samples have higher exposed surface areas than consolidated cores and give a worst-case value
for surfactant adsorption. First, the field rock samples were crushed into fine particles and sieved through two sieves of 35
mesh and 100 mesh, and the middle portion (with the diameter between 0.15 mm and 0.5 mm) were retained for the
adsorption experiments. Then 10 g of solution containing a range of surfactant concentrations and NaCl were prepared
(details are shown in Table 2), and 2.5 g of rock particles were added into the solution. After mixing for 7 days at reservoir
temperature, the liquid samples were centrifuged for 30 minutes and supernatant clear liquid was used to determine the
surfactant concentration using a standard methylene blue titration method. The concentration difference was then used to
calculate the total static surfactant adsorption.

Surfactants Salinity Initial Surfactant Concentration Surfactant Adsorption

(wt% NaCl) (wt%) (mg/g rock)
ASP1 without Na CO 2.5 0.25 1.08
2 3

ASP1 with 1% Na CO 2.5 0.25 0.87

2 3
ASP1 with 1% Na CO 2.5 0.1 0.56
2 3
ASP1 with 1% Na CO 2.5 1 0.89
2 3

TABLE 2. Static Surfactant Adsorption

Polymer selection
Given that the reservoir was unconsolidated sandstone with permeability around 2 D to brine, a high molecular weight
polymer HPAM EOR 380 was chosen for the ASP cocktail. Typically, polymer concentration was chosen such that the
viscosity of both ASP slug and polymer drive is higher than that of oil. In this case, given the high viscosity (2,000 cp) of the
oil, it is not a feasible strategy. Based on project economics consideration, a much lower polymer concentration (2,000 ppm)
was used which provided an aqueous solution viscosity of about 22.8 cp at reservoir temperature and 10 sec-1.

Coreflood
The core plugs were fresh drilled and preserved immediately. Therefore the coreflood was started directly from the oil
saturation step. The coreflood procedure followed is described below.

1. Chose four to five plugs and stacked them together to make an 8 to12 in. long core.
2. Flooded the core with the oil until the oil cut was 100% and the pressure had stabilized
3. Aged the core at reservoir temperature for 2 weeks. This provided the inital oil saturation of the core.
4. After aging, flooded the core with the connate water at 1 ft/day until the oil cut reached zero (Measure of Sor). This
was to mimic the waterflood of the field.
5. After waterflooding, recovered residual oil (Sor) using 0.4 PV of ASP solution (1% Na2CO3, Formulation ASP1,
0.5% total active surfactant concentration, and 2,000 ppm EOR 380) in softened injection water using the same
injection rate (1 ft/day) assuming 31% porosity.
6. Followed ASP1 with a polymer push consisting of 2,000 ppm EOR 380 in the injection water until the oil cut is zero
in the effluent (1 ft/day). During the coreflood, collected the effluent in each step, and analyzed for oil recovery,
surfactant concentration, and polymer viscosity.
7. After the coreflood, cleaned the core using Dean Stark extraction device and measured the actual pore volume and
porosity of the core. This data was used to back-calculate how much chemicals were injected and consumed.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Phase behavior tests and formulation design
Because the crude oil had a high total acid number and the water had moderate hardness, an alkali surfactant polymer
approach was considered for formulation design.

In phase behavior tests, to be able to clearly read the interface between aqueous phase and microemulsion phase, as well as
between microemulsion phase and oil, the oil ratio (the ratio of oil volume of total liquid volume) should be close to 50%,
and the total surfactant concentration should be at least 0.5%.
4 SPE 153570

Fig. 1 is a picture of phase tubes for the formulation (ASP1) chosen for the first coreflood. The picture is typical for heavy oil
phase behavior and is different from light/conventional oil. The tube at 0% NaCl was characterized as type I (Adam et al.,
2008). The tubes from 0.5 to 3% were characterized as type III. In type III region, only two clear-separated phases were
observed: a bottom aqueous phase with some solubilized oil that was very dark, and the top oil phase. This behavior is
different from observations for lighter oils, which typically have three distinct phases in type III region: a bottom clear
aqueous phase, a middle microemlsion phase, and a top oil phase. The optimal salinity is usually located at the center of the
type III region. For this case, it is 1.5 to 2% NaCl. The tubes from 3.5 to 4.5% were characterized as type II.

NaCl 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 %

Type I Type III Type II

FIG. 1. Picture of Formulation ASP1

Because quantitative solubilization ratio data could not be obtained from phase behavior tests, a spinning drop tensiometer
was used to measure IFT directly from the heavy oil and surfactant system. The IFT data measured by spinning drop
tensiometer are shown in Table 3 at different total surfactant concentration and salinity. For 1% total surfactant, low IFT
(<0.01 dyne/cm) was observed in the salinity range from 2 to 3.5% NaCl, and the lowest IFT was observed around 2.5%
NaCl. IFT measreument results confirmed that the qualitative analysis for the phase behavoir tests is valid, but it also shows
that the optimal salinity measured by IFT measurement is higher than estimated by qualitative phase behavior tests.

NaCl Total surfactant concentration (wt%)

(wt%) 0.1 0.2 0.5 1
0.5 0.044 0.049 0.065 0.087
1 0.0052 0.0059 0.015 0.055
1.5 0.0035 0.0026 0.0038 0.016
2 0.0089 0.0044 0.0019 0.0046
2.5 0.045 0.0093 0.0053 0.0018
3 0.088 0.017 0.0095 0.0054
3.5 0.124 0.045 0.019 0.0068

TABLE 3. IFT Measurement for Formulation ASP1 (unit: dyne/cm)

Activity map
In a typical spinning drop tensiometer measurement, the oil ratio is less than 2%: The total volume of liquid is about 1 ml,
and the total oil volume is less than 0.02 ml. To extend the IFT measurement results to more representative (field condition)
oil ratios, phase behavior tests were used to develop an activity map using NaCl scans.
SPE 153570 5

The test procedure used to develop an activity map was described by Ping et al. (Ping et al., 2008) to evaluate the ability of
alkali to generate in-situ soap and its influence on formulation design. In the test, Na2CO3 concentration was varied and the
formulations were tested at different oil ratios. The phase behavior results were then plotted qualitatively on the activity map.
As oil ratio increases, the in-situ surfactant from the alkali and crude oil reaction increases. Usually the in-situ soap has lower
optimal salinity than the synthetic surfactant, so the optimal salinity of the whole ASP system usually decreases with oil ratio.
In such a scenario, the ASP flood will generate a natural salinity gradient, which helps improve the chances of a successful
project.

As shown in Fig. 2, a similar activity map was generated using formulation ASP1 with fixed 1% Na2CO3 and various NaCl
concentrations. Three tests with different oil ratio (10%, 30%, and 50%) were performed to generate the activity map.The
pipets were read qualitatively: If the pipet at a certain salinity was determined to be type I, a blue diamond marker was used
for that data point; if the salinity was in type II zone, a red triangle marker was used; and if the salinity was in type III zone, a
green square marker was used. From Fig. 2, it can be seen that the optimal salinity decreased with increasing oil ratio, which
provides a favorable salinity gradient for an ASP design. This explains the higher optimal salinity from IFT measurement
compared to the data from phase behavior tests.

FIG. 2. Activity Map of Formulation ASP1 with 1% Na2CO3

The optimal salinity of a surfactant formulation (consisting of several surfactants) for a certain oil is typically a weighted
average of the optimal salinity of each individual surfactant. Considering the mixture of the synthetic surfactants as one
component, and the in-situ generated surfactant or natural soap as the other, the optimal salinity of the ASP system relies on
the relative concentraton of the two components. In the activity map test, the synthetic surfactant concentration was fixed,
and the in-situ surfactant concentration depends on oil ratio and alkali concentration. The total acid number of the oil was 0.7
mg KOH/ g oil, so alkali concentration was very high compared to the acid in crude oil. The final in-situ surfactant is thus
controlled by the oil ratio in the phase behavior tests. As oil ratio increases, the in-situ surfactant concentration increases, and
the optimal salinity of the whole system decreases. This proves that the optimal salinity of the in-situ surfactant is lower than
the synthetic surfactants for this oil.

Optimal salinity vs. surfactant concentration

The reason that optimal salinity of ASP system varies with oil ratio is the relative ratio of in-situ generated soap and
synthetic surfactants. So it is expected that the optimal salinity of ASP system changes with different total surfactant
concentration. Since it is difficult to accurately determine optimal salinity from phase behavior tests for heavy oil, we relied
on IFT measurement and used a different approach to quantify the correlation between optimal salinity and total surfacant
concentration.
6 SPE 153570

According to the definition, optimal salinity is the salinity at which a given surfactant system has the lowest IFT.
Theoretically IFT can be measured at different salinities for the system to identify the optimal salinity if enough
measurements are performed. However, IFT measurements are very time consuming and may not be sensitive enough to
generate an accurate optimal salinity value. As shown in Table 3, IFT values were measured at different surfactant
concentrations. For each surfactant concentration, IFT values were measured at different NaCl concentration at 0.5%
intervals. For a fixed total surfactant concentration, IFT curves were typically “U” shaped as a function of salinity. For a
fixed NaCl concentration, IFT increased with increasing total surfactant concentration at lower salinity, but decreased with
increasing total surfactant concentration at higher salinity. IFT as a function of both total surfactant concentration and TDS is
plotted in Fig. 3. As expected the optimum salinity (salinity corresponding to the lowest IFT for each surfactant
concentration) increased with increasing total surfactant concentration. The optimal salinity increased from 1.5 wt% NaCl to
2.5% when total surfactant concentration increased from 0.1% to 1%.

FIG. 3. IFT vs. TDS and Total Surfactant Concentration

Static surfactant adsorption

The static surfactant adsorption results for Formulation ASP1 are summarized in Table 2. The surfactant adsorption number
were in a reasonable range. By adding 1% of Na2CO3 to the surfactant mixture, as expected the surfactant adsorption was
decreased from 1.08 to 0.87 mg surfactant/g of rock, a 19.4% reduction in surfactant required. For the ASP case, the
surfactant adsorption increased from 0.56 mg/g rock for 0.1% initial surfactant concentration to 0.87 mg/ g rock for 0.25%
initial surfactant, but it had almost leveled off at 0.25% initial surfactant. The static adsorption was determined to be 0.89 mg/
g rock for 1% initial surfactant concentration.

COREFLOOD
First ASP coreflood
Formulation ASP1 was chosen to run the first ASP coreflood test because it provided the lowest IFT at injection water
quality. The optimal salinity of Formulation ASP1 was around 25,000 ppm TDS based on IFT measurements.

The first coreflood consisted of five stacked core plugs. The stacked core was 1.48 in. in diameter, and 9.48 in. in length. All
the liquids in the coreflood experiment were injected from the bottom to eliminate gravity effects.

In the oil injection step, 11.1 ml of water was displaced by the crude oil, and based on the mass balance performed at the end
of the experiment, the initial water saturation for the core (Swi) was only 0.01 at the end of oil saturation step, and OOIP was
81.1 ml. The oil permeability of the core was determined to be 1,480 mD.

After aging for 2 weeks at reservoir temperature, the core was flooded with the synthetic connate water at 0.07 ml/min (1
ft/day). After about 2.6 PV, the oil cut at the effluent reached 0, and the pressure drop had stabilized. The waterflood step
recovered 26.8 ml of oil, and the residual oil saturation (Sor) was 0.66 after waterflood. The waterflood left a big potential for
chemical EOR. The relative permeability to water at the end of waterflood was determined to be 0.010.
SPE 153570 7

Following the waterflood step, 0.4 PV of ASP mixture (Formulation ASP1, 0.5% surfactants, 1% Na2CO3, and 2,000 ppm
EOR 380) in softened injection brine was injected into the core at the a rate of 1ft/day. The surfactant slug was followed by
polymer drive (3.5 PV of 2,000 ppm EOR 380) in the synthetic injection water, until the oil cut reached 0. The viscosities of
ASP slug and polymer drive were 21.2 and 22.8 cP, respectively, at reservoir temperautre and a shear rate of 10 sec-1.

The percent recovery of OOIP from both waterflood and ASP flood are shown in Fig. 4. The waterflood recovered 33.1%
OOIP after 2.6 PV of water injection. The ASP step recovered another 48.2% OOIP after 4 PV of injection. In total, both
steps recovered 81.3% OOIP from the core.

FIG. 4. Oil Recovery of OOIP for the First Coreflood for Both Waterflood and ASP Flood

Fig. 5 shows the oil recovery of residual oil from ASP flood after waterflooding. After 4 PV, 72.1% residual oil was
recovered by the chemical injection. Overall, the ASP coreflood was a successful one. A low viscosity microemulsion started
to appear in the effluent after 1 PV of chemical slug was injected. The microemulsion contained less than 5% of the oil
recovered in the ASP flood process.

FIG. 5. Oil Recovery of Residual Oil for the First ASP Coreflood
8 SPE 153570

Fig. 6 shows the surfactant concentration in the effluent. Surfactant was detected in the effluent after 0.9 PV, and peaked
after 1.71 PV of injection. Although only 0.4 PV of ASP slug was injected in the coreflood, surfactant was detected in the
effluent from 0.9 PV to 4 PV. This maybe because identical water salinity was used in the whole coreflood process. Based on
the phase behavior results and IFT measurements, it was type III or type II everywhere in the core, so a lot of surfactant was
initially trapped in the core and oil and was displaced slowly thereafter. The calculation based on mass balance shows that the
total surfactant retention in this coreflood test was 0.144 mg surfactant/g rock. The effluent produced 53.6% of the injected
surfactants, so the total injected surfactant concentration was much higher than needed for an optimum recovery process in
this coreflood.

FIG. 6. Surfactant Concentration in the Effluent for the First ASP Coreflood

Fig. 7 shows the viscosity of the effluent (at reservoir temperature and a shear rate of 10 sec-1) from the ASP injection step.
After injection of 2.5 PV polymer solution, the viscosity of the effluent was close to the viscosity of injected polymer
solution.

FIG. 7. Polymer Viscosity of the Aqueous Phase at the Effluent for the First ASP Coreflood
SPE 153570 9

Second ASP coreflood

The total surfactant concentration in the first coreflood was 0.5% by weight and the total surfactant retention was 0.144 mg/g
rock. As a result, 53.6% injected surfactant was produced in the effluent. For the second coreflood, a significantly lower
surfactant concentration (0.15% total surfactants) was chosen. This of course affects the optimum salinity of the formulation
being injected.

The optimal salinity of Formulation ASP1 was around 25,000 ppm TDS based on IFT measurement with 1% total
surfactants. From the activity map shown in Fig. 2, the optimal salinity decreases with increasing oil ratio. At the beginning
of the ASP flood, the oil ratio in the core was 66.4%; at the end of ASP flood, the oil ratio in the core was 18.5%. It is hard to
quantify the exact oil ratio in the coreflood in the micro scale, but the average oil ratio in the coreflood was much larger than
2%, which was the oil ratio in IFT measurement. As a result, it was theorized that the real optimal salinity in the coreflood
condition with 1% total surfactant is well below 25,000 ppm TDS. From Fig. 6, the concentration of surfactants in the
effluent was 0.04 to 0.05% in the effluent from 1 to 2.5 PV. This is much lower than 1% surfactant concentration, which is
the concentration of ASP system on which the IFT was measured. From Fig. 3, the optimal salinity decreases dramatically
with decreasing total surfactant concentration. Based on both reasons, we believe that the real optimal salinity in the first
ASP coreflood was actually much lower than 25,000 ppm NaCl. Due to the broad low IFT region demonstrated by
Formulation ASP1, the first coreflood was still very successful. However, it was believed that the formulation can be further
optimized to achieve better results.

Considering the influence of both oil ratio and total surfactant concentration on optimal salinity, Formulation ASP1 was
opimized targeting 25,000 ppm TDS optimal salinity for 30% oil ratio and 0.05% total surfactants. Such an optimization
involved varying the ratios of the different surfactants used in the original formulation. The optimized formulation
(Formulation ASP2) was chosen to run the second ASP coreflood following the similar procedure as the first coreflood.

For the second coreflood, another five core plugs were chosen. The stacked core was 1.49 in. in diameter and 9.48 in. in
length.

After 3.8 PV of oil injection, the water cut in the effluent became 0, and the pressure also stabilized. Based on the mass
balance performed at the end of the experiment, the initial water saturation for the core (Swi) was only 0.01, and OOIP was
78.5 ml in the core. The oil permeability of the core was 1,650 mD, which was a little higher than the first core.

After aging for 2 weeks at reservoir temperature, the core was flooded with the synthetic connate water at 0.072 ml/min (1
ft/day). After about 3 PV, the oil cut in the effluent reached 0, and the pressure drop also stabilized. The waterflood step
recovered 31.8 ml of oil, and the residual oil saturation (Sor) was 0.59 after waterflood. The relative permeability to water at
the end of waterflood was determined to be 0.008.

After waterflooding, 0.4 PV of ASP mixture (Formulation ASP2: 0.15% total surfactants, 1% Na2CO3, and 2,000 ppm EOR
380) in the softened injection water was injected into the core at the same rate as used for waterflooding (1ft/day). The
surfactant slug was followed by polymer drive (2,000 ppm EOR 380) in the synthetic injection water for another 5.5 PV,
where the oil cut reached 0.

The percent recovery of OOIP from both waterflood and ASP flood are shown in Fig. 8. The waterflood recovered 40.4%
OOIP after 3 PV of water injection. The ASP step
recovered another 47.9% OOIP after 5.5 PV of
injection. In total, both steps recovered 88.3%
OOIP from the core, which was very successful
for heavy oil.

FIG. 8. Oil Recovery of OOIP for the Second

Coreflood for Both Waterflood and ASP
Flood
10 SPE 153570

Fig. 9 shows the oil recovery of residual oil from ASP flood after waterflooding. The chemicals started to generate
incremental oil after 0.3 PV of liquid injection. After 5.5 PV, 80.3% residual oil was recovered by the chemical injection. It
took 5.5 PV to reach 0 oil cut in the effluent.There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that the polymer push was not
viscous enough. The viscosity of polymer push was only about 1.1% the oil viscosity, while the general ASP design is to
have polymer viscosity higher than the oil viscosity and a mobility ratio near 1. The second reason is that there was no
salinity gradient in the design. In the coreflood, one salinity was used from beginning to end except the alkali, so all the
regions were in type III in the coreflood. It generated low IFT microemulsion in the whole coreflood, but the trapping of
microemulsion delayed the oil recovery speed.

FIG. 9. Oil Recovery of Residual Oil for the Second ASP Coreflood

Fig. 10 shows the surfactant concentration in the effluent. Surfactant started to show up in the effluent after 1 PV, and peaked
after 2 PV of injection. The calculation based on mass balance shows that the total surfactant retention for this coreflood test
is 0.086 mg surfactant/g rock. The surfactant adsorption was much less than the first coreflood (0.144 mg surfactant/g rock),
which was mainly caused by the lower injected surfactant concentration and better design of the flood.

FIG. 10. Surfactant Concentration in the Effluent for the Second ASP Coreflood
SPE 153570 11

CONCLUSIONS
The design considerations for developing an optimum formulation for a heavy oil is described in this paper. The developed
formulation was shown to have a low IFT over a broad range of salinity, but in order to understand the concentration and
salinity strategy of the formulation, a combination of phase behavior and IFT measurements must be used. Both phase
behavior studies and IFT measurements have their own individual merits. The information gathered from these two studies
as well as static adsorption studies should be analyzed and used appropriately before settling upon a surfactant formulation
and identifying optimum chemical concentrations.

In heavy oil cases, it is also critical to understand the activity map of the oil with the surfactant concentration. As was noted
in experiments described, concentration of surfactant had a significant effect on the optimum salinity of the formulation. The
first coreflood was carried out using a fairly high chemical concentration, but for the second coreflood lowering the surfactant
concentration significantly altered the optimum salinity.

The comparison of the two ASP corefloods is listed in Table 4. The second coreflood was run at a lower surfactant
concentration (0.15% compared to 0.5% in the first coreflood), but recovered more oil than the first coreflood, and the
surfactant retention of the second coreflood was much less. The main reason is that the formulation used in the first coreflood
had an optimal salinity near the injection water at 1% total surfactants and 2% oil ratio, but the surfactant concentration and
oil ratio at coreflood condition were much different from the conditions present during IFT measurements. As a result, the
surfactant system may have reached type II region at least at the end of the experiments, which trapped more surfactants and
recovered less oil. The formulation used in the second coreflood had an optimal salinity near the injection water at 0.05%
total surfactant and 30% oil ratio, and the optimal salinity does not change much with surfactant concentration at this level.
So the second coreflood had ultra low IFT through out the whole test, and recovered more oil than the first coreflood.

Property Unit Coreflood 1 Coreflood 2

Formulation ASP1 ASP2
Total injected surfactant concentration wt% 0.5 0.15
PV ml 81.80 79.39
Oil permeability mD 1,480 1,630
Porosity % 30.6 30.2
Swi after oil saturation 0.01 0.01
Sor after waterflood 0.664 0.589
Recovery of Sor by ASP % 72.1 80.3
Recovery of OOIP % 81.3 88.3
Surfactant retention mg/g rock 0.144 0.086

TABLE 4. Summary of the Two ASP Corefloods

In both corefloods, only 2,000 ppm EOR 380 were used in both ASP slug and polymer drive. Although the polymer viscosity
was only 1.1% of the oil viscosity, the well designed ASP system recovered 80.3% residual oil at low reservor temperature
(28°C). The success of the ASP coreflood validates the ASP design for this heavy oil. In most cases, heavy oil reservoirs
have a range of permeabilities in the higher end and low surface area, which potentially requires a lower surfactant
concentration. Given a good understanding of the remaining oil in place, it may be a feasible approach to tackle improving
recovery factors by turning to Chemical EOR projects - the reward to risk ratio have the potential to be quite high for such
projects.

REFERENCES
Adam F., Quoc N., Jieyuan Z., Hourshad M., and Gary P., ASP chemical flooding without the need for soft water. SPE
116754 presented at the 2008 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, USA, 21-24
September 2008
Adam F., Quoc N., Gary P., and Jieyuan Z., A systematic laboratory approach to low-cost, high-performance chemical
flooding, SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering, 12(5), 2009
Alireza E., Mehran S., Mahmoud J., Shaun I., and Graeme R., Mechanistic study of improved heavy oil recovery by CO2-
foam injection, SPE 143013 presented at the SPE Enhanced Oil Recovery Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 19-
21 July 2011
Chang G., Advances of polymer flood in heavy oil recovery. SPE 150384 presented at the SPE Heavy Oil Conference and
Exhibition held in Kuwait City, Kuwait, 12-14 December 2011
David L., Stephane J., Igor B., Jean-Philippe, G., and Maurice B., The interpretation of polymer coreflood results for heavy
oil. SPE 150566 presented at the SPE Heavy Oil Conference and Exhibition held in Kuwait City, Kuwait, 12-14 December
2011
12 SPE 153570

F. Wassmuth, W. Arnold, K. Green, and N. Cameron, Polymer flood application to improve heavy oil recovery at East Bodo,
Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, 48(2), February 2009
Gina R. and Hugo B., Steam injection experiences in heavy and extra-heavy oil fields, Venezuela. SPE 150283 presented at
the SPE Heavy Oil Conference and Exhibition held in Kuwait City, Kuwait, 12-14 December 2011
“Heavy Oil Fact Sheet”, California Department of Oil Gas and Geothermal Resources, United States Federal Government,
June 17, 2006
Meyer R., Heavy oil and natural bitumen – strategic petroleum resources. U.S. Geological Survey USGS Fact Sheet FS-070-
03, 2003
Mingzhe D., Shanzhou M., and Aifen L., Sweep efficiency improvement by alkali flooding for Pelican Lake heavy oil, SPE
148971 presented at the Canadian Unconventional Resources & International Petroleum Conference held in Calgary, Alberta,
Canada, 15-17 November 2011
Shashvat D., and Kishore M., Viscous fingering during non-thermal heavy oil recovery. SPE 146841 presented at the SPE
Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, USA, 30 October-2 November 2011
P. Srivastava, and L. Castro, Successful field application of surfactant additives to enhance thermal recovery of heavy oil.
SPE 140180 presented at the SPE Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference held in Manama, Bahrain, 25-28
September 2011
Ping Z., Adam J., Chris B., Do Hoon K., Larry B., David L., and Gary P., Development of high-performance surfactants for
difficult oils. SPE 113432 presented at the Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery Conference held in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
USA, 20-23 April 2008
Shutang G., and Qiang G., Recent progress and evaluation of ASP flooding for EOR in Daqing oil field. SPE 127714
presented at the SPE EOR Conference at Oil & Gas West Asia held in Muscat, Oman, 11-13 April 2010