What question did this study set out to answer?

To assess how surfactant additives combined with a soaking and flowback production schedule influence oil recovery, wettability alteration, and interfacial tension in unconventional liquid reservoirs.

November 1, 2018SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

Improving Oil Recovery in the Wolfcamp Reservoir by Soaking/Flowback Production Schedule With Surfactant Additives

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Authors

JAJohannes O. AlvarezMitchell Institute FTFrancisco D. TovarCIRCE - Centro Tecnológico DSDavid S. SchechterLouisiana State University

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Implication

Experimental study reveals enhanced oil recovery using surfactant additives during soaking and flowback in Wolfcamp shale cores, indicating improved completion fluid performance.

Key Points

To assess how surfactant additives combined with a soaking and flowback production schedule influence oil recovery, wettability alteration, and interfacial tension in unconventional liquid reservoirs.
Conducted coreflooding coupled with real-time computed tomography scanning on longitudinally fractured Wolfcamp sidewall cores under reservoir conditions.
Injected anionic and nonionic/cationic surfactant formulations versus surfactant-free water into fractured cores using a simulated soaking and flowback production protocol.
Quantified core wettability changes using contact-angle measurements and interfacial-tension reduction via the pendant-drop method.
Surfactant-assisted soaking and flowback recovered up to 14% of the original oil in place, compared to up to 2% recovered by water alone.
Surfactant treatment shifted core wettability from an initial oil-wet state to a water-wet state and reduced interfacial tension to moderately low values.
Surfactants demonstrated adsorption behavior consistent with a Langmuir-type adsorption isotherm.

Cite This Study

Alvarez et al. (2018) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6aa8eac7a43f6789fa5127c3 https://doi.org/10.2118/187483-pa

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Implication

Experimental study reveals enhanced oil recovery using surfactant additives during soaking and flowback in Wolfcamp shale cores, indicating improved completion fluid performance.

Improving Oil Recovery in the Wolfcamp Reservoir by Soaking/Flowback Production Schedule With Surfactant Additives

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Improving Oil Recovery in the Wolfcamp Reservoir by Soaking/Flowback Production Schedule With Surfactant Additives

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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