Experimental and numerical studies on EOR using a biosurfactant

The EOR potential of a biosurfactant was evaluated through core flooding experiments and numerical simulation in this study. The biosurfactant which was called surfactin was generated by a microorganism belonging to Bacillus species. The EOR potential of surfactins has been already reported by previous papers, however, that of surfactins can be different depending on their making process such as the conditions of incubation, extraction, purification, etc. This study used a surfactin which was made by Kaneka corporation's original techniques. Core flooding experiments were carried out under ambient temperature and pressure to evaluate the EOR potential of the surfactin. Berea sandstone cores whose permeability was 50 md were used in this study. The surfactin solution was injected into cores after water flooding. 3 experiments were carried out by injecting surfactin solution whose surfactin concentration was 0.3 %, 0.03 % and 0.003 % respectively. An experiments were carried out by injecting the culture solution which had been diluted so that the surfactin concentration was 0.3 %. 4 experiments were carried out by injecting sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solution which had been supplemented with a slight amount of surfactin or the culture solution. An injection was continued until oil was not produced completely. Higher oil recovery was obtained by injecting higher concentration of surfactin. 13.6 % of original oil in place (OOIP) was recovered by injecting 0.3 % of pure surfactin solution, whereas 6.3 % of OOIP was recovered by injecting 0.3 % of pure SDS solution. 0.27 % of SDS solution which was supplemented with surfactin whose concentration was 0.03 % could recover 14.7 % of OOIP. 23.9 % of OOIP could be recovered by injecting the culture solution which was diluted by 16 times so that the surfactin concentration was 0.3 %. Enhancement of oil recovery which was obtained by injecting SDS solution supplemented with the culture solution was a little lower than that with pure surfactin. The EOR potential of surfactin is quite higher than that of SDS. It was shown that the surfactin can be useful as a cosurfactant for SDS. Culture solution of the microorganism demonstrated much higher EOR potential than pure surfactin, therefore, it may include effective components other than the surfactin. Utilization of the culture solution is economically advantageous. Numerical simulation was also carried out using UTCHEM, a reservoir simulator for chemical EOR. The simulation model accurately history matched the core flooding experiments and allowed us to scale from the lab scale to the pilot scale.