On the evaluation of Alkaline‐Surfactant‐Polymer flooding in a field scale: Screening, modelling, and optimization

Chemical enhanced oil recovery methods, including alkaline surfactant polymer (ASP) flooding, have found special significance for oil reservoirs. ASP flooding provides different situations based on ratio of injection of three ASP components. This study identifies the behaviour of injection components and their interaction, investigating the synergy between them. To this end, an Iranian oil reservoir is studied. The factors influencing the injection process are identified and then a combination of these factors and the concentration of ASP components are modelled. All modelling results are fitted with R-squared and adjusted R-squared values above 0.96. Finally, the optimization is conducted to determine the best injection scenario. The most important aspect of this study is to investigate simultaneously the effect of different parameters of ASP in a real case. The screening results show that the effect of polymer on viscosity is the most influential factor in ASP flooding. The modelling results show that water cut in the case of simultaneous injection of three components is less than other cases of injection. This represents the synergy of components in the injection process during ASP flooding. The miscibility between water and polymer solution also leads to less produced water and more produced oil. In the final stage, the optimization results show that the optimal scenario is injection of surfactant and polymer with the greatest amount of miscibility between water and polymer solution. It can be concluded that with this approach, ASP injection can efficiently be analyzed and optimized from a technical point of view.