Measurement of emulsion flow in porous media: Improvements in heavy oil recovery

Many heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs in the world are too small or thin for thermal enhanced oil recovery methods to be economic. In these fields, novel methods of less energy intensive, non-thermal technologies are required. Previous experience has shown that the injection of low concentrations of aqueous alkali-surfactant solutions into the reservoir can significantly improve the oil recovery, beyond that of waterflooding. This is due to the in-situ formation of emulsions, which plug off the water channels and lead to improved sweep efficiency in the reservoir. The proper control of these floods requires methods for monitoring the formation and effect of these emulsions. In this paper, the results of laboratory core floods are interpreted to demonstrate how the pressure and flow response can be related to the formation of these emulsions. A new technique (low field NMR) is also used to directly measure W/O emulsions in porous media. Finally, a numerical study is performed in order to demonstrate how the in-situ formation of emulsions can be simply represented in simulation software.