Formulation and Characterization of Local

Materials for Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer

(ASP) Enhanced Oil Recovery
BIBOBRA IKPORO
PG/PHD/FEN/17/007
Supervisor: ENGR. PROF. DULU APPAH
CO-SUPERVISORS:
engr. Prof. z, r. yelebe
engr. Prof. r, h. gumus PG/PHD/FEN/17/007
 Content
 Introduction
 Statement of problem
 Aim & objectives
 Scope
 Literature overview
 Research gap
 Methodology
 Results
 Conclusion
 Recommendation
 Contribution to knowledge

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Introduction
Oil Recovery Mechanisms

Primary Recovery

Natural Flow Assisted Flow/Artificial Lift

Gas Lift
Solution Drive Electrical Submersible Pump
Gas Cap Drive Progressive Cavity Pump
Water Drive Sucker Rod
Rock Compaction Drive Hydraulic Piston/Jet
Gravity Drainage Drive
Combination Drive  
Secondary Recovery

Gas Injection Water Flooding

Tertiary Recovery

Chemical Microbial Miscible Flooding Thermal

Surfactant Solutions
CO2
Polymers Steam or Hot Water
Inert Gas
Alkali Flue gas Insitu Combustion
Miscible Solvent
Polymer/Alkali
Alkali/Surfactant/Polymer Figure 1: Oil recovery process
Foams Other:

 
Infill Drilling PG/PHD/FEN/17/007
Statement of Problem

Bypassed oil (residual oil saturation more than one-half OOIIP) after
conventional water flooding,

High operating cost and environmental problems of synthetic ASP EOR

practice

Possibility of inflation/food shortage from available local ASP materials

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Aim

 To formulate and characterize Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer (ASP) slurry using locally sourced

plants base and agro-waste materials for chemical enhanced oil recovery under simulated
reservoir conditions.

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Objectives
• To identify some potential local materials, formulate Alkaline, Surfactants, and
polymers slurries and characterize them for ASP flooding.
1

• To carry out laboratory flooding experiments on a core sample from the Niger
2 Delta region with the prepared solutions

• To evaluate the economic feasibility of the ASP flooding

3

• To develop a mathematical prediction model

4

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SCOPE OF STUDY

Plants and agro-waste materials

Phytochemical analysis of the materials

Core flooding at reservoir pressure and room temperature

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RESEARCH GAP

 From literatures, several researchers have developed bio-ASP formulation with materials
such as okra, ogbono, achi, waterleaves, akawun etc. However, these materials constitute
as food and therefore its industrial utilization would cause more havoc than good.

 Also, biomaterials used by researchers previously were not characterized to ascertain the
presence of active ASP agents as selection was based on physical behaviour of the
materials and intuition.

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Methodology – Materials

Dump site of Irvingia Dump site of discarded palm husk Dump site of discarded plantain stalk
Gabonensis mesocarp

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Methodology – Materials

Bush beans Aloe vera

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 Methodology – Materials & Equipment
Materials Equipment

• Core sample • Electrical weighing balance

• Crude sample • Hot Plate Irvingia gabonensis
• Aloe Vera
• Aloe vera Measuring cylinder mesocarp
• Irvingia gabonensis mesocarp • Conical flask
• Plantain stalk • Thermometer
• Palm fruit fiber • Buck M910 GC-FID
• Treculia Africana husk • Agilent Atomic Absorption
• Distilled water Spectrometer FS240AA Plantain stalk
• • Beaker Palm Husk H
Aluminum foil
• Syringe • pH meter G I
• Ethanol • Core flooding equipment F K
• Toluene A J
M
• Industrial Salt (sodium chloride) C
E L

 
B
D

EOR setup
Core sample
Powder from samples AAS full setup SLIDE 11
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The Core Flooding
Setup

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Methodology – Experimental Workflow

Figure 2: Experimental Workflow

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Methodology - Core Flooding Experiment Procedure

Step 1 – Core Step 2 – Drainage Step 3 – Imbibition Step 4 – Tertiary

Saturation Process Process Flooding

• Core sample 100% • Flooding of the • Core sample • Recovery of the

saturated with core sample with flooded with brine residual oil
brine crude oil at a to simulate both bypassed during
constant flow rate primary and secondary
11.1 cc/min secondary recovery
recovery

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Methodology – Modelling of Experimental Outcome

To be able to predict recoverable residual oil with local

ASP methods in the future without necessarily carrying
out a laboratory experiment, a data driven model was
developed as a function of injected chemical volumes
and slurry concentrations using non-linear regression
analysis.

The model is given as:

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 Methodology Cont’d - Particle Swarm Optimization

The model parameters were evaluated using the particle swarm

optimization algorithm to minimize the objective function given by

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Methodology Cont’d - Particle Swarm Optimization

Where, i = 1, 2 … P and j = 1, 2 … n, V = velocity, w = inertial weight

constant, C1 = Cognitive acceleration term, C2 = Social acceleration term

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Methodology Cont’d - Particle Swarm Optimization

Where, to , are the model parameters

 is the volume of oil recovered

 is the volume of chemical slug injected

 is the chemical slug concentration

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Methodology – PSO Algorithm
 Implementation steps with a computer software
1. Choose the number of particles
2. Initialize the position of the particles
3. Evaluate the objective function at the initial position
4. Set the iteration number as t = t+1
5. Find the personal best for each particles
6. Find the global best
7. Find the velocities of the particles
8. Find the new value of the particles’ position
9. Find the objective function value of the new particle’ position

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 Result – Alkaline Characterization
 Atomic Absorption Spectrometer

Average oxide
Mg(OH)2 Ca(OH)2
Samples NaoH mg/g concentration
mg/g mg/g
mg/g
Irvingia According to the
Gabonensis 1.975 6.678 11.102 6.585 International Union of Pure
mesocarp and Applied Chemistry
(2005), the minerals present
Treculia
in alkalis (alkaline materials)
Africana 1.664 6.098 10.081 5.946 are magnesium, calcium,
husk sodium, and oxides.
Palm Fruit
0.812 9.676 12.056 7.515
Fiber
Aloe Vera 0.948 4.898 9.457 5.101
Plantain
2.899 8.666 9.987 7.184
stalk
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Result – Polymer Characterization

Hemi- Mono- Average weight

Lignin Cellulose of polymer
Samples cellulose saccharides
(mg/100g) (mg/100g) (mg/100g)
(mg/100g) (mg/100g)
Irvingia
gabonensis 38.267 35.905 15.467 10.653 25.073
mesocarp
Treculia africana
49.532 52.308 18.594 8.244 32.1675
husk
Palm Fruit Fiber 28.917 43.023 14.312 8.104 23.589
Aloe Vera 5.445 18.199 8.214 9.980 10.4595
Plantain stalk 19.751 30.692 10.114 11.073 17.9075

Irvingia Gabonensis mesocarp and Treculia Africana husk have the highest percentage mass
of polymers and are chosen as the polymers for the ASP flooding.

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Result – Surfactant Characterization
 The presence of saponin in a plant is an indication of its ability to behave like surfactant.

Palm Treculia Irvingia

Plantain
Fruit Africana gabonensis Aloe vera Type of
Components stalk
Fiber husk mesocarp (ug/g) phytochemical
(ug/g)
(ug/g) (ug/g) (ug/g)
Ribalinidine 22.2381 11.0379 19.1304 16.1544 22.2630 Flavonoids
Naringenin 16.4057 - - 7.7193 8.0415 Flavonoids
Phenol 6.0951 15.7089 6.1475 3.9885 6.1085 Phenol
Flavanones 5.7012 4.5857 5.7765 5.4873 12.0060 Flavonoids
Steroids 20.6469 4.4529 6.4897 9.9563 9.4335 Steroids
Sapogenin 16.7520 7.2054 14.3314 13.1326 20.5233 Saponin
Saponin - - - 4.9335 12.4635 Saponin

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 Results – Performance of Single Plant Agent
4.5 Plantain Stalk Ash Palm Husk Ash
5
4
4.5
3.5
4
3
3.5
oil recovered (ml)

2.5
3

Oil Recovered
2 2.5
1.5 2
1 1.5
0.5 1
0 0.5
0.10% 0.20% 0.40%
0
Aloe vera concentration
0.50% 1.00% 2.00%
Concentration of alkaline
Figure 3: Recovery performance of surfactant flooding
100.00 Bush Beans Ogbono Mesocarp
Figure 4: Recovery performance of alkaline flooding
90.00
80.00
Oil recovered (%)

70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00 Figure 5: Recovery performance of alkaline flooding
0.00
0.20% 0.50% 1.00%
Concentration of polymer solution SLIDE 23
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Result – Consortium (Double) Performance
45.00 67:33 83:17
40.00
35.00 29:71
30.00
25.00
Oil Recovered (%)

20.00
15.00
10.00
5.00
0.00
Plantain Stalk Ash @ 2% + Aloevera @0.4% + Ogbono plantain Stalk Ash @2% +
Ogbono Mesocarp @ 1% Mesocarp @1% Aloe vera @0.4%

Slurry concentration

Figure 6: Recovery performance of consortium (mixture of two agents) flooding

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Result – ASP Performance

80.00
ASP Waterflooding
70.00

60.00
Oil Recovered (%)

50.00

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

0.00
3000 4000 5000 6000

Pressure (psi)

Figure 7: Effect of pressure on the ASP proficiency

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Result – PSO Model of Experimental Outcome

Particle Movement
10000

9000

8000

7000
Particle Cost

6000

5000

4000

3000

2000

1000

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

iteration

Figure 8: Particle movements toward convergence

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Result – PSO Model of Experimental Outcome

 Therefore, the prediction model becomes

6 Experimented Predicted
VOLUME OF OILRECOVERED

5
4
3
2
1
0
% % 0 0 0 0
1 2 % 41 % 2 % . 5 % 1 % 2 % .2 % . 5 % 1 % .2 % .5 % 1 % 1 % 1 % .4 % 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
% 5
0. 0. 0.
@ @ 0. 0 @ @ 0 0 @ 0 0 @ @ @ 0 3 4 5 6
@ @ @ @ sh sh @ sh sh s @ s @ ns @ @ r p M M @ @ @ @ @
era era era Ash k A k A Ash k A k A an an
l l s s B ea arp arp oca + O + O era ASP ASP ASP ASP
e V e V e V lk
a S ta Sta usk Hu Hu Be Be
sh soc soc es 2% 4% e v
o o o t sh ush Bu me me o m @ 0. o
Al Al Al in S tain tain H lm lm u n + Al
a a B B no ono b o P S A r a @
n ta lan lan Palm P P o g 2%
la P P b b O v e
P Og Og loe SA
@
A P
SAMPLES

Figure 9: Model validation

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Result – Model Error Analysis
The prediction error of the model as evaluated is given as,

Sum of Squared error 3.4862

Sum of Squared Total 9.5709

Sum of Squared Residual 8.4016

R2 0.6358

Standard Deviation 0.6299

Relative error (%) 8.5970

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Result – Economic Evaluation
 The economic parameters are presented below
 Days of production per annum equals 360
 Number of years of profitability analysis equals 6years Items Cost ($/bbl)
 Crude oil price of $60 per barrel was used Lifting 0.67
 Corporate Income Tax (CIT) of 30% was charged on Water handling 0.08
assessable profit. Water injection 0.12
 The royalty of 12.5% was used
Fixed annual cost ($/year) 10,000
Water softening 0.56
Operating expedition for the ASP flooding
Alkali 0.13
Parameter Value Surfactant 1.16
Polymer 1.25
NPV (M$) 119352.816

PBP (year) 1.589

IRR (%) 65%

P/I 1.79

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Conclusion
The study concludes that almost all samples have more than one active compound present,
1
therefore, making them very prolific as they complement themselves.

It further concludes from the core flooding experiments that the formulated ASP slurry was effective
2
as can be observed by the high additional oil recovery of up to 40% OOIIP.

The economic analysis proves that using these materials for ASP flooding would be very profitable,
3 as illustrated by the low payback period (1.589 yrs.) and the high internal rate return (65%) etc. this
will also encourage farming of these materials and reduction of environmental pollution.

As observed from the analysis and evaluation, the particle swarm optimization algorithm optimized
the developed model to an average absolute relative error of 0.085970, a sum of squared error of
4
3.4862, a standard deviation of 0.6299 and a coefficient of fitness of 0.6358, presenting a good
prediction correlation for the volume of oil produced.

PG/PHD/FEN/17/007
 Recommendation
i. The outcome of the laboratory result should be modeled with a reservoir simulator to
capture reservoir heterogeneities.

ii. Modification and optimization of the core flooding experimental setup to prevent fluid
losses and accumulation within the core holder and accommodate formation temperature

iii. Evaluate the effectiveness of these agents on high temperature/high-pressure reservoirs

and medium to heavy crudes.

iv. Pilot testing should be done with these materials to affirm the laboratory results.

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 Contribution to Knowledge
i. Irvingia Gabonensis mesocarp, Treculia Africana husk, Aloe Vera, plantain stalk and palm
fruit fiber, have been characterized and found to contain chemical compounds used in
different fields and, more importantly, as agents for alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP)
flooding.

ii. Development of a new mathematical correlation for predicting the volume of oil recovered
as a function of the volume and concentration of chemical injected.

iii. Evaluation of the profitability of the system based on some economic criteria (NPV, IRR,
PBP and P/I)

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Thank You For Listening

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