Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-06-12 Origin: Site
Petroleum exploitation is a sophisticated systematic project covering drilling exploration, reservoir stimulation, crude oil dehydration and oily wastewater treatment. The whole process relies heavily on oilfield chemical additives. Featuring unique amphiphilic molecular structures, surfactants are equipped with multiple core performances including interfacial tension reduction, viscosity reduction via emulsification, wettability alteration, demulsification, clay anti-swelling and defoaming & flowback assisting. As indispensable fine chemicals, they run through the full life cycle of oil and gas development, solve various technical difficulties in complex reservoir exploitation, and help improve oil recovery efficiency as well as control overall operation costs.
Drilling lays the foundation for petroleum exploitation. The harsh downhole environment characterized by high temperature, high pressure and high salinity always leads to common risks such as wellbore collapse, drill pipe abrasion and excessive drilling fluid foaming. Surfactants applied in drilling fluids are mainly divided into anionic and nonionic types, usually compounded with a small proportion of amphoteric surfactants. Anionic surfactants such as alkyl sulfonate and alpha-olefin sulfonate can effectively reduce fluid loss and stabilize wellbore walls to prevent formation leakage. Nonionic surfactants represented by fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether provide outstanding lubrication performance, cutting friction between drill pipes and well walls to reduce bit wear, while eliminating foam to guarantee stable circulation of drilling fluids. For deep wells with extreme high temperature and high salinity, betaine-based amphoteric surfactants with excellent temperature and salt resistance can maintain stable performance of drilling fluid systems and support continuous and safe drilling operations.
Acidizing and hydraulic fracturing are essential stimulation technologies to unblock oil and gas seepage channels for low-permeability reservoirs, which require chemical additives with extreme stability under strong acid and high-pressure conditions. Cationic quaternary ammonium salts, temperature-resistant amphoteric betaines and high-efficiency flowback surfactants are widely adopted in this procedure. Cationic quaternary ammonium salts can adsorb clay particles in formations to inhibit clay swelling and migration, avoiding blockage of reservoir pores. Meanwhile, they serve as corrosion inhibitors to protect downhole casings and pipelines from acid corrosion. High-temperature resistant amphoteric surfactants adapt to harsh acidic downhole environments, improve flowback efficiency of fracturing fluid residues, reduce permanent formation damage and maximize oil well productivity.
After primary natural flowing production and secondary water flooding, more than 60% of crude oil remains adsorbed on rock pore surfaces and cannot be extracted naturally. Surfactants act as core chemicals for tertiary chemical flooding. Anionic surfactants including heavy alkylbenzene sulfonate and petroleum sulfonate are most commonly used, which can reduce oil-water interfacial tension to an ultra-low level and change reservoir rock wettability to strip residual crude oil from rock surfaces. Compounded with nonionic surfactants, the finished products gain strong resistance to calcium and magnesium ions, perfectly matching high-salinity reservoir conditions of major domestic oilfields. In addition, innovative gemini surfactants and biosurfactants have been widely applied in mature oilfields for stable production, thanks to their low dosage, high oil washing efficiency and low formation damage. These products can improve the overall oil recovery rate by 15% to 20% stably.
Heavy oil has extremely high viscosity and poor fluidity, bringing huge challenges to extraction. Emulsifying and viscosity-reducing surfactants can convert heavy crude oil into stable oil-in-water emulsions, greatly lowering flow resistance and realizing smooth crude oil lifting. In the subsequent treatment of produced liquid, demulsifying surfactants can break stable oil-water emulsions rapidly to achieve efficient oil-water separation and improve crude oil purification quality. In terms of oily wastewater treatment, professional surfactants can adsorb floating oil in wastewater, realize effective water purification and meet standards for both reinjection and environmental discharge.
As petroleum exploitation gradually targets deep, high-temperature, high-salinity and low-permeability complex reservoirs, together with increasingly stringent global environmental requirements for oilfield chemicals, high-performance surfactants featuring temperature and salt resistance, low formation damage and good biodegradability will become the mainstream of oilfield chemical research and application. With the chemical empowerment of advanced surfactants, the petroleum industry can achieve more efficient, eco-friendly and cost-effective exploitation, providing solid technical support for stable energy supply worldwide.
