Sharif Digital Repository

Previous empirical research about the functions of innovative systems has been less enabled to present practical strategies for managers’ decisions. This paper aims to determine the boundaries of the innovation system in the oil industry by prioritizing strategic innovative upstream technologies for policy-making and commercializing within the framework of energy technological innovation systems. This paper proposes a novel fuzzy approach based on distance from ideals to scrutinize the effects of effective criteria on the policy-making process and rank new and essential technologies in various fields. The developed fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution... 

Produced water (PW), water extracted along with oil, can cause important environmental challenges due to its high volume and salinity and is considered a key factor in the economic exploitation of oil fields. Therefore, making use of a cost-effective integrated system of wastewater treatment is a fundamental requirement in oil and gas industries. In this paper, the integrated PW treatment system is presented using superstructure-based mathematical optimisation methodology which is aimed at minimising the total annual cost. Two distinct scenarios of injection and reuse in industrial scale are considered to propose an efficient and optimal integrated system. The results show that, despite the... 

HSE management is one of the key topics in project management that plays a significant role in indication of success and soundness of projects. According to the official reports and statistics, construction industry has annually incurred a great deal of expenses and losses due to neglecting the role of HSE issues in the projects worldwide. Since many challenges and problems related to HSE faced Iranian civil engineers and construction managers, recently the HSE have been regarded as a highly critical issue in Iran. Observations show that many Iranian managers and engineers, in their daily activities, have the tendency to ignore the HSE related rules. The aim of this research is to evaluate... 

The present article aims to investigate the cause-and-effect relationship between the employees’ psychological empowerment (PE) and dimensions of knowledge management (KM) in an oil company, using the fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method. The study population consists of oil company experts. The sample size is determined based on the theoretical saturation limit. The present findings show that PE is the strongest causative factor with significant effects on knowledge creation (KC) and knowledge dissemination (KD). Among the KM dimensions, the most influential factors are the dimensions of KC, knowledge application, and knowledge capture (KCA). Of all KM dimensions,... 

In recent decades, utilizing of water-based muds (WBMs) in drilling oil and gas wells is ever increasing comparing to oil-based muds and synthetic-based muds due to the lower environmental issues. However, the main drawbacks with WBMs are rheological properties inefficiency and shale swelling which have caused attentions turn to improvement of WBMs’ rheological properties. In this study, the effects of various nanoparticles (NPs) namely titanium dioxide (TiO2), silicon dioxide (SiO2), and zinc oxide (ZnO) on improving rheological properties and shale recovery rate of a WBM sample at two temperatures (25 and 50 °C) were investigated. The concentrations of NPs in the base mud were set at 0.01,... 

Simplicity of manufacturing and high reliability of airlift pumps have promoted these pumps to be used in different industries, such as petrochemical and oil industries, especially in oil recovery from dead wells. One of the main parameters affecting the performance of these pumps is two-phase flow regime in the main pipe of the pump. In this research, experimental data are utilized to investigate the influence of the flow regimes on the performance of an airlift pump. The data are obtained for air-water two-phase flow in a vertical pipe with a diameter of d = 50. mm and an aspect ratio of L/d = 120. In this study, the gas liquid upward two-phase flow regime in the upriser pipe is... 

Asphaltene deposition causes serious problems in the oil industry. Variation of oil composition and reservoir pressure is reported to be the most important factors that influence asphaltene deposition from reservoir oil. In this study, a mathematical model was developed to simulate asphaltene deposition during primary depletion and CO2 injection. The main purpose of this study is to investigate and to compare asphaltene deposition mechanisms due to primary depletion and CO2 injection. The solid model as thermodynamic model was applied to investigate asphaltene precipitation. A numerical model was established to the governing equations both in space and time and model parameters were... 

In order to maintain the production of offshore oil wells, the National Iranian Oil Company periodically services facilities and equipment located in oil wellheads with mobile wellhead servants. It also gives technical supports to oil wellheads and mobile wellhead servants with supporter vessels. Due to supply limitations, there are not enough special vessels (namely supporter vessels and mobile wellhead servants) compared to the number of oil wellheads. The failure of special vessels to service oil wellheads and supporter vessels to technically support mobile wellhead servants based on a predetermined plan, will lead to considerable loss in production performance of oil wells and hence... 

Asphaltene deposition is one of the unresolved problems in oil industries. Little information is available on the critical question of "how fast" the flocculated asphaltene particles deposit across the production wells from the flowing oil. In this study, the mechanisms of deposition of flocculated asphaltene particles from oil have been studied experimentally and theoretically under forced convective conditions using an accurate thermal approach. The effects of oil velocity, flocculated asphaltene concentration and temperature on the rate of asphaltene deposition are investigated. It is observed that during the first few weeks the deposition mechanism is dominant and the erosion of the... 

Using network analysis, we investigate if an industry's complex and integrated knowledge base leads to a higher spatial concentration (or dispersal)of innovative activities. This is important because the extant literature provides competing claims about how knowledge base complexity impacts on the spatial distribution of industrial innovation. To help empirically resolve this issue, we draw on longitudinal data (1970–2010)on the upstream petroleum industry and build indexes of entropy and complexity to render knowledge base dynamics, assess the spatial concentration of innovation, and study industry structural transformations. We first find a correlation – once a crucial distinction between... 

Background: To meet stringent emission standards stipulated by regulatory agencies, the oil industry is required to bring down the sulfur content in fuels. As some compounds cannot be desulfurized by existing desulfurizing processes (such as hydrodesulfurization, HDS) biodesulfurization has become an interesting topic for researchers. Most of the isolated biodesulfurizing microorganisms are capable of desulfurization of refined products whose predominant sulfur species are dibenzothiophenes so biocatalyst development is still needed to desulfurize the spectrum of sulfur-bearing compounds present in whole crude. Results: The first desulfurizing bacterium active at 60 °C has been isolated,... 

To meet stringent emission standards stipulated by regulatory agencies, the oil industry is required to bring down the sulfur content in fuels. Oil supplies 38% of the worldwide energy, and as the light oil is limited and meanwhile the energy demand is increasing, it is a must to use heavy crude oil and therefore desulfurize it to meet environmental standards. As it is not feasible to desulfurize all the sulfur containing compounds of heavy crude oil by the existing methods (such as hydro-desulfurization) we have focused on biodesulfurization of heavy crude oil. We have isolated the first native fungus which has been identified as Stachybotrys sp. and is able to remove sulfur and nitrogen... 

Crude oil desalter effluent from a Tehran oil refinery was treated by a hybrid UF/RO membrane separation process. Ultrafiltration (UF) was used primarily to remove the emulsified oil droplets followed by the removal of total dissolved solids (TDS) via reverse osmosis (RO). The UF membrane was a hydrophilic flat sheet polysulfone ultrafiltration membrane with MWCO of 100 kDa while the RO membrane was a spiral-wound thin-film composite polyamide. Effect of operating conditions such as transmembrane pressure and crossflow velocity were studied in UF pretreatment. The experimental results showed that the UF membrane removed more than 75% of the oil and can be considered as an effective... 

A bacterial strain, FBHYA2, capable of degrading naphthalene, was isolated from the American Petroleum Institute (API) separator of the Tehran Oil Refinery Complex (TORC). Strain FBHYA2 was identified as Achromobacter sp. based on physiological and biochemical characteristics and also phylogenetic similarity of 16S rRNA gene sequence. The optimal growth conditions for strain FBHYA2 were pH 6.0, 30°C and 1.0% NaCl. Strain FBHYA2 can utilize naphthalene as the sole source of carbon and energy and was able to degrade naphthalene aerobically very fast, 48 h for 96% removal at 500 mg/L concentration. The physiological response of Achromobacter sp., FBHYA2 to several hydrophobic chemicals... 

Rhamnolipids are the most common biosurfactants and P. aeruginosa strains are the most frequently studied microorganisms for the production of rhamnolipids. Eco-friendly advantages and promising applications of rhamnolipids in various industries are the major reasons for pursuing the economic production of these biosurfactants. This study shows that cultivation of P. aeruginosa MR01 in medium contained inexpensive soybean oil refinery wastes which exhibited similar levels and homologues of rhamnolipids. Mass spectrometry indicated that the Rha-C10-C10 and Rha-Rha-C10-C10 constitute the main rhamnolipids in different cultures of MR01 including one of oil carbon source analogues. Moreover,... 

Strategic health, safety, and environmental management system (HSE-MS) involves systematic and cooperative planning in each phase of the lifecycle of a project to ensure that interaction among the industry group, client, contractor, stakeholder, and host community exists with the highest level of health, safety, and environmental standard performances. Therefore, it seems necessary to assess the HSE-MS performance of contractor(s) by a comparative strategic management model with the aim of continuous improvement. The present Strategic Management Model (SMM) has been illustrated by a case study and the results show that the model is a suitable management tool for decision making in a contract... 

A bacterial strain was isolated and cultured from the oil excavation areas in tropical zone in southern Iran. It was affiliated with Pseudomonas. The biochemical characteristics and partial sequenced 16S rRNA gene of isolate, MR01, was identical to those of cultured representatives of the species Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This bacterium was able to produce a type of biosurfactant with excessive foam-forming properties. Compositional analysis revealed that the extracted biosurfactant was composed of high percentages lipid (∼65%, w/w) and carbohydrate (∼30%, w/w) in addition to a minor fraction of protein (∼4%, w/w). The best production of 2.1 g/l was obtained when the cells were grown on...