Effect of Salt Concentration on Oil Recovery during Polymer Flooding: Simulation Studies on Xanthan Gum and Gum Arabic.

Oil recoveries from medium and heavy oil reservoirs under natural recovery production are small because of the high viscosity of the oil. Normal water flooding procedures are usually ineffective, as the injected water bypasses much of the oil because of its high mobility. Thermal flooding processes are desirable but have many disadvantages from costs, effects on the environment, and loss of lighter hydrocarbons.

Dataset on modelling natural surfactant adsorption derived from non-edible seed oil (linseed oil) on sandstone reservoir rock.

Surfactant flooding is adjudged one of the most promising chemicals enhanced oil recovery (cEOR) methods due to its high microscopic sweep efficiency. This surfactant shows high potential in mobilizing trapped residual oil (ganglia) through excellent lowering of the interfacial tension (IFT) between the crude oil-aqueous interface to ultra-low values while favorably altering the wettability (oil-wet to water-wet). Surfactant adsorption is a critical factor that determines how successful this cEOR method will be as well as the project economics.