STUDY ON ESTABLISHING THE PROCEDURE FOR DETERMINATION OF SOME PERFLUOROCARBON (PFC) TRACERS IN GAS SAMPLES FROM THE OIL RESERVOIR WITH THERMAL DESORPTION METHOD COMBINED WITH GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY-MASS SPECTROMETRY

Abstract

Tracer technique is one of the most effective tracking and monitoring techniques, which has been
applied in oil and gas production in the world such as interwell study and residual oil saturation
determination. Chemical tracers were used instead of radioactive tracers due to their safety for the
environment and health. Among them, perfluorocarbon compounds (PFCs) are potential ones for the
gas-tracer technique in the tertiary recovery stage of oil production. In this report, we studied to
establish the analytical procedure for 6 PFC compounds in gas samples from the oil reservoir using
thermal desorption combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and chemical ionization
source (TD-NICI-GC/MS). Gas samples were taken into the Capillary Adsorption Tube (CAT)
containing carboxen 569 for thermal desorption and analyzed on gas chromatography-mass
spectrometry. The detection limit of this procedure was at fL/L (10-15 L/L) level. The method will be
applied to determine the PFC content of gas samples from some of Vietnam’s oil reservoirs.