Enhanced Waterflooding Design With Dilute Surfactant Concentrations for North Sea Conditions

Summary Efficient selection procedures for surfactants have been applied to design a low-concentration surfactant-flooding process for North Sea oilfield application. Anionic surfactants of the propoxy ethoxy glyceryl sulfonate type can be used at 0.1 wt% concentrations together with sacrificial agents and without a polymer drive. Currently estimated unit technical costs (UTC's)—at 8% — for application in the North Sea oil fields range from $81 to $94/incremental m3, without taking uncertainty factors into account. Including such factors would likely add another $31/m3 to the costs.