Multiple micellar slug

Recent works by Holm (A), Pope (2), Sayyouh and Farouq Ali ( ), Enedy and Farouq Ali (2) made significant contributions towards improving the efficiency of the process. The primary objective of this research was to devise a micellar flooding process that is economically as well as technically attractive to the industry, through the use of multiple micellar slugs. 

Improve the efficiency of the micellar flooding process through the use of multiple micellar slugs ... 

Crude Oils and Connate Water. The multiple micellar slug process was developed for the tertiary recovery of three light oils viz. Bradford crude, Bonnie Glen crude and Provost crude. The viscosities and densities of the three crude oils used are listed in Table I. 

Micellar flooding is a promising tertiary oil-recovery method, perhaps the only method that has been shown to be successful in the field for depleted light oil reservoirs. As a tertiary recovery method, the micellar flooding process has desirable features of several chemical methods (e.g., miscible-type displacement) and is less susceptible to some of the drawbacks of chemical methods, such as adsorption. It has been shown that a suitable preflush can considerably curtail the surfactant loss to the rock matrix. In addition, the use of multiple micellar solutions, selected on the basis of phase behavior, can increase oil recovery with respect to the amount of surfactant, in comparison with a single solution. Laboratory tests showed that oil recovery-to-slug volume ratios as high as 15 can be achieved [439]. 

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