Evaluation of Surfactants for the Cost Effective Enhanced Oil Recovery of Assam Crude Oil Fields

Based on a hierarchial methodology, the article presents the comparative efficacy of Vim commercial detergent for the purpose of surfactant enhanced oil recovery of Assam crude oil in Indian reservoirs. Suitable technical and economic indices were defined to explore the economic competence with other surfactants such as sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate and sodium dodecyl sulfonate. It was evaluated that the detergent formulation provided the following performance characteristics: I_C = 13.43 mN/m.g/L surfactant solution, surfactant sustainability index = 3.88 × 10^?3 mN/m.$/L surfactant solution, cost ratio = 0.32 ? 0.52 $ surfactant/$ crude oil recovered and 14.7–15.1% tertiary recovery with respect to original oil in place. Further ultralow interfacial tension formulations were also achievable with the commercial detergent.