Enhanced Oil Recovery in Porous Systems Using the Surfactant Produced by Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Pb18

Part of the world's oil is obtained by water injection to maintain reservoir pressure and sweep the oil to the production wells [1]. However, it is not possible to recover 100% of the existing oil in the wells because of physicochemical constraints, such as the high surface tension at the oil-water system that can result in high capillary forces which retain the oil to reservoir rocks, therefore this is a drawback in the porous zones in the oil wells [2]. This job evaluates the use of surfactant produced with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa Pb18 as a solution to this problem through enhanced oil recovery supported by a scale model. The sand column test, which simulates the porous zones of oils wells, was used in order to make the scale model. The results show that the surfactant produced by the bacteria used allows an enhanced oil recovery by 10% over the negative control (without surfactant)).