Oil-in-Water Emulsions and Their Flow

Properties in Porous Media

Clayton D. McAuliffe,

SPE-AIME, Chevron Oil Field Research Co.

Introduction
In waterflood, the rapid channeling of water from
injection to producing wells through the more permeable portions of the reservoir gives low oil recovery,
A number of materials, such as cement, ground
leather, and ground limestone, have been used in
wellbore treatments to improve injection profiles in
water-injection wells. However, even if such treatments do effect a better distribution of water in the
formation at the wellbore, they are unlikely to be
successful because of cross-formation flow near the
wellbore. A deep-penetration method should be more
effective. Silica gel,] 2 rubber 1atex,3 and asphalt$5
have been tested as deeper-penetration
plugging
agents in attempts to decrease reservoir heterogeneity.
The laboratory investigations described here were
undertaken to determine the properties of oil-inwater emulsions and to study the flow of emulsions
through porous media. Samples of core material can
be considered as miniature reservoirs and the cores
are heterogeneous. In our investigations we hoped
to determine if oil-in-water emulsions would decrease
reservoir (core) heterogeneity and improve water displacement of oil in sandstone reservoirs.

Concept of Emulsion Flow in Porous Media

Consider a single droplet of oil emulsion (Fig. 1)
entering a pore constriction smaller than itself. It
possesses a radius of curvature in the leading portion
smaller than the radius of the portion of the drop
still in the pore. Thtts, the capillary pressure is greater

at the front of the drop than at the back, and pressure

is required to force the droplet th~ou.gh. This Jamino
effect can become appreciable as more and more
emulsion droplets encounter pore constrictions.
For an emt.dsion to be most effective, the droplets
of oil in the emulsion should be slightly larger than
the pore-throat constrictions in the porous medium.
Emulsion droplets have a range of sizes, as do porethroat constrictions in porous media. Thus, emulsification can make a relatively small volume of oil
quite effective in restricting flow, provided the porethroat constrictions are not excessively large.7
(Uzoigw
md MarsdenS recently reported on the
flow of oil-m-water emulsions through glass bead
packs and did not show flow restriction, Probably,
the emulsion droplets were small compared with the
sizes of the pore throats in the unconsolidated porous
media.)
As water displaces oil, fingering develops because
of rock heterogeneity. When oil-in-water emulsion is
injected, a greater amount of emulsion enters the
more permeable zones. As this occurs, flow becomes
more restricted, so water begins to flow into less permeable zones, resulting in greater sweep efficiency.

Laboratory Experiments
Becker states, An emulsion is a heterogeneous system consisting of at least one immiscible liquid intimately dispersed in another in the form of droplets,
whose diameters, in general, exceed 0.1 micron.

The laboratory studies described here in detail were conducted to ascertain the
properties of oil-in-water emulsions and to determine if such emulsions could act as
a selective plugging agent to improve oil recovery in waterjloods.

I
I

TABLE lNaOH CONCENTRATIONS TO PREPARE

OIL-IN-WATER EMULSIONS WITH 70 PERCENT OIL
CONTENT FROM SOME ASPHAL71C CRUDE OILS
NaOH Concentration, Weight
Percentage in Water

Crude Oil
Midway-Sunset
Midway-Sunset
Midway-Sunset
West Coalinga
West Coalinga
Boscan
Casmalia
Cat Canyon

0.05
0.05
0.1
0.05
0.1
0.05
0.05
0.1

Section 15A
Section 5K
Section 31E
Section 17C
Section 13D

to 1.4
to 0.5
to 1.0
to 1.0
to 1.0
to 0.5
to 0.6
to 1.0

TABLE 2VISCOSITIES (AT 75F) OF OIL-IN-WATER

EMULSIONS PREPARED FROM DIFFERENT
CRUDE OILS
Emulsion Viscosity (CP)

Percent
Oil in
Emulsion

MidwaySunset 15A

80
70
60
50
40
20
10

1,200
185
28

Oil Viscosities, cp

3,600

mml

12

800
55
14

1,000,000

180,000

6
1.6

1.1

Fig, lAn

oil droplet entering a pore constriction.

40

30

60

30

90

IN

I%

Woo

Boscan

Casmalia
1,200 to 5,000
200

IMO I%
1

ISO Ilo
,

180 IWJ 2c3 02220

I

NW

ma

+.
-.

50?0 ,-

+@%

~..

sow
mm

30t
m

mxo

100w

20

i
so%

>1

30
20

OIC
%qp

15

*4re

10
9.0
M
70
60
50

76

3!
to

440

?s0

10
%.,

69

40

50

60

Fig. 2Viscosity
728

, ?60

50

70 80 $0 104 110 120 134 IW 1S (MO 170 140 IW 2M 210220

TEMPERATuRE,
DEGREES
FAHRENHEIT

of Casmalia crude-oil-in-water

emulsions.

There are two types of emulsion systems: oil-in-water

and water-in-oil. The work reported here deals with
only the oil-in-water type.
Emulsion systems are formed and are stable if
sufficient emulsifying agent is present to orient at the
oil-water interf?.ce to form a film. Emulsifying agents
are compounds having a long hydrocarbon chain that
is soluble in oil, and polar groups (such as carboxylate, sulfonate, ether, and alcohol) that are soluble
in water, Petroleum crude oils can be emulsified by
several techniques.
Preparation of Crude-Oil-in-Water Emulsions
Some asphaltic crude oils contain enough natural
emulsifiers to form oil-in-water emulsions by the
addition of dilute solutions of alkali metal hydroxides
such as sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, or
lithium hydroxide. Seifert has shown that in at
least one asphaltic crude oil the constituents producing the low interracial tension necessary for emulsification are compounds of a predominantly carboxylic acid type.
Crude oils that do not contain enough organic
acids to produce emulsification upon the addition of
sodium hydroxide can be emulsified by adding a
synthetic surfactant. A synthetic surfactant of the
nonionic type will be required if the emulsion is to
be prepared in saline water, which is present in
many formations.
Because crude oils contain varying amounts of
surface-active materials, varying amounts of caustic
solution are needed to produce stable oil-in-water
emulsions. Table 1 lists a few crude oils and the
required range of sodium hydroxide concentration in
the water phase (distilled water) to produce stable
emulsions containing 70 percent oil. Sodium hydroxide concentrations outside those shown do not produce stable emulsions. Too little caustic does not
sufficiently neutralize the organic acids to produce
adequate emulsification, whereas too much sodium
hydroxide produces a water-in-oil emulsion whose
viscosity is as high as the crude oil from which it
WO:Jprepared, or higher, Some asphaltic crude oils
have sufficiently high concentrations of interracially
active compounds that they almost spontaneously
emulsify when poured into a sodium hydroxide solution of the appropriate concentration very little
input energy is required to form a stable, smalldroplet-diameter emulsion.
In the laboratory, emulsions have been prepared
with different input energies, imparted by hand mixing or by using a paint shaker, a Waring blender, or
colloid mills, To prepare most of the laboratory
emulsions reported here, a glass bottle was filled twothirds full of emulsifying solution and then shaken
on a wrist-action paint shaker.
Bulk Properties of Oil-in-Water Emulsions
Emulsion Viscosity. Emulsions tend to have the viscosity of the continuous (external) phase; thus, oilin-water emulsions tend to have the viscosity of water.
All viscosities reported here were measured with a
Farm viscometer at shear rates from 7.6 to 760
seconds -1. Table 2 lists the viscosities of oil-in-water
JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM

TECHNOLOGY

emulsions containing different percentages of oil and

using three different oils, Note that for emulsions containing up to 50 percent oil the apparent viscosities
are less than 20 times that of water, even though the
oil viscosities range from 3,600 to 1 million cp at
room temperature.
Because of droplet-to-droplet
interaction, oil-inwater emulsions containing more than 60 percent oil
exhibit pseudo non-Newtonian flow characteristics;
that is, the apparent viscosity is dependent upon the
shear rate used to measure viscosity. Fig. 2 shows
the pseudo non-Newtonian effects for 70 and 80
percent oil-in-water emulsions. At an oil content of
50 percent, the emulsion behaves as a Newtonian
fluid. Fig. 2 also shows that oil-in-water emulsion
viscosities vary with temperature in the normal
manner.
Emulsion Droplet Sizes. As indicated previously, for
a given quantity of oil, an emulsion having droplet
diameters slightly larger than the pore constrictions
would give the greatest restriction to fluid flow. Droplet size can be varied in two ways, One is to use
different oils. Table 3 lists the mean droplet diameters and an indication of the range of droplet size
for caustic oil-in-water emulsions prepared from five
different crude oils. The mean droplet diameters
range from 1 to 12 microns,
Emulsion droplet sizes and size distributions for
a given oil can also be varied, as shown in Fig. 3.
Increasing the sodium hydroxide concentration in
the aqueous phase neutralizes greater quantities of
interracially active acids in the crude oil and produces emulsions with droplets of smaller diameters.
A considerable variation in mean droplet diameter
is shown for the four emulsions in Fig, 3. However,
stability is considerably lower for the emulsions prepared with 0.1 and 0.2 percent sodium hydroxide.
Within the emulsification range, lower concentrations of sodium hydroxide produce emulsions of
lower stability.
Fig. 4 shows that the emulsion droplet sizes can
also be varied by varying the concentration of a
synthetic surfactant added to a crude oil (in this case,
Chevron Dispersant NI-W, condensation product of
13 mol ethylene oxide and octyl phenol),

DROPLET

oIAMETERS

Crude 0;1
!vlidway.Sunset 15A

Mean Droplet
Diameter
(rilicrorls)

5 Percent of
Droplet Diameters
Larger Than:
(microns)
3.1
68
28
70
12

1.1

Casmalia

2.0

11.1
11,9

Coalinga 17C

Coalinga 13D
Boscan

6,4

All emulsion droplet size distributions

termined with a Coulter counter.

were de-

Flow of Oil-in=Water Emulsions Through

Porous Media
Equipment and Procedures. Fluid-flow experiments
were performed using Boise, Alhambra, and Berea
outcrop sandstone cores, fired at 400C and then
potted in a steel jacket with an epoxy cement, The
ends of each core were machined flush with the
flanged ends of its steel jacket, The finished cores
were 1M in, in diameter and 3 in, long. Field cores,
used for oil-displacement experiments, were taken
by a rubber-sleeve core barrel. The unconsolidated
core material was frozen in liquid nitrogen, and cores
were cut with a diamond core barrel cooled by liquid
nitrogen. The frozen cores were then potted in steel
jackets as above.
The emulsions were prepared as described above
in oil-content concentrations of 60 or 70 percent,
In the flow or displacement experiments, the concentrated emulsion was diluted with distilled water
to an oil content of 0.5 percent. To give adequate
time to observe changes in flow properties, flow experiments were all performed with emulsions containing 0.5 percent oil. Injection of emulsions with high
oil content produced effects so rapidly that pressure
and flow rates could not be adequately measured.
Qualitatively, injection of high-oil-content emulsions
produced the same effects as those observed for the
low-oil-content emulsions.
F1OW experiments were carried out at constant
pressure, and a rocking accumulator containing

IN MICRONS

Fig. 3Size distributions of emulsions prepared from

Midway-Sunset Section 26C crude oil and sodium
hydroxide solutions. Oil content of emulsions
is ;n percent,

JUNE, 1973

TABLE 3PARTICLE SIZE AND SIZE DISTRIBUTION

OF OIL-IN-WATER EMULSIONS PREPARED
FROM VARIOUS CRUDE OILS

WOPLET

DIAMETERS

IN MICRO*

Fig. 4Size distributions of emulsions prepared from

Richfield-Kraemer crude oil, injection wate~, and Chevron
Dispersant NI.W. Oil content of emulsions IS 60 percent.
729

several plastic-covered steel balls was used to keep

the emulsion stirred. Unless noted otherwise, distilled
water was used to saturate cores and for all flow
experiments.
If used a second time, the outcrop sandstone cores
were cleaned between flow experiments by flushing
them alternately with toluene and methanol for 6
hours, The final methanol wash was displaced with
air, and the core was dried overnight in a vacuum
oven at 40C.
Reduction of Core Permeability by Emulsion Injection. Ithas been postulated that the flow of an oil-inwater emulsion through a porous medium will reduce
fluid flow, and that an emulsion with a greater proportion of larger droplets in relation to the porethroat constrictions would be more effective than an
emulsion with smaller droplets. Fig. 5 shows that
this is true. A Boise core saturated with distilled
water had an initial water permeability of 1,600 md,
An emulsion containing 0.5 percent of MidwaySunset 15A crude oil, having an average droplet
diameter of 1 micron, was flowed through the core
under a pressure differential of 10 psi/ft. This smalldroplet-diameter emulsion was relatively ineffective
in reducing fluid flow through this core having fairly
high permeability. After 10 PV of emulsion had
been flowed into the core, the permeability was reduced only from 1,600 to 900 md.
The core was cleaned and resaturated with water,
and an emulsion containing 0.5 percent of Coalinga
Section 13D crude oil (at an average droplet diameter of 12 microns) was flowed into the core at the
same 10 psi/ft pressure differential. Note from Fig.
5 that the larger-droplet-diameter
emulsion was very
much more effective in reducing fluid flow. After 9
PV had been flowed, the permeability was reduced
to 35 md.
Fig, 5 shows the effects of two different emulsions
on the same core. Fig. 6 shows the effects of a single
emulsion on cores of different permeabilities. In this
case the emulsion was prepared from MidVlay-Sunset
Section 26C crude oil and had average droplet diameters of 3.8 microns. The permeability of the Alhambra core was reduced percentagewise more rapidly
by small volumes of the emulsion than was that of
the Boise core. However, after 10 PV had been
flowed, the percentage reduction in apparent water
permeabilities was approximately the same. This is
characteristic of the flow of oil-in-water emulsions
through porous media: plugging stops after a certain
reduction in permeability. In no cases have we observed that emulsions completely plug porous material; fluid usually continues to flow at 1 to 10 percent of the initial water permeability.
Another observed characteristic of the flow of
emulsions through porous media is shown in F]g. 6.
Once the emulsion is in the core, a flow of water
alone does not remove the flow restriction. The oil
droplets apparently are wedged in pore-throat constrictions and remain effective. Injecting 15 to 19
PV of distilled water increased the apparent water
permeabilities only slightly.
Even the injection of saline water, shown in the
730

latter stage of the floods in Fig. 6, failed to destroy

the flow restriction caused by the emulsion. In bulk
the emulsion would have been destroyed by the salt
water (oil and water would have separated into two
distinct, visible phases).
Pseudo Non-Newtonian F1OWof Emulsion
Through Porous Media
During one of the initial core floods with dilute
emulsion, it was observed that the apparent water
permeability changed when the pressure differential
across the core was changed. This was our first indication that emulsion flow through porous media was
pseudo non-Newtonian (non-Newtonian usually refers to a fluid that is homogeneous on a molecular
scale, whereas emulsions are two-phase systems;
therefore, pseudo non-Newtonian is used in this
paper for the anomalous flow, with varying pressure,
observed for high-content emulsions in bulk reported
previously, and for the flow of emulsions of all oil
contents through porous media).
To comprehend the pseudo non-Newtonian flow
property of emulsions in porous media, visualize a
1800

k
F1
n
e
3
.

600

400

L
..-.

--,

LfGVSl

.-

..-

0+

WRF

vOLUMES OF FLUID lNJCCTCD

Fig. 5Change in apparent fluid permeability when

Boise sandstone was flooded with emulsion of
two different droplet sizes.

800
g

: 100
~
5
~

600

LEGEND
O 0 5% EMuLSION
b OISTILLCO wATER
. FIELD BRINE,

BOI$[

SALINITY

COR[

I 8%

$,L85%-,%.Ami
o

10

30
?0
PORE VOLUMES OF FLUID lNJECTEO

10

Fig. 6-Reduction
in water permeability by emulsion
injection and residual effect of emulsion. Percentages
at arrows compare fluid permeability at that point
with original water permeabilities.

JOURNAL

OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY

metal plate with round holes of uniform diameter.

Assume an oil-in-water emulsion with droplets all of
the same diameter and slightly larger than the holes
in the plate. If a pressure differential is placed across
the plate, oil droplets will lodge in each hole and no
flow will occur until the pressure differential is large
enough to cause the oil droplets to deform and pass
through the holes, Thereafter, there is little restriction to flow. Such a hypothesized example would be
a flow-no-flow system showing maximum pseudo nonNewtonian properties. Real porous media have a
range of pore-throat constrictions, and real emulsions have a range of droplet sizes; thus the flow of
one through the other is complex, For this reason,
maximum pseudo non-Newtonian flow is not shown
here, but it does exist as various-sized oil droplets
encounter pore-throat constrictions in porous media.
To determine the actual extent of pseudo nonNewtonian flow, emulsion was flowed through several cores with alternating, varying pressures. An
example is shown in Fig. 7. The emulsion was prepared from Midway-Sunset Section 15A crude oil
and caustic solution and had average emulsion drop-

500

,1,

1 LEGEND

,,,

~66101
PORE

?141618
VOLUMES

OF FLUID

?02224
INJECTCD

Fig. 7Pseudo non-Newtonian flow of oil-in-water

emulsion in porous media.

n
lx

G
>
K
w

(n
;

z
o

z-J

2
w

HIGH

HIGH

1
MEDIUM

LOW

Fig. 8-Schematic
diagram of core-flood apparatus to
study the simultaneous flow of dilute emulsions
through cores of different perrneabilities.

JUNE, 1973

let sizes slightly larger than 2 microns. The Boise

core had an initial water permeability of 1,310 md.
The pressure differential across the core was changed
successively and alternately from 2 psi/ft to 12 psi/ft.
As shown in Fig. 7, the apparent fluid permeability
changed markedly with pressure. The emulsion much
more effectively reduced flow under the low pressure
differential.
This pseudo non-Newtonian effect is an advantage
when emulsion is injected into an oil reservoir where
the largest change in pressure for a unit distance occurs at the wellbore. Because of radial flow, the
pressure drop per unit distance decreases logarithmically as distance from the injection well increases.
Thus, emulsions can be injected into the formation
easily and will be most effective in. reducing permeability at some distance from the wellbore.]~
Flow of Emulsion Through Cores of Dilferent Permeabilities Mounted in Parallel. Under the concept
of emulsion flow in porous media, it was postulated
that oil-in-water emulsion would enter the more permeable portions of the reservoir, restrict flow, and
thereby cause fluid to flow into less permeable zones,
increasing sweep efficiency, To test this concept, an
emulsion containing 0.5 percent oil in water and
prepared from Midway-Sunset Section 15A crude oil
and caustic solution, was flowed from a common
reservoir through three parallel cores having different permeabilities. Fig. 8 is a schematic diagram of
the experimental setup.
Before the emulsion was injected, the cores were
saturated with distilled water and water perrneabilities were determined. Table 4 summarizes these and
the experimental results. The initial water permeabilities ranged from 395 to 1,460 md. As the dilute
emulsion flowed into the cores, the apparent water
permeabilities decreased most rapidly in the higherpermeability cores, After about 7 PV of emulsion
had entered the cores, the permeabilities were approximately equal, and at the termination of the
experiment approximately the same number of pore
volumes of fluid had passed through the cores of
different permeabilities.
It could be seen that some emulsion with smaller
droplet sizes emerged from each series of cores, However, it appeared that only the effluent from the cores
in the high-permeability sequence contained emulsion
whose oil concentration approached that of the injected emulsion, Permeability measurements of the
individual cores in sequence confirmed the visual
observations. The permeability of the first core in the
high-permeability series showed the greatest reduction after 12 PV of emulsion had been injected. The
second core in the series was affected similarly, but
to a lesser degree. The emulsion had only a small
effect on the permeability of the third core.
The first core in the medium-permeability sequence
of cores showed the majority of the permeability reduction by emulsion treatment; the second core in
the series responded very little to the emulsion, and
the third core none at all. The cores in the lowpermeability series responded like those in the
medium-permeability series.
731

TABLE 4-FLOW
OF 0.5 PERCENT OIL-IN-WATER
EMULSION (MIDWAY-SUNSET 15A OIL)
THROUGH SANDSTONE CORES OF
THREE DIFFERENT PERMEABILITIES
Core Flu/lJarmeability
CumulativePoreVolumes

Time
(minutes)

High*

0
1.02
3A
8.6
14.8
27.4
66

1,460
670
611
312
201
136
69

Medium**

545
240
322
211
156
61
57

57
42

101
161

High

Medium

Low

0.26
1.05
2.10
2.90
5.50
7.87
9.84
12,4

0.15
0.68
1.63
2.43
3.87
6.70
8.75
11.2

0,13
0.60
1.45
2.23
3.72
6.73
9.29
12.2

Low**
395
245
288
212
157
64
62

42
?6

51
33

*Boise sandstone
*Berea sandstone

1,0

9
8
7
6
5
4

Oil Displacement from Core Material, Cores 11/2 in.

by 3 in. were cut from a rubber-sleeved core from
Midway-Sunset field, Section 31 E. The cores were
mounted as described, and flooded with 31 E oil
(17.3API gravity) having a viscosity of 120 cp at
10OF, the reservoir temperature. Six cores were
selected according to their oil permeability at initial
water saturation for waterflooding, and six additional
cores having a similar range in oil permeabilities at
initial water saturations were selected for flooding
with dilute emulsion. Oil permeabilities varied from
185 to 1,400 md. The emulsion was prepared from
Midway-Sunset, Section 26C, stock-tank oil, and had
a mean droplet diameter of about 4 microns.
Fig. 10 shows the averages of oil produced as percent of oil in place for the six cores waterflooded
and the six cores flooded with 0.5-percent emulsion.
Emulsion flooding delayed water breakthrough from
an average of 7 percent PV injected for water to 12
percent PV injected for emulsion floods. Throughout
the displacement experiments, more oil was produced
by the emulsion floods than by the watertloods. The
numbers shown by the experimental points on Fig.
10 refer to the WORs measured ac various pore
volumes of fluid injected. In all cases, WORS for the
emulsions were lower for a given volume of injected fluid.
The improvement in fluid displacement or fluid
flow through porous media caused by injecting oilin-water emulsion is believed to be due to the correction of heterogeneity of the porous medium. It is
not due to miscibility, as has been reported recently
for micellar solutions.1-e

o.~
9
8
7
6
5
4

0.01

1
40

20

PERCENT

Fig. 9Relative

1
w

OIL

permeability

The oil saturation of the cores was not determined

at the end of the experiment, so that the amount of
oil retained in each core was unknown. However,
the gross effect of injecting emulsion into the rock
was to reduce the water permeability to a value corresponding to a substantial oil saturation (see Fig. 9).
If all the oil from the emulsion were retained in
the cores (it was not), the oil saturation from approximately 12 PV of O.S-percent emulsion would be 6
percent. Note from Fig, 9 that a 6-percent oil saturation would reduce water permeability by about 15
percent of that of the completely water-saturated
porous medium for a rock preferentially water wet.
In contrast, the oil-in-water emulsion reduced water
permeabilities in the high-, medium-, and lowpermeability cores 35-, 21-, and 12-fold, respectively,
Apparently, emulsified oil is much more efficient at
reducing water permeability than is oil left after
watertlooding.
The results from this experiment indicate that the
injection of oil-in-water emulsion has decreased the
flow in the higher-permeability porous media and has
improved fluid distribution.

so

SATURATION

vs oil saturation,

Conclusions
i

2
WRCVOLUMCS

s
Of

FLUIO

INJCCTCD

Fig. ItJ-Oil displacement

from oii reservoir sandstone
cores by waterand by 0.5 percent oii.in-water
emuision.
732

1. Crude-oil-in-water emulsions can be easily prepared from some asphaltic crude oils and dilute solutions of sodium hydroxide. Other crude oils can be
emulsified using synthetic surfactants.
2. Emulsions containing up to 50 percent oil have
JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY

,.

h-t bulk that are less than 20 times that of

water, even though the oil viscosities may range up
to 1 million cp at room temperature. Emulsions containing more than 60 percent oil show increased viscosities and exhibit pseudo non -Newtonian flow
characteristics due to droplet-to-droplet interaction.
3. Emulsions prepared from various asphaltic
crude oils have droplets of different sizes. Mean
droplet diameter usually varies from 1 to 12 microns.
Emulsion droplet sizes can be altered by changing
the concentration of sodium hydroxide used to prepare the caustic emulsions. Emulsion droplet diameters for crude oils having a low content of interracially
active compounds can be modified by varying the
amount of an added synthetic surfactant.
4. Oil-in-water emulsions can effectively reduce
the water permeabilities of sandstone cores if the
initial water permeabilities are less than 2 darcies.
5. The permeability reduction caused by injecting
emulsion is retained even when the emulsion is followed by many pore volumes of water.
6. Flow of oil-in-water emulsions through porous
media is pseudo non-Newtonian, regardless of how
much oil the emulsion contains, Emulsion flows more
easily under a high differential pressure. This is an
advantage in field applications because in a radial
flow system the highest pressure decrease per unit
distance occurs near the wellbore. Emulsion then
more effectively reduces permeability in the reservoir
away from the wellbore.
7. In these experiments, with cores of different
permeabilities mounted in parallel, oil-in-water emulsion proportionally reduced the permeability in highpermeability cores more than in cores of lower
permeability.
8. Oil-in-water emulsions ;isp ~ced oil from sandstone core material more e! ~ i} than did water
alone.

viscosities

References
1. Robertson, J. O., Jr., and Oefelein, F, H.: Plugging
Thief Zones in Water Injection Wells, J. Pet. Tech.
(Aug., 1967) 999-1004.

JUNE, 1973

2. Smith, L. R., Fast, C. R. and Wagner, O. R.: Development and Field Testing of Large-Volume Remedial
Treatments for Gross Water Channeling, J. Pet. Tech.
(Aug.,
1969) 1015-1025.
3. Willman, B. T.: Method for Control of Water Injection
Profiles, U. S. Patent 3,251,414 (May 17, 1966),
4, Brandt~ C. T. and Bowles, W. R.: Sealing of Porous
and Fissured Formations with Cationic Asphalt Emulsions; U. S. Patent 3,159,976 (Dee, 8, 1964).
5. Gagle, D. W. and Levy, D. F.: Groating of Underwater Formations; U. S, Patent 3,252,290 (May 24,
1966).
6. Jamin, J.: Le$ons sur les lois de l6quiIibre et du mouvement des liquides clans les corps poreux, Paris ( 1861).
In Bickerman, J. J.: Swjace Chemistry for Industrial
Research, Academic Press Inc., New York (1948 ) 330.
7. McAuliffe, C. D.: Method of Improving Fluid Flow in
Porous Media, U. S. Patent 3,472,319 (Oct. 14, 1969).
8. Uzoigwe, A. C. and Marsden, S. S., Jr,: Emulsion
Rheology and Flow Through Unconsolidated Synthetic
Porous Media, paper SPE 3004 presented at SPE-AIME
45th Annual Fal! Meeting, Houston, Oct. 4-7, 1970.
9. Becker, P.: Em[llsions: Theory attd Practice, Reinhold
Publishing Corp., New York [ 1965) 2.
10. Seifert, W. K. and Howells, W. G. :Interracially Active
Acids in a California Crude Oil. Isolation of Carboxylic
Acids and PhenoIsj A na[yticul Chemistry ( 1969) 41,
554-562:

11, Seifert, W. K. and Teeter, R. M.: Preparative ThinLayer Chromatography and High ResoIu\ion Mass Spectrometry of Crude Oil Carboxylic AcIds, Analytical
Che/nistry ( 1969) 41, 786-,95.
12. Jennings, H. Y., Jr.: How to Handle and Process Soft
and Unconsolidated Cores, World Oil (June, 1965) 116.
Emulsions To
13. McAuliffe, C. D.: Crude-Oil-in-Water
Improve Fluid Flow in an Oil Reservoir, J. Per. Tech.

(June, 1973) 721-726.

14. Gogart y, W. B. and Tosch, W. C.: Miscible-Type Waterflooding: Oil Recovery with Micellar Solutions, 1. Pet.
Tech. (Dec., 1968) 1407-1414; Trans., AIME, 243.
15; Davis, J. A., Jr., and Jones, S. C.: Displacement Mechanisms of Micellar Solutions, J. Pet. Tech. (Dec., 1968)
1415-1428; Tram., AIME. 243.
16. Helm, 1.. W.: Use of SolubIe Oils for Oil Recovery,
J. Pet. Tech. (Dec., 1971) 1475-1483; Tram., AIME,
251.
iJWT

Paper (SPE 4369) was presented as part of paper SPE 3784 at

the SPE.AIME
Symposium
on Improved
Oil Recovery, held In
Tulsa, Okla., April 16-19, 1972. 0 Copyright 1973 American Instb
tute of Mining, Metallurgical,
and Petrolaum Engineers, Inc.

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