REPORT

PE335 : Mini Project/Interdisciplinary Project

On
Hybrid EOR Methods Utilizing Low-Salinity Water
& Surfactant
Submitted
To
Dr.Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University
College Mentor: Dr Samarth Patwardhan Sir
Academic Year: 2021-2022 , Trimester IX

By :

Abhinandan Shetty
PA-28 1032191127

T.Y. B. Tech Petroleum Engineering

Page 1 of 43
Page 2 of 43
TITLE: Effect of Combined Low Salinity and Surfactant
Injection on Oil Recovery
AUTHOR: Solveig Riisøen
SUMMARY:
A moderate increase in crude oil recovery by reduction in salinity of the injection brine has
been observed for numerous laboratory core flood experiments. The underlying mechanisms
behind increased recovery by low salinity injection are not fully understood and are suggested
to relate to complex crude oil/rock/brine interactions.

Recent studies have also shown a positive effect by combining injection of low salinity brine
and surfactant flooding. In this study, core experiments were conducted in four aged
Bentheimer cores; two experiments were performed at 23°C and two experiments at 90°C.
During low salinity and low salinity surfactant injection pH of the effluent was measured. In
addition, density, viscosity and interfacial tension of the fluids injected were analysed. The
results show a marginal potential of enhanced oil recovery by low salinity injection (less than
2 %OOIP). No fines or pH variation were observed during low salinity injection.
The low potential of low salinity was suggested to be related to the small clay content and
insufficient wettability alteration in the Bentheimer sandstone cores. Combination of low
salinity and surfactant injection resulted in significant increase in oil recovery (additional 26%
OOIP). The effect of temperature gave lower recovery at 90°C. A reduction in pH was also
observed, suggesting hydrolysis of the surfactant at elevated temperature.
Despite the insignificant response to low salinity brine, a combination with a surfactant may
be more beneficial both to increase oil recovery and to be more economically than low salinity
brine and surfactant flooding alone.
Results indicate that the potential of enhanced oil recovery by injection of low salinity (LS)
brine is marginal (incremental recoveries of less than 2% OOIP), whereas low salinity
surfactant (LS-S) injection gave significant increase in the oil recovery (incremental recoveries
of 8-26% OOIP). The lack of oil production during LS injection in this study is believed to be
related to insufficient wettability alteration prior to the waterflood and/or poor amount of
clay present in Bentheimer. The temperature has little effect on the oil recovery during LS
injection, however, during LS-S injection, both the pH and oil recovery decreased at elevated
temperature. This implies a destabilization of the surfactant at higher temperature
(hydrolysis). Despite the insignificant response to low salinity brine, oil may however be
redistributed due to changes in crude oil/rock/brine interactions taking place during low
salinity injection. By reducing the capillary forces by injection of surfactant, this redistribution
may give rise to an increase in the oil recovery beyond the oil recovery by surfactant flooding
alone.

Page 3 of 43
TITLE: Addition of surfactants to Low Salinity
Waterflooding in microfluidics system to increase oil
recovery
AUTHOR: Dito Fauzi Winanda, Sanggono Adisasmito
SUMMARY:
In conventional waterflooding, neither the composition nor the ions of the injected water are taken
into account in giving effect to the formation. However, recent studies in recent years shows the
salinity of injection water gave an effect on injection performance. This is where the term Low Salinity
Waterflooding (LSW) comes from. Low Salinity waterflooding is the injection of water into the
formation by using water whose salinity is much lower than the formation water. With lower salinity,
it is believed that it can change the wettability of the rock to be more water wet so that the oil attached
to the rock can be lifted.

In addition, surfactant injection is also commonly applied to remove residual oil in the formation.
Surfactant can reduce the surface tension between oil and water because they have a hydrophilic
head and lipophilic tail structure. Other than that, surfactants change the wettability of the rock to be
more water wet by reducing the contact angle. By combining LSW with surfactant injection it is
believed that the process of removing residual oil adhering to the rock pores can be more efficient.
The challenge is to determine the injection scenario that produces the most optimum oil recovery
which is a function of; the level of water salinity, surfactant type and concentrations, as well as the
injection stages between the two methods.

In this study instead of the conventional core flooding practices, a micromodel chip was used which
represents the porous system. The chip is made of PMMA (Polymethyl methacrylate) or commonly
known as acrylic. PMMA is a thermoplastic material that tends to be oil wet. The chip was designed
to have a uniform pore structure to represent the pores in the reservoir rock, with a porosity of 27.8%
and a permeability of 2.7 Darcy. The application of microfluidics in Petroleum industry allows
researchers to explore deeper of flow characteristics in porous media (reservoirs), because
researchers can control their molecular concentrations, which was previously not possible with
reservoir models in core samples or rock samples. Micromodels allow to perform many experiments
compared to traditional macroscopic processes.

In this study, there are 3 tests conducted based on minimum required surfactant test for EOR, namely
stability test, phase behaviour test (Winsor phase test), and dynamic test. Phase behaviour test or also
known as Winsor phase test, is a method to test the compatibility of surfactants with formation water
and oil. Before conducted this test, the entire fluid was heated using a water bath at a temperature of
70 C. Then, each surfactant sample is added to the formation water and oil to form microemulsion.
The location of microemulsion in the oil and water phase system determine whether the system is
categorized as Winsor type I, II or III). By measuring the volume of the oil, water, and microemulsion
phase after the addition of surfactant, the IFT of the microemulsion can be determined. Dynamic tests
were carried out to determine the oil recovery from the LSW and surfactant injection. This test was
carried out using the self-designed microfluidic test kit. Before injected with LSW and surfactant, the
chip was saturated with formation water followed by crude oil.

Page 4 of 43
TITLE: Combined Low Salinity Brine Injection and
Surfactant Flooding in Mixed-Wet Sandstone Cores
AUTHOR: Edin Alagic and Arne Skauge

SUMMARY:
This study attempts to combine the benefits of low salinity waterflood with the advantages
of the surfactant flooding. Synthetic sea water termed was used as the connate brine. Low
salinity brine, was prepared with doubly distilled water containing 0.50 wt % NaCl. For a
typical anionic surfactant, parameters such as temperature, pH, and ionic strength of the
water phase are important for the surfactant phase behaviour and retention and was taken
into the consideration. Loss of surfactant in the porous media during surfactant flooding, due
to adsorption, precipitation, and phase- and mechanical trapping was also considered. It was
found that the increase of temperature and pH, respectively, on the anionic surfactant will
normally reduce the surfactant adsorption.
The surfactant adsorption was similarly reduced in low salinity environment. In spite of lower
surfactant adsorption low salinity brine was used because at lower salinities, there is an
increased possibility for surfactants that meet the current environmental and safety
regulations. The surfactant forms Winsor type I microemulsion at this salinity. Improved
surfactant solubility and reduced adsorption or retention is among the advantages of using
surfactant at low salinity conditions.

The study reports core flood experiments performed on outcrop sandstone cores using crude
oil as the oil phase. Results show high oil recovery of more than 90% of original oil in place
(OOIP) when surfactant is used in tertiary mode, i.e., after secondary waterflood.
Destabilization of oil layers caused by change in brine salinity and simultaneous mobilization
of the residual oil at low IFT is discussed as the possible underlying mechanism for the
combined process of low salinity water injection with surfactant flooding. Low surfactant
retention under these conditions may makes this hybrid EOR process more economically
attractive compared to applying low salinity waterflood or surfactant flooding separately.

Page 5 of 43
TITLE: Experimental study of combined low salinity and
surfactant flooding effect on oil recovery
AUTHOR: Abdulmecit Araz, Farad Kamyabi

SUMMARY:
In this study, surfactant solubility in low salinity brine was examined by bottle test
experiments. A series of core displacement experiments was conducted on nine crude oil
aged Berea core plugs that were designed to determine the impact of brine composition,
wettability alteration, Low Salinity Water (LSW) and LSS flooding on Enhancing Oil Recovery
(EOR). Laboratory core flooding experiments were conducted on the samples in a heating
cabinet at 60 °C using five different brine compositions with different concentrations of NaCl,
CaCl2 and MgCl2. The samples were first reached to initial water saturation, by injecting
connate water (high salinity water). LSW injection followed by LSS flooding performed on the
samples to obtain the irreducible oil saturation.
The results showed a significant potential of oil recovery with maximum additional recovery
of 7% Original Oil in Place (OOIP) by injection of LS water (10% LS brine and 90% distilled
water) into water-wet cores compared to high salinity waterflooding. It is also concluded that
oil recovery increases as wettability changes from water-wet to neutral-wet regardless of the
salinity compositions. A reduction in residual oil saturation, occurred for various brine
compositions after LSS flooding in tertiary recovery mode. The absence of clay swelling and
fine migration has been confirmed by the stable differential pressure recorded for both LSW
and LSS flooding. Aging the samples at high temperature prevented the problem of fines
production. Combined LSS flooding resulted in an additional oil recovery of 9.2% OOIP when
applied after LSW flooding.
Surfactants improved the oil recovery by reducing the oil-water interfacial tension. In
addition, low saline environment decreased the surfactant retention, thus led to successful
LSS flooding. The results showed that combined LSS flooding may be one of the most
promising methods in EOR. This hybrid improved oil recovery method is economically more
attractive and feasible compared to separate low salinity waterflooding or surfactant
flooding.

Page 6 of 43
TITLE: Simulation of Combined Low Salinity Brine and
Surfactant Flooding
AUTHOR: A. Skauge (CIPR), Z. Ghorbani* (CIPR) & M.
Delshad (The University of Texas at Austin)

SUMMARY:
Core flooding studies were conducted to investigate the effects of changes in brine salinity on
oil recovery from waterflooding methods, especially the combination of reduced salinity and
surfactant flooding. In the core flood experiment, Berea core material was used and all cores
were aged at 90C for more than 3 weeks using high acid crude oil. The experiments have
shown a large increase in oil recovery with a surfactant that only lowers the interfacial tension
to about 10-2 mN/m.
The residual oil after high salinity waterflood is immobile at the endpoint capillary pressure,
but must be in a state of phase continuity in order to be mobilised by change in local wetting
(destabilising oil layers). After waterflooding, mobilization of the residual oil is an obvious
target for enhanced oil recovery methods . Laboratory tests have shown that change to low
salinity waterflooding can lead to substantial improvement in oil recovery.

The probable mechanisms can be associated with a subtle change in wettability in the direct
ion of more water wet as a result of expanded electrical double layer, multiple component
ion exchange (MIE) and consequent desorption of organic polar molecules.
The state of the local pore scale distribution of remaining oil after change from high salinity
to low salinity brine is unknown, but the fact that oil is mobilized indicate that some of the
remaining oil must be part of a continuous oil path and not be fully capillary trapped.
Discontinuous oil that is mobilized due to brine salinity change will most likely become re-
trapped at the given capillary pressure. However, if surfactant is injected capillary will be
reduced and re-trapping can be avoided. If this mechanism is valid significant more oil can be
produced in a situation of change in brine salinity at low capillary pressure. This is the
conceptual idea behind a hybrid EOR process of combining low salinity water injection and
surfactant.

Page 7 of 43
TITLE: Low Salinity Waterflood at Reduced Capillarity
AUTHOR: Kristine Spildo, SPE, Annette Meland
Johannessen

SUMMARY:
It is well documented that low salinity waterflooding can provide improved recovery.
Judging by the published data, it is possible that more than one method contributed to oil
recovery. We have summarized that the two main effects are destabilization and
mobilization of layers of oil, as well as migration of fines due to poor clay stability. The latter
is believed to contribute to the increase in oil intake by blocking pores and microscopic
diversion. When capillary strength is high, the oil combined with one of these two methods
is easily trapped. However if capillary strength is reduced by adding surfactant, re-trapping
may be avoided.
The effect of decreasing interfacial tension was investigated in a series of constant rate, low
salinity floods performed on crude oil aged Berea sandstone cores. The aim is to evaluate
the additional benefits of the low salinity surfactant process over a low-salinity brine
injection, and to investigate how much capillary energy needs to be reduced in order to take
advantage of the increased recovery potential that can be achieved by combining these two
processes.
The results show that the reduction of surface tension in low salinity waterflood provides an
increase in oil availability beyond the expected injection solution with a similar reduction of
facial tension but without the low salinity content.
The combined effect of low salinity brine and surfactant injections may have the potential
to improve the economy of EOR operations. The desalination cost and logistic involved may
in some cases limit the possibility for low salinity waterflood, but enhanced oil recovery by
simultaneous lowering of interfacial tension giving a much higher additional oil recovery
may improve the overall economy.

Page 8 of 43
TITLE: Experimental investigation of impact of low
salinity surfactant flooding for enhance oil recovery: Niger
Delta field application
AUTHOR: Izuwa N. C.*, Nwogu N. C., Williams C. C.,
Ihekoronye K. K., Okereke N. U. and Onyejekwe M. I.

SUMMARY
In this study low salinity water flooding was conducted to demonstrate secondary recovery
using the sand packs. The sand packs had different pore volumes and the recovered oil
increased with increasing pore volume of the cores. Water flooding recovered 39.1, 40.8, 41.3
and 41.9% respectively. This agrees to the fact that two-third of the oil in place is left after
secondary recovery scheme. After the secondary recovery by waterflooding, a surfactant
namely Sodium dodecyl sulphate was injected into the low salinity environment.
It was observed from the study that injection of sodium dodecyl sulphate helped to improve
oil recovery due to the oil-water interfacial tension reduction. Recovery from surfactant
flooding increases as concentration of surfactant injected increases which indicates a good
displacement efficiency of the displacing fluids. The injection of the surfactant at different
concentrations played a significant role to recover untapped oil trapped in the formulated
core plugs. The injection of surfactants into the formation weakens the interfacial tension
forces, this makes the oil to be mobilized and move freely in the pore throat of the core plug,
thereby making more oil to be recovered. With increasing concentration of surfactant oil
recovered due to surfactant flooding was 16.1, 16.9, 19.0 and 19.3% of OOIP respectively. The
research had total oil recovery of 55.2, 57.7, 60.3 and 61.2%.
The study noted that sodium dodecyl sulphate is a good surfactant for enhanced oil recovery
for crude oil with the specified API gravity. In addition, interfacial tension reduction and
change in rock wettability were the working mechanisms for the sodium dodecyl sulphate to
increases oil recovery from reservoirs. The work showed that sodium dodecyl sulphate
maintained low interfacial tension through the flood process.
Reduction in interfacial tension and wettability alteration enhance the production of
remaining oil after water flooding, this work has equally contributed to show that interfacial
tension reduction aids oil recovery. These mechanisms could assist the mobilization of oil
trapped in the core plugs, thereby increasing oil recovery due to injection of sodium dodecyl
sulphate.

Page 9 of 43
TITLE: The Impact of Core Firing on EOR of Low
Salinity-Surfactant Flooding
AUTHOR: Anthony Kerunwa, Federal university of
Technology, Owerri, Nigeria

SUMMARY:
The combination of injection of lower saline brine and surfactant will increase recovery in
sandstone rocks than either when any of the techniques is singly applied. This study followed
the same procedure of core flooding experiments with low salinity brine and low salinity
surfactant flooding but instead of playing around with concentration of surfactants, salinity
of the waterflood and other factors, two different types of core samples were used in this
study in combination with low salinity waterflood and low salinity surfactant flooding.

Fired core which were fired at a temperature of 500˚C for 24 hours were used to find out the
impact of Core Firing on EOR of Low Salinity-Surfactant Flooding. The surfactant used was
ethoxylated alcohol surfactant. Core flood experiments were then performed on the rock
samples starting with the injection of low saline followed by low saline brine combined with
surfactant The experimental results showed that all the cases tested, core samples which
were fired gave higher recoveries even though they had low permeabilities than those which
were not fired with higher permeabilities. This has proved that firing/no-firing of rock samples
before flooding sequences gave rise to various sensitivities exhibited by the core to low
salinity brine injection/surfactant flooding. This was attributed to the alteration of wettability
as well as that of permeability caused by sample firing. The dispersion profiles of the rock
samples show that all samples were homogeneous.

Low salinity surfactant flooding increased the recovery of oil by reduction of the IFT of oil-
water system, and thereby preventing oil from being capillary trapped as well as remobilising
any trapped oil. This was further aided by core firing which caused alteration of wettability as
well as that of permeability of the rock thereby leading to aided increment in oil recovery.

Page 10 of 43
TITLE: Improving Surfactant EOR by Water Salinity
Alteration
AUTHOR: Ichhuy Ngo, Kyuro Sasaki, Ronald Nguele

SUMMARY:

Surfactant, as one of the promising chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR), aims at lowering
the interfacial tension (IFT) between the formation fluids. Surfactant is routinely injected after
waterflooding where substantial amount of oil is trapped within the formation porous media.
However, this production is challenged by the attraction between the active head of the
surfactant and those of the formation rock surface. This induces a surfactant loss due to
adsorption onto rock surface. The adsorption becomes even more severe in high salinity
environment. Several researches have addressed the effect of salinity gradient on surfactant
adsorption. Increasing solution salinity will weaken surfactant effectiveness and liberate less
oil. Surfactant adsorption has been proved to be reversible, provided that a foreign material
is introduced in the extended water process, which increases thereby the production cost.

In this study rather, we investigated the desorption and subsequently the rate of reversibility
by alteration of process water, during initial and extended stages. Using sodium dodecyl
benzene sulfonate (SDBS) as surfactant and Berea sandstone as adsorbent, we showed that
the adsorption increased with salinity gradient, while desorption exhibited a reverse trend.
Reducing water salinity from 3 (or 5 wt.%) to 1 wt.% NaCl, up to twofold of surfactant
desorption was enhanced. This increment is owing to a better solubility in a less saline
medium water and electrostatic repulsion. We extended the analysis to oil recovery, herein
performed by spontaneous imbibition tests, using a light dead crude oil.

The results revealed an increase in oil recovery up to 4.6% of initial oil-in-place (IOIP) during
extended water process by salinity alteration. The production was found subsequent to a
decrease of about 82% in IFT. Furthermore, microscopic analysis of the sandstone surface
after salinity alteration revealed that the increment in oil recovery was inherent to a reduction
in pore blockage.

Page 11 of 43
TITLE: Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) by Combining
Surfactant with Low Salinity Injection
AUTHOR: Annette Meland Johannessen and Kristine
Spildo

SUMMARY:
In low salinity (LS) water injection, destabilization of oil on the mineral surface may contribute
to the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) mechanism. Surfactant flooding is a proven EOR technique
by increasing the capillary numbers. The combination of low salinity water and reduction of
capillarity can avoid recapture of destabilized oil and exceed the recovery of either method
used alone. In this study, alcohol propoxcy sulphate blended with an internal olefin sulfonate
was used for oil recovery in a low salinity surfactant (LSS) flooding process at moderately low
IFTs and optimal salinity surfactant injection at ultra-low levels. Comparison of oil recovery
during both these injection process was carried out.

The surfactant formulation was selected based on the initial screening steps using North Sea
crude oil and diluted seawater. The impact on oil recovery efficiency in various press-fit
scenarios was investigated using aged Berea sandstone cores. The results showed
comparable recovery of LSS flooding at capillary counts, which is two orders of magnitude
lower than surfactant flooding at ultra-low IFTs.

Moreover, the retention value in the latter case was about 60% higher than in the case of low
salinity water injection. Based on this, at ultra-low IFT the Low salinity surfactant process
seems to be more economically efficient than the optimal salinity surfactant injection
process. The tested Berea cores, both homogeneous and heterogeneous, show insignificant
response to low salinity injection alone. A moderate reduction in IFT under low salinity
conditions gives similar oil recoveries as ultralow IFT at higher salinity. The surfactant
retention values are lower in a low salinity environment than in an optimal salinity
environment.

Page 12 of 43
TITLE: Surfactant Flooding Evaluation for Enhanced Oil
Recovery in Sandstones Reservoirs
AUTHOR: Rosangela B. Z. L. Moreno

SUMMARY:

This case study included Phase Behaviour and Core flooding tests for
making analyses between oil production responses of different
configurations of surfactant flooding method .
The phase behaviour tests were conducted to select the best
surfactant formulations through interfacial tensions and
solubilization ratios determinations of different concentrations of
five commercial surfactants three anionic surfactants and two no-
ionic surfactants. The selected primary surfactant and co-surfactant
formulations were tested for enhanced oil recovery using core flood
tests on high permeability sandstones from Bocatutu Formation. In
these tests, the primary formulation solutions were followed by
polymeric drive solutions injection .

The tested formulations were also tested for porous media

adsorption, evaluating surfactant losses during a surfactant flooding
.The results are useful for running numerical simulation cases and
single well field projects.

700k+ research projects

Page 13 of 43
TITLE:Polymer−Surfactant Flooding in Low-Permeability
Reservoirs: An Experimental Study

AUTHOR : Haiying Liao, Hongmin Yu, Guanli Xu, Ping Liu, Yingfu
He, and Yinbang Zhou

SUMMARY:

In this research paper, a chemical formula used in low-permeability

reservoirs was developed. In response to the low-permeability
reservoir geological characteristics and fluid properties some
experimental studies and field project studies of polymer surfactant
flooding were carried out.

The surfactant structure and polymer molecular weight were

determined from laboratory experiments. The formula of efficient
flooding is 0.3% surfactant +0.1% polymer. The designed injection
rate is 0.1 PV b per year and the injection volume is 0.45 PV. The
technique has been applied in the target block, which has been
shown to be effective.
It has good injectivity in low-permeability reservoirs and its oil
recovery efficiency increased over 10% in the laboratory experiment.
The result was higher than that of single chemical flooding. The
chemical formula can effectively alleviate intra-layer and inter-layer
contradictions in the reservoir.

The project has increased oil output by 77,700 t and the recovery
factor by 3.5%. Polymer surfactant flooding is an effective method to
further enhance oil recovery in low-permeability reservoirs.

Page 14 of 43
TITLE: Surfactant Flooding in Challenging Conditions:
Towards Hard Brines and High Temperatures

AUTHOR : R.. Tabary; B.. Bazin; F.. Douarche; P..

Moreau; F.. Oukhemanou-Destremaut

SUMMARY:

This study shows that very high performances can be obtained in

various conditions which were previously considered as extremely
challenging for chemical EOR.
Surfactant flooding processes become challenging in hard brines and
at high temperatures. Starting from mild conditions which is soft brine
at moderate temperature, it shows that performance of surfactant
flooding relies on the combination of properly designed chemical
formulation and appropriate injection strategy.
In soft brine, a salinity gradient is shown to provide high performance.
In hard brines, surfactant adsorption is significantly higher than in soft
brines. Therefore a salinity gradient injection strategy becomes
ineffective when hardness is increased. Surfactant adsorption is
drastically reduced when using appropriate adsorption inhibitors.

This results in a very high oil recovery with performances comparable

to the one achieved in soft brine conditions. For high temperatures
greater than 80C new surfactants, polymers and additives are
available to address these conditions.

Page 15 of 43
TITLE: Efficiency of Oil Recovery by Low Salinity Water
Flooding in Sandstone Reservoirs

AUTHOR: Ramez A. Nasralla, Mohammed B. Alotaibi,

Hisham A. Nasr-El-Din

SUMMARY:

Low salinity water flooding is a successful technique for improving

oil recovery in sandstone reservoirs.

Low salinity water injection in secondary mode results in higher oil

recovery compared to high salinity brines injection regardless of the
oil composition

. Low salinity water did not improve oil recovery in tertiary mode,
although it was efficient in secondary mode. Cation exchange is
responsible for higher oil recovery from low salinity water injection;
cation exchange leads to a reduction in electrostatic attraction forces
between crude oil and the rock surface and thus oil recovery is
improved.

Formation damage is likely to occur when deionized water is

injected after saline water.

Page 16 of 43
TITLE: New Insights of Low Salinity Water Flooding in
Low Permeability-Low Porosity Clay Rich Sandstone
Reservoir

AUTHOR :Ali K. Alhuraishawy, Baojun Bai, Mingzhen

Wei, Waleed H. Al-Bazzaz

SUMMARY:

Low salinity water flooding is an EOR method that operates at a

lower cost than other EOR methods which makes it a good choice for
oil industry economists who try to cut down the cost of enhanced oil
recovery.
The aim is to recover maximum oil with minimum amount of money.
The performance of low salinity waterflooding in decreasing residual
oil saturation in low permeability- porosity clay-rich sandstone
reservoir.
Porosity test, core flooding test, XRD and scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) tests were carried out in in this study. Salinity
effect on the porosity, oil recovery, and injection pressure was made.

The results showed that low salinity waterflooding resulted in

improving oil recovery and porosity with permeability reduction and
decreased the clay content. Therefore, low salinity water flooding
can modify both porosity and permeability and improve oil recovery
factor.

Page 17 of 43
TITLE: Investigating Low-Salinity Waterflooding
Recovery Mechanisms in Sandstone Reservoirs

AUTHOR : Ahmad Aladasani, Baojun Bai, Yu-Shu Wu

SUMMARY:

Reservoir simulations conducted to examine LSWF recovery

sensitivities conclude that LSWF recovery mechanisms are governed
based on capillary conditions.

In strong water-wet conditions, the increase in oil relative

permeability is the underlining recovery mechanism.

In weak water-wet conditions, LSWF incremental recovery is driven

by low capillary pressures.

In weak oil-wet conditions, the primary LSWF recovery mechanism is

the increase in oil relative permeability, and the secondary LSWF
recovery mechanism is the change of the non-wetting phase to oil.

In strong oil-wet conditions, on the other hand, the underlying LSWF

recovery mechanism is the increase in oil relative permeability.

In all cases, an appreciable decrease in interfacial tension (IFT) is

observed.

Page 18 of 43
TITLE: Low-Salinity Surfactant Flooding—A
Multimechanistic Enhanced-Oil-Recovery Method

AUTHOR :Shayan Tavassoli; Aboulghasem Kazemi

Korrani; Gary A. Pope; Kamy Sepehrnoori

SUMMARY:

A good match was obtained between the simulations and the

experimental oil recovery. The stability of surfactant floods depends
on the viscosity of the microemulsion that forms when the surfactant
mixes with the oil and water in the core. The simulations show that
slow oil recovery was because of the unstable flow at a velocity
higher than the critical velocity. Simulator was also used to
investigate the effect of surfactant phase behaviour and IFT on the
performance of the flood. A surfactant flood at high salinity that is
based on experimental phase - behaviour data had a higher oil
recovery than the LSS flood with an LS preflood. The high-salinity
surfactant flood recovered 100% of the OOIP within approximately
2PV without the need for a preflood compared to 92.3% of OOIP for
the LSS flood after 15 PV of continuous surfactant injection.

The hybrid method of LSS flooding was introduced to take the

advantage of surfactants in reducing IFT to mobilize the capillary-
trapped residual oil. Addition of surfactants prevents the re-trapping
of oil that was initially mobilized with LS brine injection. Hybrid
methods reduce the uncertainties associated with individual and
enhance the performance of the process. The proper selection of
surfactant and the design of the surfactant flood might surpass the
potential benefits of LS waterflooding in terms of both higher oil
recovery and lower cost.

Page 19 of 43
TITLE: Capillary desaturation curve: does low salinity
surfactant flooding significantly reduce the residual oil
saturation?

AUTHOR: Davood Zivar, Peyman Pourafshary & Nikoo

Moradpour
SUMMARY:
Excellent performance of low salinity surfactant flooding is observed
in terms of residual oil saturation compared to the low salinity water
method and surfactant flooding as a result of taking advantage of
both methods.

The low salinity surfactant method is able to increase the capillary

number by up to three times of magnitude and decrease the
magnitude of ROS up to 30%, which shows its advantages over the SF
method. Residual oil saturation of the low salinity surfactant method
shows an average of 5% lower values compared to the surfactant
flooding method.

Although a higher IFT ratio of surfactant flooding caused lower

capillary force, flooding of low salinity water could be more effective
in terms of the reduction in the magnitude of residual oil saturation.
The redistribution of the oil is known as a reason behind the better
performance of low salinity water flooding. The surfactant flooding is
found to be more effective in high capillary numbers.

Page 20 of 43
TITLE: Combined Low Salinity Brine Injection and
Surfactant Flooding in Mixed−Wet Sandstone Cores

AUTHOR: Edin Alagic* and Arne Skauge

SUMMARY:

This research paper presents a new hybrid EOR process where the
effect of low salinity brine injection is combined with surfactant
flooding.
An anionic surfactant formulation was selected to give low
interfacial tension (IFT) in a low salinity environment. Improved
surfactant solubility and reduced adsorption or retention is among
the advantages of using surfactant at low salinity conditions. This
paper reports core flood experiments performed on outcrop
sandstone cores using crude oil as the oil phase.

Results show high oil recovery of more than 90% of original oil in
place (OOIP) when surfactant is used in tertiary mode that is after
secondary waterflood.
Destabilization of oil layers caused by change in brine salinity and
mobilization of the residual oil at low IFT is discussed as the possible
underlying mechanism for the combined process of low salinity
water injection with surfactant flooding.
Low surfactant retention under these conditions may makes this
hybrid EOR process more economically attractive compared to
applying low salinity waterflood or surfactant flooding separately.

Page 21 of 43
TITLE: Hybrid EOR Methods Utilizing Low-Salinity
Water - LSW/surfactant hybrid EOR technique

AUTHOR: Peyman Pourafshary and Nikoo Moradpour

SUMMARY:

Surfactants are known as the agents which are utilized to decrease

the IFT and capillary forces, between oil and water in order to
enhance microscopic sweep efficiency.
LSW provides more detached oil droplets to be produced due to
lowered capillary forces by surfactants.

LSW flooding has been found to be effective when combined with

gas injection (mainly CO2), surfactant and polymer flooding,
nanofluid injection, and hot water injection, each of which can
improve the oil recovery through several mechanisms such as
mobility control, wettability alteration, IFT reduction, etc.

Experimental and modelling studies reviewed in this study have

found that LSW hybrid methods can provide up to 30% original oil-in-
place (OOIP) incremental oil recovery.

Page 22 of 43
TITLE: An experimental evaluation of low salinity water
mechanisms in a typical Brazilian sandstone and light
crude oil with low acid/basic number
AUTHOR: Alana Almeida da Costaa, Japan Trivedib,
João Soaresb, Paulo Rochac, Gloria Costaa, Marcelo
Embiruçua
Summary:
Low salinity water injection (LSWI), one of the terms for this emergent method, has also
been recognized as a cheap and environmentally friendly technique for enhanced oil
recovery (EOR). The mechanisms governing the LSWI effects, however, are still not well
understood, particularly regarding the impact of the brine pH on crude oil/brine/rock
(COBR) interactions.

Experimental Methods:

• Zeta Potential
• Oil Adsorption
• IFT
• Core Flooding

Conclusion:
The Recôncavo basin, on the Atlantic Coast near the city of Salvador, has an area of about
10,000 km2 and is the principal petroleum province of Brazil. Since 1939, approximately 255
wildcats have been drilled and have discovered 43 accumulations which total 942 million bbl
of producible oil and 992 billion ft3 of gas. API gravity of most oil ranges from 35 to 40°.
Reservoir conditions in the Recôncavo basin present good agreement with the screening
criteria for LSWI in terms of oil, brine and rock compositions as well as temperature. The
combination of high content of clay and oxide minerals in the rock and the light paraffinic
crude oil with low acid/basic number indicate the strong potential of the application of LSWI
in the basin and in similar oil reservoirs.
The core flooding results showed that oil recovery is higher in LSWI in secondary recovery
mode than in LSWI in tertiary mode, meaning that the benefits will be greater in terms of oil
recovery with LSWI as the first stage of recovery compared to formation water injection

TITLE: Capillary Pressure Effects on Estimating the

Enhanced-Oil-Recovery Potential During
Page 23 of 43
Low-Salinity and Smart Waterflooding
AUTHOR: Pal Østebø Andersen, University of Stavanger
Summary:
Core flooding experiments are frequently conducted to assess multiphase-flow properties,
fluid displacement, and oil-recovery performance and to optimize the design of injection
fluids in terms of physical and chemical properties.
Experiment method -
1 Dispersion Coefficient
2 Adsorption isotherm
3 saturation function co-relation

4 wettability alteration coupling

5 Initial and boundary condition
6 Average saturation and pressure drop

Conclusion -
1. During WA-injection processes, any additionally produced oil can result from reduced
CEEs, altered mobility ratio, or a lowered residual oil saturation. Distinguishing between
these effects is challenging and requires a careful design of experimental conditions and
interpretation methods, as well as obtaining accurate measurements.
2. A WA toward more water-wet conditions can give a more-favorable mobility ratio for oil
displacement. At an unfavorable initial
mobility ratio, it is difficult to obtain steady state, even with many PVs. Separately
quantifying the contributions of additional oil
production on smart water injection into either reduced sor or accelerated production from
changed mobility conditions might require other means than flooding, such as in-situ
monitoring or centrifuge.
3. CEEs can be revealed by bumping the rate even if the system has not reached steady state
in terms of production. Systems unaffected by end effects show no sensitivity to rate
changes when plotting average saturation (or recovery) vs. injected PVs. Systems with
significant end effects will display more efficient oil production in such a plot at increased
injection rate because oil previously trapped by end effects is mobilized.

Page 24 of 43
TITLE: Oil Recovery Efficiency and Mechanism of Low
Salinity-Enhanced Oil recovery for Light Crude Oil with a
Low Acid Number
AUTHOR: Abhijit Kakati, Ganesh Kumar, and Jitendra
S. Sangwai
Summary:
Low salinity waterflooding (low salinity-EOR) has attracted great interest from many giant
oil producers and is currently under trial in some of the oil fields of the United States,
Middle Eastern countries, and North Sea reservoirs. Most of the reported studies on this
process were carried out for medium to relatively heavy oil with significant polar contents.
In this work, we have investigated low salinity waterflooding performance for light paraffinic
crude oil with a low acid number.
Experiment -

1) Effect of salinity on interfacial tension

2) Effect of salinity on contact angle
3) Effect of salinity on effluent brine analysis
4) Effect of salinity on efficiency, environmental, and economic benefits of Low Salinity-EOR.

Conclusion -
1)The results of waterflooding experiments using a crude with a low acid number show that
injection of diluted seawater has a significant potential for improving oil recovery as
compared to high salinity seawater injection.
2)The highest additional oil recovery is obtained in the case of 25% seawater injection. The
impact of 50% seawater injection was negligible, and with 10% seawater injection, the oil
recovery has improved but not as significant as the 25% seawater injection case.

3)Recovery mechanism studies show that dilution of injection water has an obvious impact
on oil−water IFT and significantly influences the reservoir rock wettability.

At an optimum dilution, a minimum IFT and strongly water-wet condition can be achieved,
which results in additional oil recovery from low salinity-EOR.

Page 25 of 43
TITLE: Modelling the Impact of Low Salinity
Waterflooding, Polymer Flooding and Thermally
Activated Polymer on Produced Water Composition
AUTHOR: Mohammed Said Al Bahri, Oscar Vazquez,
Alan Beteta, Munther Mohammed Al Kalbani, and Eric
James Mackay, Heriot-Watt University
Summary:
The objective of this manuscript is to investigate, by the means of reservoir simulation, the
impact of different EOR techniques , namely low salinity waterflooding (LSW), polymer
flooding and Thermally Activated Polymer (TAP), for in-depth conformance control, on oil
recovery and BaSO4 scale deposition.
This study aims to investigate the impact of different EOR techniques including low salinity
waterflooding and polymer flooding with Thermally Activated Polymer (TAP) as in-depth
conformance control method, in oil recovery considering BaSO4 scale precipitation risk, as a
result of different mixing profiles between the injected and formation brines.
Experiment/calculations -

1)potential scale risk

2)recovery factor

Conclusion -
1)Waterflooding resulted in early breakthrough and high water cut especially in the
heterogeneous cases, due to the viscous fingering and high velocity in the thief zone. This
resulted in higher risk of BaSO4 scale formation occurring at an earlier time compared to the
other cases.
2) Polymer flooding increased the stability of the water front resulting in higher oil recovery
and delayed and reduced the potential BaSO4 precipitation risk compared to the WF case.
3)The implementation of TAP showed very positive results, as it resulted in diverting the
injected water path from the thief zone into the lower permeability regions and hence
increased oil recovery. TAP resulted in higher BaSO4 precipitation in the reservoir as more
mixing occurred in the low permeability regions. It also delayed the sulphate breakthrough
at the producer, which delayed the onset of scale formation at the producer, but for a
longer period.

Page 26 of 43
TITLE: Performance of low‐salinity water fooding for
enhanced oil recovery improved by SiO2 nanoparticles
AUTHOR: Tangestani Ebrahim Vafaie Sefti Mohsen
Shadman Mohammad Mahdi Kazemi Tooseh Esmaeel
Ahmadi Saeb
Summary:
Low-salinity water injection has been utilized as a promising method for oil recovery in
recent years. Low-salinity water flooding changes the ion composition or brine salinity for
improving oil recovery. Recently, the application of nanoparticles with low-salinity water
flooding has shown remarkable results in enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

Experiment
1)brine preparation

2)zeta potential
3)contact angle
4)Interfacial tension
5) fluid viscosity

Conclusion –
effect of low salinity waterflooding on:
1)Brine -Mg2+, Ca2+, K+, and Na+ ions were tested to determine the best ion for increasing
oil recovery. As a result, the maximum oil recovery of low-salinity water injection was about
39% which is 6.1% more than high-salinity brine injection.
2)Zeta potential - in low-salinity water flooding that leads to lowering the zeta potential
toward more negative values. Also by lowering the salinity in the brine, the ionic strength
decreases and the electrostatic repulsion between clay particles and oil increases

Page 27 of 43
TITLE: Experimental Investigation of the Role of
Different Clays in Low Salinity Waterflooding
AUTHOR: Henry Ivuawuogu, Yaoze Cheng, Yin Zhang,
and Santanu Khataniar, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Summary:
Extensive studies have demonstrated that low salinity waterflooding (LSWF) can improve oil
recovery effectively, and its typical recovery mechanisms have been proposed. This study is
to identify the influence of different clays, including montmorillonite, illite, and kaolinite, in
LSWF performance and their mechanisms. The zeta potentials of sand, montmorillonite,
illite, and kaolinite in the presence of high salinity water (HSW)and low salinity water (LSW)
with salinities of27,501 mg/Land 2,485 mg/L were first examined, respectively. Then, the
swelling factors of the three clay minerals in the HSW and LSW were measured in succession
to determine their swelling characteristics.

Experiment -
1)Zeta potential
2) Swelling test

3)Core flooding

Conclusion -
1) Compared with HSW, LSW could generate more negative zeta potential values for sand
,montmorillonite, Illite , and kaolinite, resulting in favourable wettability alteration.

2) Montmorillonite showed obvious swelling in HSW, and it could further swell significantly
by contacting LSW due to multi-ion exchange and high negative electric charge at
brine/montmorillonite-particle interface. Illite showed some swelling in HSW, but LSW could
not further swell it. Kaolinite did not swell in both HSW and LSW.
Finally, we could confirm that both wettability alteration and clay swelling could attribute to
the improved oil recovery in LSWF

Page 28 of 43
TITLE: Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery by Thermal-
Different Aqueous Ionic Solutions-Low Salinity Water
Flooding
AUTHOR: Hasan N. Al-Saedi, Missouri University of
Science and Technology/Missan Oil Company; Ralph E.
Flori, Missouri University of Science and Technology;
Patrick V. Brady, Sandia National Lab.
Summary:
In this study, we propose to quantify a control of water chemistry on water-rock
interactions and wettability alteration during Lo-Sal water-flooding of sandstone cores
containing heavy oil. We intended to identify the dominant process of wettability alteration
through considering all possible water-rock interaction mechanisms simultaneously. The
effect of the potential determining ion towards sandstone ‘calcium ion’ is presented in this
work. The ultimate oil recovery for the core saturated in normal Ca2+ concentration at
higher temperature was higher than the core saturated with double Ca2+ at the same
temperature.

Experiment -
1) Berea sandstone core preparation
2) Brine preparation
3) Core flooding

Conclusion -
1) Increasing the temperature of the injected water reduces the viscosity contrast between
oil and water in the heated region. This can improve the sweep efficiency under some
conditions.
2) Controlling the chemistry of water could provide a better solution for increased heavy oil
recovery instead of increasing the injected water temperature, which could lower the
energy required to move the heavy oil from the heavy oil reservoirs
3) The adsorption of the organic material in heavy crude oil on the sandstone decreased
because the rock became too water-wet for observing the LS water flooding effect when the
divalent cations presented in a higher concentration.

Page 29 of 43
TITLE: Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery by Thermal-
Different Aqueous Ionic Solutions-Low Salinity Water
Flooding
AUTHOR: Ali K. Alhuraishawy, Missan Oil Company /
Reservoir and Fields Development Directorate; Baojun
Bai and Mingzhen Wei, Missouri University of Science
and Technology; Waleed H. Al-Bazzaz, Kuwait Institute
for Sciencefic Research
Summary:
One of the EOR technologies is low-salinity water flooding (LSWF) is an EOR method that
operates at a lower cost than other EOR methods. Here we try to minimize the possible
cost to recover as much oil as possible. The performance of low salinity waterflooding in
decreasing residual oil saturation in low permeability- porosity clay-rich sandstone reservoir.
Experiment -
1)Core flooding

1.1 Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM)

1.2 X-ray diffraction
2) Oil recovery factor

Conclusion -

1) The low-salinity water flooding had a significant effect on the core porosity in low
permeability-low porosity clay rich sandstone core. When the brine concentration
decreased, the core porosity, oil recovery, and injection pressure increased.
2) Low salinity waterflooding resulted in clay detached, fine migration, and mineral
dissolution in sand stone core sample which contain clay minerals.
3) Electron dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) results illustrated that silica content (Si) decreased
as brine concentration decreased due to sand dissolution by low salinity waterflooding.
4) The XRD results showed that the clay percentage decreased with brine concentration
decreased and these result have good agreement with SEM analyses and, therefore, the
brine salinity has a significant effect of kaolinite content in the sandstone cores.

Page 30 of 43
TITLE: Adsorption / Desorption Phenomenon of Crude
Oil to Rock Surface in Low Salinity Waterflooding
AUTHOR: Mai Shimokawara, Japan Oil, Gas & Metals
National Corporation; Miku Takeya, Hokkaido
University; Chiaki Otomo and Yasuyuki Mino, Japan Oil,
Gas & Metals National Corporation; Elakneswaran
Yogarajah and Toyoharu Nawa, Hokkaido University
Summary:
Wettability of reservoir rocks is important in understanding the rock properties influencing
the fluid displacement in porous media. The magnitude of wettability is provided by contact
angle, Ammot, and/or USBM methods. This however indicates the average wettability of the
examined core samples, and does not give the micro wettability of core samples.

Experiment -
1) Contact angle
2) Amott test
3) USMB method

4) Zeta potential measurement

5) Ageing process

Conclusion –

We performed the composition analysis of crude oil and core samples and zeta potential
measurements before and after ageing process to investigate the distribution of adsorption
and desorption of oil on the particle at various ageing and immersion conditions. The results
element composition in brine and crude oil show that the adsorption of crude oil on calcite
surface. These results are further validated by zeta potential measurements, which shows a
negative zeta potential for aged samples. The measured absolute value of zeta potential of
aged sample is lower than that of crude oil indicating a partial compensating of crude oil
surface species with calcite surface species. Furthermore, the period of ageing did not
significantly influence the element composition in brine or crude oil and zeta potential.

Page 31 of 43
TITLE: New Wettability Method for Sandstone Using
High-Salinity/Low-Salinity Water Flooding at Residual
Oil Saturation
AUTHOR: Hasan N. Al-Saedi and Ali K. Alhuraishawy,
Missouri University of Science and Technology, Missan
Oil Company; R. E. Flori, Missouri University of Science
and Technology; P. V. Brady, Sandia National
Laboratories; P. Heidari, Missouri University of Science
and Technology; Abdullah Almansour, King Abdulaziz
City for Science and Technology
Summary:
Nowadays, the main concern for enhanced oil recovery is wettability. The proposed
EOR/IOR techniques were focused on how to alter the reservoir wettability to water-wet to
reduce the affinity of oil and increase oil recovery. Numerous quantitative and qualitative
methods have been presented to measure wettability. The Amott test is one of the most
widely used empirical wettability measurements for reservoir cores in petroleum
engineering. The method combines two spontaneous imbibition measurements and two
forced displacement measurements. This test defines two different indices: the Amott
water index

Experiment -
1) Core preparation
2) Water flooding
3)Amott-Harvey wettability index

Conclusion-
1)The new wettability test proposed both calcium and bromine contacting the same water-
wet area in sandstone. The area between the two curve divided by the area obtained from
100% water-wet core is the new wettability index.

2) Temperature is an essential factor. As the temperature increased, the wettability index

decreased.
3) The test can measure the neutral wettability.
4) Using the new wettability test showed that sequential HS-LS water flooding could alter
the wettability from neutral-wet condition towards more water-wet in the same core.

5)The advantages of this method are time efficiency and low measurement error.

Page 32 of 43
TITLE: Alkali/Surfactant Improved Low-Salinity Water
flooding
Author: S. Shaddel · S. A. Tabatabae-Nejad
Summary:
Extensive laboratory studies have shown that oil recovery from water flooding is dependent
on the salinity and composition of the injected water. The potential of low-salinity water
flooding (LSWF) has been observed in field trials, with relatively good agreement with the
measured laboratory data. However, the incremental recovery from LSWF is relatively
modest (2–10 % OOIP) compared to other water-based EOR methods such as chemical
methods, particularly when applied in tertiary mode. In this paper, we investigate low-salinity
flooding combined with alkali to improve the incremental recovery. The recoveries are also
compared with low-salinity brine combined with surfactant. This is studied in a system, which
is first shown to be responsive to low salinity. The low-salinity recovery result is used as a
baseline for comparison. A clay-rich core from a sandstone reservoir and crude oil were used.
The flooding experiments were performed by successive injection of high-salinity formation
brine and low-salinity water or low-salinity water combined with a surfactant or alkali
(SDS/NaOH). Based on the results, without adding alkali or surfactant, low-salinity flooding
recovered 4 % additional oil over the recovery from high-salinity injection. However, when
combined with 1 wt% alkali/surfactant, the oil recovery increased to 7–17 % OOIP. Minor
formation damage was observed in all experiments. Interfacial tension (IFT) reduction in each
combined method is envisaged to be the driving mechanism for the enhancement of oil
recovery. Interfacial tension reduction decreases capillary pressure, thereby decreasing
trapping or re-trapping of the mobilized oil by low-salinity flooding. Comparison of the
recovery from surfactant-improved low salinity and alkali-improved low salinity indicates that
higher oil recovery can be achieved with surfactant than with alkali. Higher efficiency with
surfactant can be attributed to the lower attainable IFT with surfactant than alkali (higher
capillary numbers). Nevertheless, due to lower costs, alkali is more cost effective than
surfactant and is advantageous because it reduces adsorption of in-situ generated petroleum
surfactant. The results of the study emphasize the benefits of hybrid methods for the
improvement of oil recovery. Particularly where a reservoir is responsive to low salinity,
recovery can be enhanced by the addition of a small amount of alkali or surfactant. .
Surfactant injection improves oil recovery by lowering the oil–water interfacial tension (IFT),
thereby preventing capillary trapping of oil and/or remobilizing the trapped oil. However, the
efficiency of the process could be reduced due to surfactant loss by adsorption and reduction
of inter facial tension between water and oil (oleic phase), which ultimately renders the
process technically unviable. Studies have shown that surfactant retention increases.

Page 33 of 43
TITLE: Enhanced oil Recovery by Combined Low Salinity
Water Flooding
Author: Behruz Shaker Shiran* and Arne Skauge
Summary:

Low salinity brine injection has been given a great interest as a technique for enhanced oil recovery
(EOR) by waterflooding. Varying experimental results have been reported in the literature, from many
promising results to limited or no effects of low salinity. The application of low salinity water in
combination with other established EOR processes is of great interest. The combined processes
involve dampening capillarity to avoid trapping of mobilized oil, reducing resiEnhanced Oil Recovery
(EOR) by Combined Low Salinity Water/ Polymer Flooding. Recently, dual oil saturation (Sor), and
altering frontal stability and sweep. In this article, we address the questions of timing of LS injection
and the added benefit of polymer injection. Secondary-mode and tertiary-mode low salinity water
flooding experiments were performed on outcrop Berea sandstone core material. The main results
are the oil recovery efficiencies of these two different flooding modes. These results show an increase
in oil recovery of about 13% of the original oil in place (OOIP) in secondary-mode compared to tertiary-
mode low salinity water flooding. Moreover, the effect of polymer injection was found to be more
positive when low salinity was initialized from the start of water injection (secondary mode). In this
case, the final recovery factor increased to about 90% OOIP. Possible mechanisms for low salinity and
low salinity polymer injection are discussed. Increased oil recovery by substantially lowering the
injection brine salinity or modifying the brine composition of the injection water has been reported in
numerous experimental studies and field trials for both tertiary and secondary (initial water condition)
modes of water flooding. T They related the increased oil recovery to wettability alteration toward
more water-wet condition by fines migration during low salinity water injection. In later studies,
several other mechanisms have been proposed by different researchers as reasons for the LSE. The
mechanisms often referred to as key factors in sandstone include the following: release and migration
of mixedwet clay fines, which results in the alteration of wettability toward a more water-wet state
and, therefore, oil mobilization and production3 and effective microscopic diversion; mineral
dissolution and ion-exchange reactions, which increase the pH through the formation of excess
hydroxyl ions, OH¯, thereby causing a reduction in interfacial tension (IFT); and ( multi component
ionic exchange (MIE)15 between adsorbed crude oil components, connate brine, and clay particles,
which leads to the development of a “self-freshening” zone within the water-flooded region,16 double
layer expansion17 that results in the desorption of organic polar compounds from the rock surface,
oil layer destabilization, and microscopic diversion.1 Boussour et al.18 presented the different
mechanisms proposed in the literature as being responsible for the LSE and provided experimental
counterexamples, showing that the LSE is very sensitive to a combination of different parameters
inherent in the crude oil−brine−rock system. An increase in pH, for instance, has been reported in
many articles as the reason for the LSE. However, numerous experimental studies have shown no
correlation between the LSE and changes in pH. That is, there are reports of a benefit to low salinity
with Low salinity brine injection has been given a great interest as a technique for enhanced oil
recovery (EOR) by waterflooding. The combined processes involve dampening capillarity to avoid
trapping of mobilized oil, reducing residual oil saturation and altering frontal stability and sweep.

Page 34 of 43
TITLE: Wettablity Studies using Low Salinity Water in
Sandstone Reservoir
Author: Mohammad B Alotaibi ; RAmez Masoud; Hisam
A. Nisar-EI-Din
Summary:
The ionic strength of injection water can have a major impact on oil recovery resulting from
the use of low-salinity brines. Understanding how the water and oil chemistry affects the final
recovery from a physico chemical point of view is necessary in order to optimize low-salinity
water flooding. It is clear from the literature that wettability is a key factor in achieving the
low-salinity effect. Optimum ionic strength and conditions for low-salinity flooding with
respect to wettability are still uncertain.

In this paper, we studied fluid/rock interactions at different salinity levels and elevated
temperature conditions in terms of wettability and surface charge. Wettability is determined
by a high-temperature/high-pressure (HT/HP) contact-angle method and zeta-potential
technique. Outcrop rocks and stock-tank crude-oil samples were used in all experiments.
Synthetic formation brine water, aquifer water, and seawater were evaluated under high-
pressure conditions. Zeta potential of sandstone rocks and selected clay minerals was
measured as a function of ionic strength.
Wettability of oil/brine/sandstone systems depends on salinity, temperature, and rock
mineralogy. Using aquifer water in Berea sandstone improved the wettability toward a water-
wet condition. The same aquifer water behaved in a different way when a different sandstone
surface was tested. In Scioto sandstone, aquifer water changed the wettability to a neutral
state. Low-salinity water expanded the double-layer thickness and eventually increased the
zeta-potential magnitude. As a result of this expansion, it provides a greater opportunity to
alter the wettability and enhance oil recovery. This study indicates that clay content in
sandstone rocks can significantly alter the wettability either toward water-wet or
intermediate. On the basis of the results obtained from this study, it is clear that low-salinity
water flooding can improve oil recovery in the field.

Page 35 of 43
TITLE: Effect of crude oil ageing on low salinity and low
salinity surfactant flooding
Author: EdinAlagic, Kristine Spildo, Arne Skauge & Jonas
Solbakken
Summary:
Injection of brine with lower salinity than the connate brine has proven to give a moderate
increase in oil recovery in sandstones. Recent research has shown that this process will
significantly benefit from introducing surfactant optimised for low salinity environment. The
mechanisms underlying increased reInjection of brine with lower salinity than the connate
brine has proven to give a moderate increase in oil recovery in sandstones. Recent research
has shown that this process will significantly benefit from introducing surfactant optimised
for low salinity environment. The mechanisms underlying increased recovery by low salinity
brine injection are not yet fully understood. However, research to date suggests that they
are related to complex crude oil/brine/rock interactions. With this in mind, the present
paper investigates primarily how the extent of oil recovery from Berea sandstones subjected
to long term exposure of crude oil is influenced by (1) low salinity water injection and (2)
combined process low salinity water injection with surfactant flooding. Core displacement
In general, recovery is reported to be higher for low salinity brine injection compared to
injection of sea water or high salinity produced water. Results from about 30 core floods
performed in BP's laboratories show incremental recoveries ranging from 5 to 40% OOIP .
Also, the potential of low salinity water injection into oil fields has also been tested by
SWCTT .
A number of hypotheses as to why injection of low salinity water should give an increase in
recovery have been put forward. This includes multi component ion exchange, wettability
alteration, fines migration and increasing pH. Evidence in the literature goes against either
fines migration or increasing pH as being the only mechanisms since they are features
associated with some, but not all, successful low salinity floods Several authors have
reported on the effect of wettability on oil recovery . With respect to waterflood recovery, a
water-wet system is characterised by no oil production after water breakthrough (WBT). An
oil-wet system typically displays early water breakthrough, with significant production after
WBT. Further, a maximum in oil recovery has been found at near neutral wettability showed
an increase in the amount of spontaneous water imbibition and total water flood recovery
with decreasing brine salinity for Berea sandstone cores. The cores had been aged in
reservoir crude oils, and reservoir brines and dilutions of these were used during water
flooding. Based on these results, increased oil recovery by low salinity flooding.

Page 36 of 43
TITLE: Enhanced oil recovery of low salinity water flooding
in sandstone and the role of clay
Author: Hasan N. AL-SAEDI and Ralph E. FLORI
Summary:
The Wettability alteration mechanisms during LS water flooding are less understood than
other EOR techniques. The mechanisms of LS water flooding are still a topic of debate. The
incremental oil recovery from sandstone using LS water include several proposed
mechanisms: mineral dissolution[1], multi-component ion exchange, double-layer expansion,
desorption of organic material from clay surface, reduction in inter facial tension, and fines
migration[6]. The presence of clay in the reservoir has a significant impact on oil recovery.
The chemical composition of the injected water is another major factor affecting additional
oil production. However, there is no consensus on the dominant mechanism of enhancing
recovery in sandstone reservoirs. This may be because several simultaneous processes
contribute to the overall process.

To our knowledge, no systematic experimental and numerical studies have been carried out
that consider the most important water-rock interactions in sand stones simultaneously.
Reservoir chemical heterogeneity may also play a role. Experimental and field scale projects
indicate that incremental oil recovery by LS water flooding varies significantly case by-case in
both carbonates and sand stones . Minerals in natural porous media are typically distributed
unevenly with random spatial patterns, ranging from uniform distribution to clustered
minerals. On one hand, physical heterogeneity changes flow fields and therefore the spatial
distribution of ions. On the other hand, chemical heterogeneity significantly changes
dissolution rate and adsorption/desorption . Combination of physical and chemical
heterogeneity can significantly impact water-rock interaction and wettability alteration.
However, the effect of spatial distribution of reservoir physical and chemical properties on
water-rock interaction and wettability alteration during LS water flooding has not been fully
considered. In this study, we quantify the effect of mineral composition and water chemical
properties on the water-rock reaction and wettability alteration. The mechanisms of LS water
flooding in sandstone with and without clay under different temperatures are examined by
using two chromatographic columns containing free-clay quartz and quartz with clay, and the
effect of clay on recovery enhancement is analyzed.

Page 37 of 43
TITLE: Low Salinity Water flooding and Combination of low
Salinity Water Flooding with Surfactant and Alkaline
Injection to improve Oil Recovery
Author: Sina Shadde
Summary:
The connate water composition has a predominant effect on the fluid distribution in porous
media and determines wettability states induced by the adsorption from crude oil . When the
connate water has relatively high salinity, the injection of dilute brine gave economically
significant increase in oil recovery, which may be because of mixing with connate water and
the creation of a favorable condition for oil production. Crude oil type and rock type both play
an important role in the effect that brine chemistry has on water flood oil recovery. . Multi
ion exchange is another mechanism that explains how low salinity water flooding influences
the oil recovery. Multi-component ion exchange (MIE) takes place between adsorbed crude
oil components, the clay mineral surface, and the cations in the brine, when low salinity brine,
which contains low concentrations of Mg2+ and Ca2+, are injected. Divalent cations from the
injected brine exchange with either cationic organic complexes or with bases, due to the
change in ionic equilibrium.
The clay surface becomes more water-wet as a result of the removal of polar organic
compounds and organo metallic complexes from the clay surface. This also increases the oil
recovery. . It was suggested that a decrease in the ionic strength by lowering the salinity in
the brine would increase the electrostatic repulsion between the clay particles and the oil.
Once the repulsive forces exceed the binding forces via the multivalent cation bridges, the oil
particles may be adsorbed from the clay surface, which leads to a change in wetting phase
towards increased water wetness. If the electrolyte concentration is further reduced, the
electrostatic forces within the clay minerals starts to exceed binding forces, which may lead
to formation damage. In this study, in addition to oil recovery data, the pH of aqueous solution
flowing out from cores.

Page 38 of 43
TITLE: Surfactant Aided Low Salinity Water Flooding for
Low Temperature Carbonate Reservoir
Author: Yue Shi
Summary:
Carbonate reservoirs tend to be oil-wet/mixed-wet and heterogeneous because of
mineralogy and diagenesis. The objective of this study is to improve oil recovery in low-
temperature dolomite reservoirs using low-salinity and surfactant-aided spontaneous
imbibition. The low-salinity brine composition was optimized using f-potential
measurements, contact-angle (CA) experiments, and a novel wettability-alteration measure.
Significant wettability alteration was observed on dolomite rocks at a salinity of 2,500 ppm.
We evaluated 37 surfactants by performing CA, interfacial-tension (IFT), and spontaneous-
imbibition experiments.
Three cationic and one (sulfonate) anionic surfactant showed significant wettability
alteration and produced 43–63% of original oil in place (OOIP) by spontaneous imbibition. At
a low temperature (35C) , oil recovery by low-salinity effect is small compared with that by
wettability-altering surfactants. Coreflood tests were performed with a selected low-salinity
cationic surfactant solution. A novel cor-eflood was proposed that modeled heterogeneity
and dynamic imbibition into low-permeability regions. The results of the Heterogeneous
coreflood were consistent with that of spontaneous imbibition tests. These experiments
demonstrated that a combination of low-salinity brine and surfactant can make originally oil-
wet dolomite rocks more water-wet and improve oil recovery from regions bypassed by
waterflood at a low temperature of 35C.

Page 39 of 43
TITLE: A critical review of low salinity water flooding
Author: J.J Sheng
Summary:
Low-salinity water flooding (LSW) is a promising new technique for enhancing oil recovery
(EOR) in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The potential of LSW has drawn the
attention of the oil industry in the past decade. Along with the few successful field
applications of LSW, various studies in this field in recent years have been conducted mainly
at the lab scale. The main objective of this critical review was to investigate the potential of
this EOR technique in improving oil recovery and the mechanism under which it operates. As
a result, various mechanisms have been proposed. However, no consensus on the dominant
mechanism(s) in neither sandstones nor carbonate reservoirs has been reported, and the oil
industry is continuing to discover the leading effects.
Herein, we provide the chronicle of LSW, analysis of the proposed mechanisms of enhancing
oil recovery using LSW in recent findings, some laboratory observations, and finally, some
successful field applications. From this review, despite the promising potential justified by
both laboratory studies and field applications, there exists a large number of unsuccessful
field case studies. LSW is viewed as an immature EOR technique with many ambiguities
because definitive conclusions about which mechanism(s) is responsible for improving oil
recovery remains elusive and a bewilderment to the oil industry

Page 40 of 43
TITLE: Hybrid EOR Method utilizing Low Salinity Water
Author: Peyman Pourafshary and Nikoo Moradpour
Summary:
Low-salinity water (LSW) flooding has been applied in sandstone and carbonate formations
to improve oil recovery. Wettability alteration by LSW has been identified as the dominant
driving mechanism for the incremental oil recoveries. LSW flooding has been combined with
other EOR methods to develop new hybrid approaches to improve crude/brine/rock (CBR)
interactions with the objective of overcoming some of the LSW flooding downsides, which
include oil trapping and fine migration. Hybrid methods can provide higher oil recovery than
each stand-alone technique. For instance, changes in gas solubility during LSW injection
positively affect the performance of LSW/gas hybrid injection.

LSW/surfactant flooding can contribute to incremental recovery by simultaneously lowering

interfacial tension (IFT) and wettability alteration. The synergistic effect of fluid redistribution
by LSW and enhanced water mobility by polymer flooding improves oil detachment and
displacement in porous media through the application of the hybrid approach LSW/polymer
flooding. Nanoparticles (NPs), mainly SiO2, can alter wettability toward more water wetness
in combination with LSW, and hot LSW can improve heavy oil production by reducing
viscosity. Hence, the synergistic effect of hybrid EOR methods based on LSW flooding is
considered a novel EOR approach to improve oil recovery.

Page 41 of 43
TITLE: Low Salinity as New Technique of Enhanced Oil
Recovery:
Author: Adam Abdalla, Renyuan Sun, Tang Guiyun, Aixian
Huang, and Meijie Wang
Summary:
Low salinity water flooding is a very promising EOR method in recent years in which chemistry
play major role in improving oil recovery. Several studies shown that oil recovery significantly
increase by low salinity water flooding (LSWF) in sandstone. However, the mechanisms of oil
recovery improvement are still controversial, its considered to be decrease of residual oil
saturation and alteration of rock wettability, the solution and surface chemistry as well as
rock/fluid interactions have important roles that can be attributed to reservoir minerals being
sensitive to small changes in solution properties.
This paper provides a comprehensive review of low salinity water flooding. Attempt is made
to cover all aspects and features of low salinity water flooding to shed light on critical and
challengeable features and clear the gaps and deficiencies of conducted studies. The
proposed mechanisms are discussed and their success and failure are explained. Analytical
and numerical modeling of low salinity water flooding is presented. Secondary and tertiary
low salinity water flooding are compared in the term of additional oil recovered. Surfaces
forces and rock/fluid/brine interaction and its relationship to wettability are discussed.
Results of combined low salinity and EOR methods are described which includes simultaneous
use of low salinity with polymer flooding, surfactant flooding. Accordingly, low salinity water
flooding EOR methods have great potential for enhanced oil recovery in the future.

Page 42 of 43
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