Sharif Digital Repository

Colloidal Gas Aphron (CGA) are finding increasing application in fields of science and engineering because of their distinctive characteristic. As interest in the application of CGA based fluids grows and in order to select the best procedure for using them in successful petroleum engineering operations, there is a need to gain a better understanding of the factors that affect their properties and behavior. This article discusses the rheological characterization, stability analysis and filtration properties of CGA based fluids for three bio-polymers and two ionic surfactant. The stability and filtration analysis were investigated with the static drain rate technique and API filtration tests,... 

Over the years, accurate prediction of dew-point pressure of gas condensate has been a vital importance in reservoir evaluation. Although various scientists and researchers have proposed correlations for this purpose since 1942, but most of these models fail to provide the desired accuracy in prediction of dew-point pressure. Therefore, further improvement is still needed. The objective of this study is to present an improved artificial neural network (ANN) method to predict dew-point pressures in gas condensate reservoirs. The model was developed and tested using a total set of 562 experimental data point from different gas condensate fluids covering a wide range of variables. After a... 

Estimation of the viscosity of naturally occurring petroleum gases is essential to provide more accurate analysis of gas reservoir engineering problems. In this study, a new soft computing approach, namely, least square support vector machine (LSSVM) modeling, optimized with a coupled simulated annealing technique was applied for estimation of the natural gas viscosities at different temperature and pressure conditions. This model was developed based on 2485 viscosity data sets of 22 gas mixtures. The model predictions showed an average absolute relative error of 0.26% and a correlation coefficient of 0.99. The results of the proposed model were also compared with the well-known predictive... 

In oil and gas fields, it is a common practice to flow liquid and gas mixtures through choke valves. In general, different types of primary valves are employed to control pressure and flow rate when the producing well directs the natural gas to the processing equipment. In this case, the valve normally is affected by elevated levels of flow (or velocity) as well as solid materials suspended in the gas phase (e.g., fine sand and other debris). Both surface and subsurface chokes may be installed to regulate flow rates and to protect the porous medium and surface facilities from unusual pressure instabilities.In this study a reliable, novel, computer based predictive model using Least-Squares... 

Demands for hydrocarbon production have been increasing in recent decades. As a tertiary production processes, chemical flooding is one of the effective technologies to increase oil recovery of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Retention of surfactants is one of the key parameters affecting the performance and economy of a chemical flooding process. The main parameters contribute to surfactant retention are mineralogy of rock, surfactant structure, pH, salinity, acidity of the oil, microemulsion viscosity, co-solvent concentration, and mobility. Despite various theoretical studies carried out so far, a comprehensive and reliable predictive model for surfactant retention is still found lacking. In this... 

A fundamental chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process is surfactant flooding in which the key mechanism is to reduce interfacial tension between oil and the displacing fluid and hence mobilizing the trapped oil. Surfactant loss by adsorption is one of the most important criteria that governs the economics of the surfactant flooding methods. In addition to this, detrimental effects and high price of currently used surfactants cause EOR process so expensive and unfeasible. This study is aimed to introduce a novel kind of plant based surfactant which is extracted from Zizyphus Spina-Christi tree. In addition, equilibrium adsorption behavior of this novel biosurfactant in aqueous solution... 

Bubble point pressure is a crucial PVT parameter of reservoir fluids, which has a significant effect on oil field development strategies, reservoir evaluation and production calculations. This communication presents a new mathematical model to calculate the saturation pressures of crude oils as a function of temperature, hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon reservoir fluid compositions, and characteristics of the heptane-plus fraction. The model was developed and tested using a total set of 130 experimentally measured compositions and saturation pressures of crude oil samples from different geographical locations covering wide ranges of crude oil properties and reservoir temperatures. In-depth... 

Multiple contact miscible floods such as injection of relatively inexpensive gases into oil reservoirs are considered as well-established enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques for conventional reservoirs. A fundamental factor in the design of gas injection project is the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP), whereas local sweep efficiency from gas injection is very much dependent on the MMP. Slim tube displacements, and rising bubble apparatus (RBA) are two main tests that are used for experimentally determination of MMP but these tests are both costly and time consuming. Hence, searching for quick and accurate mathematical determination of gas-oil MMP is inevitable. The objective of this... 

The proper understanding of rheological characteristics of CGA based fluids is of crucial importance in determining the performance of the fluid, in order to maintain the most effective fluid properties for safe, efficient, and economical drilling operation. This paper presents a concise investigation on the effect of concentration of the three main components of a novel environmentally friendly lightweight CGA based drilling fluid, i.e., xanthan gum biopolymer, starch, and biosurfactant, to the Herschel-Bulkley rheological model parameters. The three parameters of Herschel-Bulkley model, i.e., yield stress, fluid consistency, and fluid flow index were calculated by fitting the experimental... 

Appropriate execution of drilling operation, in particular for high pressure and high temperature wells, requires accurate knowledge of behavior of the drilling fluid density as a function of pressure and temperature. In this communication, a novel mathematicalbased approach is presented to develop a reliable model for predict the density of four drilling fluid including water-based, oil-based, Colloidal Gas Aphron (CGA) and synthetic. To pursue our objective, a predictive model is proposed using a robust soft computing approach namely least square support vector machine (LSSVM) modeling optimized with coupled simulated annealing (CSA) optimization tool. Moreover, leverage approach, in which... 

Colloidal gas aphrons (CGAs) are progressive operational fluids used in different areas such as engineering fields due to their unique characteristics. In between, the application of nanoparticle in several fields of engineering has received considerable attention in recent years. However, little or no information is available regarding the application of nanoparticle in CGA suspensions. In this study, the size distribution of bubbles, stability, API filtrate and rheology of a new type of these fluids called nanoparticle-enhanced colloidal gas aphron (NCGA)-based fluids are investigated. NCGAs’ stability is studied by measuring drainage rate tests. Also, for the investigation of fluid flow... 

Through this work, a novel mathematical-based approach was proposed to develop reliable models for calculation of PVT properties of crude oils at various reservoir conditions. For this purpose, a new soft computing approach namely Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM) modeling optimized with Coupled Simulated Annealing (CSA) optimization technique was implemented. The constructed models are evaluated by carrying out extensive experimental data reported in open literature. Results obtained by the proposed models were compared with the corresponding experimental values. Moreover, in-depth comparative studies have been carried out between these models and all other predictive models. The...