Foams for Enhanced Oil Recovery: Exergy Analysis to Asses Feasibility and Surfactant Screening for Practical Steam Foam Applications

As the world population is projected to keep growing over the next decades, an increase in energy is required and hydrocarbon fuels will remain as the primary source of energy. Since most of the hydrocarbon resources have been discovered, it is necessary to extend the use of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods on these mature fields to increase the fraction of oil recovered. Foam-EOR has shown to improve sweep efficiency during gas injection. However, there are two challenges regarding the use of foams: 1) the performance of the surfactants needed to generate foam and 2) the cost of these surfactants. In this study the performance of six surfactants was tested for steam foam applications; focusing on solubility, thermal stability, foam stability and adsorption in porous media. The solubility of the surfactants ranged from good to poor. However, poor solubility can be enhanced by heating up the solution. The surfactants tested showed a large range of stability behavior, from very good to very poor. The surfactant with the best thermal stability at 275°C has a molecule with three characteristics related to high thermal stability: 1) Sulfonate head, 2) aromatic compound attached to the head, and 3) a long hydrophobic tail (above 18 carbon atoms). The other surfactants, with a low to very low thermal stability lacked one or more of these characteristics. The surfactant with the best thermal stability also had the best foam behavior in porous media at 180°C, showing a max. apparent viscosity of 0.42 Pa·s and a Mobility Reduction Factor of 2818. Finally, for this surfactant, the dynamic adsorption in Bentheimer sandstone was 0.059 mg/grock at 120°C. Additionally, an exergy analysis was carried out to assess the cost of the surfactant from a thermodynamic point of view. For this purpose, the Exergy Recovery Factor was calculated for a system on which the Water Alternating Gas (WAG) and Surfactant Alternating Gas (SAG) EOR methods are applied, with different gases injected. The system includes from the initial capture of the gas and transport of the gas to the final oil and gas production from the reservoir and separation and recirculation of produced fluids. Despite the high exergy cost of the surfactant, the exergy recovery factor was higher for SAG than for WAG, meaning that more energy is extracted than invested. It was also found that less CO2 was produced per barrel of incremental oil extracted with SAG than with WAG.Applied Earth Science