Wettability Alteration in High-Temperature and High-Salinity Carbonate Reservoirs

Summary The goal of this work was to change the wettability of a carbonate rock from mixed-wet toward water-wet at high temperature and high salinity. Three types of surfactants in dilute concentrations (<0.2 wt%) were used. Initial surfactant screening was performed on the basis of aqueous stability at these harsh conditions. Contact-angle experiments on aged calcite plates were conducted to narrow the list of surfactants, and spontaneous-imbibition experiments were conducted on field cores for promising surfactants. Secondary waterflooding was carried out in cores with and without the wettability-altering surfactants. It was observed that most but not all surfactants were aqueous-unstable by themselves at these harsh conditions. Dual-surfactant systems, mixtures of a nonionic and a cationic surfactant, increased the aqueous stability. Some of the dual-surfactant systems proved effective for wettability alteration and could recover could recover 70 to 80% OOIP (original oil in place) during spontaneous imbibition. Secondary waterflooding with the wettability-altering surfactant increased the oil recovery over the waterflooding without the surfactants (from 29 to 40% of OOIP).