Patent ID: 7770642

Claim:
A method for flooding an oil-bearing reservoir, comprising: a) introducing a flooding fluid into the reservoir, wherein the fluid has i) water and ii) an amount of one or more non-polymeric, viscoelastic surfactants sufficient to provide the flooding fluid with an oil/water interfacial surface tension of about 1 mN/m or less and a viscosity of about 10 cPs or more, wherein the one or more non-polymeric viscoelastic surfactants has the formula wherein R 1 represents a hydrophobic moiety of alkyl, alkylarylalkyl, alkoxyalkyl, alkylaminoalkyl or alkylamidoalkyl; wherein alkyl represents a group that contains from about 16 to about 24 carbon atoms that is branched or straight chained and saturated or unsaturated; wherein R 2 and R 3 are, independently, an aliphatic chain having from 1 to about 12 carbon atoms in which the aliphatic group is branched or straight chained and saturated or unsaturated; and b) pushing oil through the reservoir to the vicinity of a wellbore at a location different than the point of introduction of the flooding fluid into the reservoir; and c) extracting the oil through the wellbore.