Services: Laboratory

Surtek's laboratory provides analytical and field application services primarily focusing on application of enhanced oil recovery technology and in-situ soil washing.

Surtek's evaluations use actual reservoir oil, waters, and rock and are conducted at the oil reservoir's temperature so that the study can best represent the actual physical environment. We physically model linear and radial flow to study the oil recovery performance for waterflooding and various enhanced oil recovery processes. These include:

Oil Recovery Water Flooding Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer, ASP, flooding Polymer flooding Injectivity improvement Clay stabilization Permeability profile modification Relative permeability characteristics Other special core analysis Imbibition studies

Environmental Restoration In-situ soil washing Contaminant entrance pressure Interfacial Tension

These evaluations determine many aspects of the displacement process such as: relative permeability, incremental recovery, non-Newtonian fluid rheology, chemical consumption, cation exchange, clay dispersion, pore plugging, etc. We have unparalleled experience in these laboratory evaluations. This has lead to our involvement in more chemical flood field projects than any organization in the world.

An example of the ASP process applied after waterflooding reservoir core is shown for the Cambridge ASP project. Note that the total oil recovery is almost doubled when compared with waterflooding. A second figure shows the effect of alkali concentration on the interfacial tension between oil and alkali-surfactant solutions. This type of optimization can help select the technically and economically best system to recover additional oil.