Enhanced oil recovery by means of alkali injection. Behavior of the SARA fractions

The presence of an alkali such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) within a process of enhanced recovery of crude oil having certain acidity allows the formation of surfactants with the ability of enhancing the separation of the crude oil from the reservoir rock where it is adsorbed due to a change of wettability. This work focused on studying the effect of NaOH on the enhanced recovery, in terms of the SARA composition, of two different API gravity crude oils (38.5 and 24.1°) having different total acid number. The results showed the existence of acid components with high and low reactivity to NaOH in the crude oil, where the first group is responsible of the in-situ synthesis of the surfactant. Moreover, it was found that the utilization of the alkali improved the recovery of the SARA fractions for each crude oil, especially for the 24.1°API crude oil for which the recovery resulted twice or three times higher to the evaluated for the 38.5°API crude oil. Additionally, it was found that a minimum of 0.2 wt% of NaOH reduced up to 4 times the value of the interfacial tension between the crude oil and the brine, regardless of the type of crude oil.