Chemicals found in common household items, like toothpaste and soap, are proving to be the right formula to safely extract up to 70 percent of the oil still embedded in high-salt oil reservoirs in the United States. With controversy surrounding fracking, a team from the University of Oklahoma Institute for Applied Surfactant Research has formulated an environmentally sound compound that increases oil flow in previously pumped reservoirs. By decreasing the surface tension, oil is released from the rock so it can move with the injected water and be pushed to the production wells safely. Secondary recovery methods, such as water flooding and hydraulic fracturing, are used to recover oil left behind by previously pumped reservoirs which drive trapped oil toward the drill hole, but when the injected water reaches the production wells, most of the oil remains trapped in the rock, much like a sponge traps water. If this new method is successful, it would enable small oil producers to recover more oil efficiently and cost effectively, while leaving the formations environmentally sound reducing the enviromental problems that rise at the hands of oil drilling.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130130082252.htm
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