Studies on Rheological Behavior of Xanthan Gum Solutions in Presence of Additives

The oil and gas sector is one of the six core industries in India. These industries are of strategic importance and plays a vital role in influencing decisions across other important spheres of the economy. But the overall production has declined due to the increase in maturity of the oil reservoirs. In developing countri es like India, the oil production and demands play a crucial role for the development of economy of the country. However the domestic crude oil production is insufficient to meet the requirement of energy. Thus, there is the big challenge to minimize the g ap between demand and supply of crude oil. Several methods to enhanced oil recovery have been developed to increase the production from matured reservoirs and are referred to enhance oil recovery (EOR) methods. In the present study we have studied the rheo logical behaviour of Xanthan gum solution in absence and presence of surfactants and sacrificial agents such as salt and alkali. Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide and form an aqueous solution with high viscosity and show non - Newtonian behaviour and can be us ed in oil production as drilling fluids and in enhance oil recovery. The power law model was used to describe the pseudo - plastic behaviour of polyacrylamide solution. The additives shows synergistic effects and their concentration strongly influence the sh ear viscosity of the solution. The TEM results support the viscosity data. The results obtained are quite interesting and could be of prolific use for selection of polymer - surfactant mixtures and surfactants for use in EOR.