ABSTRACT
This study involving experimental work, seeks to determine the suitability of locally sourced polymer as enhanced oil recovery material and also find out to what extent increasing water viscosity by the addition of the local polymers can recover oil through control of mobility ratio. The economic merit of the study will be evaluated by laboratory test result.
In other words, this paper is to attempt an experimental study of oil recovery using local polymer material to enhanced oil recovery. Locally sourced polymer from gum Arabic and modified gum Arabic will be used to increase viscosity of brine, since it has been known for long that the efficiency of water flood can be improved by lowering the water oil mobility ratio in the system, such a change leads to better sweep efficiency and also more efficient oil displacement in the swept zone. However, water breakthrough time will be analyzed, compared with commonly used foreign polymer material (xanthan gum and Hengflo) and the maximum oil recovery time recorded and discussed at the end of these work. Conclusion will be drawn on the more suitable, better mobility control, good sweep efficiency and environmental friendly polymer. The required material for the mobility control has to be cheap and non-toxic because large volume are needed and later disposed off eventually to the environment as reported by (Onyekonwu, 2010).
The result from the oil recovery using the established effective rate on polymers showed that the Modified Gum Arabic recovers approximately 20% more than the Pure Gum Arabic, Xanthan Gum and Hengflo. The recoveries were 90.60%, 77.56%, 70.13%, 75.43% respectively. It was also observed that the oil retention time in polymer mixture is lower in Modified Gum Arabic and Pure Gum Arabic when compared to Xanthan Gum and Hengflo
Key words: Oil Recovery, Polymer, gum Arabic, xanthan gum, hengflo.
