Displacement Studies in Dolomite With Wettability Control by Octanoic Acid
Authors: Morrow N.R. , Cram P.J. , McCaffery F.G. 
Published: December 2007

Various nitrogen-, oxygen- and sulfur-containing compounds native to crude oils were screened for their effect on wettability as measured by contact angle. Solid substrates of quartz, calcite, and dolomite crystals were used to represent reservoir rock surfaces. With water and decane as liquids, contact angles were measured after a given polar compound was added to the oil phase. Contact angles measured at the two types of carbonate surfaces were generally similar. None of the nitrogen or sulfur compounds studied gave contact angles greater than 66 degrees on either quartz or carbonates. Of the oxygen-containing compounds, octanoic acid gave the widest range of contact angle - 0 degrees to 145 degrees on dolomite - over a molar concentration range up to 0.1. Capillary - pressure and relative-permeability curves were obtained for water and solutions of octanoic acid in oil, using packings of powdered dolomite as the porous medium. Because of a slow reaction between dolomite and octanoic acid, which was not revealed by standard contact angle studies, special precautions were needed to ensure satisfactory wettability control during displacement tests. Capillary-pressure drainage curves were measured at six contact angles, ranging from 0 degrees to 140 degrees. Drainage-imbibition cycles for three packings of distinctly different particle size were measured at contact angles of 0 degrees and 49 degrees. The effect of contact angle on imbibition capillary pressures was close to that found previously for porous polytetra-fluoroethylene, whereas there was comparatively polytetra-fluoroethylene, whereas there was comparatively less effect on drainage behavior-steady-state relative permeability curves exhibited distinct differences for contact angles of 15 degrees, 100 degrees and 155 degrees.

Introduction

Waterflooding is the most successful and widely applied improved recovery technique. Its application in Alberta has, on the average, more than doubled the recovery obtained by primary depletion. However, even after waterflooding, it is estimated that two-thirds of the discovered oil remains unrecovered. Interfacial forces acting during waterflooding lead to the entrapment of large quantities of residual oil in the swept zones. Considerable attention has been paid to recovering this oil through new recovery methods in which the interface is eliminated as in miscible processes, or the interfacial tension is drastically lowered, as in surfactant floods. Such processes involve a high initial cost for an injected solvent or surfactant bank. Recently released information on a variety of such improved recovery techniques has not been altogether encouraging with regard to developing economical processes. A distinct alternative to eliminating the interface is to understand it and learn how it can be manipulated to give increased waterflood recoveries. A prospect for improved recovery at interfacial tensions of the order normally encountered in reservoirs lies in a favorable adjustment of wettability by incorporating small amounts of low-cost additives in the floodwater. A first step in developing the technology of improved recovery by wettability alteration is to determine the effect of wettability alteration on displacement in systems of uniform wettability. It has been shown that, even in the "near miscible" surfactant processes, wettability can still have a significant influence on the extent to which interfacial tension must be lowered in order to mobilize residual oil. At the time when waterflooding first found widespread use, wettability was recognized as a variable that might well have a significant influence on recovery performance. Reservoir wettability and the role of wettability in displacement has been the subject of some 50 or so publications. Even so, many aspects of wettability are not well understood and there is no general agreement on a satisfactory method of characterizing it. Opinions as to the optimum wettability condition for recovery cover the spectrum from strongly water-wet through weakly water-wet or intermediately wet to strongly oil-wet. It has recently been suggested that a mixed wettability condition can give high ultimate recoveries.