Wettability alteration of carbonate reservoir rock using amphoteric and cationic surfactants: Experimental investigation

The objective of this study is to prove that altering the wettability of reservoir rocks by two surfactants (hexadecyl amino benzene sulfonic acid HABSA] and cationic hexa decyl trimethyl ammonum bromide CTAB]). Changing the wettability to preferentially water-wet condition will reduce the residual oil saturation (S_or). Because of reducing S_or, the percentage of recovered oil is increased. All surfactants were tested for their ability to alter the wettability of reservoir rocks. This alteration was measured based on the contact angle methods. Results of this study show that both amphoteric HABSA and CTAB surfactants alter the wettability of carbonate rocks from oil-wet to water-wet, while CTAB alters the wettability from oil-wet to water-wet more than HABSA. Also, recovery factor in CTAB injection was more than HABSA injection. Ultimately, the results show that the CTAB surfactant is more effective than HABSA surfactant to alter the wettability and improve oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs.