Experimental Study of Oil Recovery Using Gum Arabic and Guar Gum Polymer

Tertiary recovery methods, commonly known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques, are employed when primary and secondary recovery methods become less effective. This study investigates the impact of two natural polymers, Guar Gum and Gum Arabic, on medium crude oil production to assess their recovery efficiency and suitability for light oil recovery. Core flooding experiments were conducted in two stages: water flooding, followed by polymer flooding, with 2 pore volumes (PV) of each polymer. Both polymers were formulated to have identical viscosities to ensure fair comparison. Oil recovery was measured at each stage to evaluate the polymers' performance. The results showed that both polymers enhanced oil recovery, with Guar Gum outperforming Gum Arabic. Guar Gum increased recovery by 42.4%, while Gum Arabic achieved 30.8%. These findings indicate that Guar Gum is a more effective polymer for improving oil recovery, particularly in light to medium crude oil reservoirs.