Sharif Digital Repository

In recent years, polysilicon nanoparticles are used to enhance the oil recovery through the water injection process in oilfields. The contributing mechanisms are the reduction of interfacial tension and wettability alteration which lead to improving or decreasing the oil phase relative permeability and can be traced by change of relative permeability curves. However, profound understanding of the effect of dispersed nano-silica particles on the hysteretic behavior of relative permeability curves remains a controversy topic in the literature.The current study illustrates the influence of dispersed silica particles on hysteretic trend of two-phase curves of oil-water relative permeability.... 

Nitrogen has emerged as a competitive gas injection alternative for gas-based enhanced oil recovery processes in the past two decades. The injection of nitrogen into the reservoirs has improved the oil recovery efficiency in various oil reservoirs from heavy to volatile oils. As it is known, interfacial tension (IFT) plays a key role in any enhanced oil recovery process, particularly gas injection processes; therefore, its accurate determination is crucial for the design of any gas injection process especially at reservoir condition. In this study, an axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA) was utilized to measure the equilibrium IFTs between crude oil and N2 at different temperature levels... 

Injecting low salinity brines is regarded as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process through IFT reduction. However, the exact mechanism behind this process is an unsettled and complex issue that has not been well understood yet, especially for heavy crude oil system. Besides, limited information is available regarding the key heavy oil/brine interfacial tension (IFT). The present study aims to investigate the sensitivity of dead heavy crude oil/brine IFT to a wide range of properties/conditions and to reveal the underlying physicochemical mechanisms involved in enhanced oil recovery and IFT reduction by low salinity water injection into heavy oil reservoir. IFT was measured as a function of... 

Decision on the location of new wells through infill drilling projects is a complex problem that depends on the reservoir rock and fluid properties, well and surface facilities specifications, and economic measures. Conventional approach to address this is a direct optimization that uses the numerical flow simulation. However, this is computationally very extensive. In this study the authors use a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) optimization technique based on the genetic algorithm (GA) with helper functions based on the polytope algorithm and the neural network. This hybridization introduces hill-climbing into the stochastic search and makes use of proxies created and calibrated iteratively... 

It has been shown that one kind of poly silicon particles with sizes ranging from 10-500 nm, can be used in oilfields to enhance the oil recovery of water injection by 15-20%. The contributing mechanism might be reducing the interfacial tension which appears through improving relative permeability of the oil-phase. However, fundamental understanding of how hysteretic behavior of relative permeability curves affected by nanosilica particles remains a topic of debate in the literature. In this study, water as well as water dispersed nanosilica particles floods was performed on sandstone rock sample saturated by light crude oil supplied from one of Iranian oil reservoir, and the relative... 

Most of the heavy oil reservoirs contain discontinuous shale which affects fluid flow through porous media as well as recovery efficiency during enhanced oil recovery processes. However, the role of shale geometrical characteristics (including orientation, length, discontinuity, and spacing of the shale) on oil recovery remains a topic of debate in the literature, especially during miscible injection of heavy oils and five-spot systems. Here, a series of hydrocarbon solvent injection tests have been performed on various five-spot glass micromodels containing barriers which are initially saturated with heavy oil under fixed flow rate conditions. Oil recoveries as a function of pore volumes of... 

There are different thermodynamic models that have been applied for modelling of asphaltene precipitation caused by various reasons, such as solvent/CO2 injection and pressure depletion. In this work, two computer codes based on two different asphaltene precipitation thermodynamic models-the first being the thermodynamic micellization model with a different characterization approach and the second being the solid model-have been developed and used for predicting asphaltene precipitation data reported in the literature as well as in the obtained data for Sarvak reservoir crude, which is one of the most potentially problematic Iranian heavy oil reserves under gas injection conditions. For the... 

Water and miscible gas injection scenarios are considered in an Iranian oil reservoir for the purpose of recovery improvement. Firstly reservoir fluid modeling and modeling of a slim tube test were performed. Then, water alternating gas (WAG) injection was evaluated by optimizing the WAG half cycle and WAG ratio. Alternatively, hybrid WAG and separate injection of water and gas in the top and bottom of the reservoir were also investigated. The numerical simulation results showed that the optimum WAG, with half cycle of 1.5 years and WAG ratio of one, gave the highest recovery factor. Moreover, economic evaluation of these scenarios indicated that WAG had the highest net present value and was... 

Almost all of the heavy oil reservoirs contain discontinuous permeability barriers (shales) with different structures. However, the effect of shaly layer geometrical characteristics including: spacing from wells, discontinuity, orientation, shaly layers' spacing and length, and heterogeneous distribution on oil recovery factor in the presence of gravity force are not well understood. In this work, a series of solvent injection experiments were conducted on various vertical one-quarter five-spot glass micromodels, containing barriers, which were initially saturated with a heavy oil sample. The oil recovery was measured by analysis of the pictures provided continuously during the injection... 

In this work, a thermodynamic approach is used for modeling the phase behavior of asphaltene precipitation. The precipitated asphaltene phase is represented by an improved solid model, and the oil and gas phases are modeled with an equation of state. The Peng-Robinson equation of state (PR-EOS) was used to perform flash calculations. Then, the onset point and the amount of precipitated asphaltene were predicted. A computer code based on the solid model was developed and used for predicting asphaltene precipitation data reported in the literature as well as the experimental data obtained from high-pressure, high-temperature asphaltene precipitation experiments performed on Sarvak reservoir... 

The use of adjusted/optimized saline water categorized into two different classes namely smart water (SW) and low salinity (LoSal) water injection has been proposed for more oil recovery from specific types of oil reservoirs. There are possible mechanisms concerning SW flooding that have been proposed in the literature, some of them are still subject to more examination. In this study, an experimental investigation is performed to determine the influence of type and amount of salt to the surface properties including interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angle (CA) of aqueous solution + acidic and asphaltenic crude oil + carbonate rock systems. For this purpose, the concentration of different... 

Typical non-hydrocarbon gases, which have been utilized in miscible and immiscible processes, are carbon dioxide and nitrogen. These gases are usually injected separately and have been rarely utilized together as a tertiary recovery process. In this article, the authors have experimentally focused on sequential carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas injection as a new enhanced oil recovery method. The periodic injections of carbon dioxide and nitrogen have been repeated for six injection pore volumes. Sensitivity analysis of injection pressure, injection volume, and injection rate has also been investigated in core flood experiments. The experimental results have revealed that a sequential miscible... 

Gas injection is the second largest enhanced oil recovery process being applied in many reservoirs around the world. Simulation of these processes is necessary for implementation, management, and decision making. Relative permeability is one of the most important factors in numerical reservoir simulation. In this study, several core flood experiments are done and the relative permeability in carbon dioxide (CO2) injection is compared with nitrogen (N2) injection. Oil relative permeability in CO 2 injection is found to be higher than in N2 injection, but gas relative permeability in CO2 injection is found to be lower than in N2 injection. Higher oil relative permeability in CO 2 injection... 

Injecting low salinity brines is regarded as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process through IFT reduction. However, the exact mechanism behind this process is an unsettled and complex issue that has not been well understood yet, especially for heavy crude oil system. Besides, limited information is available regarding the key heavy oil/brine interfacial tension (IFT). The present study aims to investigate the sensitivity of dead heavy crude oil/brine IFT to a wide range of properties/conditions and to reveal the underlying physicochemical mechanisms involved in enhanced oil recovery and IFT reduction by low salinity water injection into heavy oil reservoir. IFT was measured as a function of... 

Asphaltene precipitation problems manifest themselves in different stages of oil reservoirs production. Experimental and modeling investigations are, therefore, employed as promising tools to assist in predictions of asphaltene precipitation problems and selection of proper production facilities. This study concerns experimental and modeling investigations of asphaltene precipitation during natural production and gas injection operations for a heavy Iranian crude oil at reservoir conditions. First, with design and performance of high pressure-high temperature experiments, asphaltene precipitation behavior is comprehensively investigated; the effects of pressure and temperature are fully... 

Many reservoir and production engineers face asphaltene precipitation as a major problem during miscible carbon dioxide flooding projects. Experimental studies regarding asphaltene precipitation are therefore employed to assist in selecting appropriate facilities and proper operation schemes. During this study, a series of high pressure, high temperature experiments are designed and performed to analyze asphaltene precipitation behavior of an Iranian light reservoir crude at reservoir conditions due to natural production and miscible CO2 gas injection. For both sets of experiments, two different temperature levels (including reservoir temperature) are selected to investigate the role of... 

Screening analysis is a useful guideline that helps us with proper field selection for different enhanced oil recovery processes. In this work, reservoir simulation is combined with experimental design to estimate the effect of reservoir rock and fluid properties on performance of immiscible nitrogen injection. Reservoir dip, thickness, and horizontal permeability are found to be the most influential parameters. Possible interactions of parameters are also discussed to increase reliability and robustness of screening results. Finally, significance of both main effects and interactions are evaluated by employing a statistical inference approach (hypothesis testing) and results are compared to... 

One of the methods that is used nowadays in enhanced oil recovery is surfactant flooding. The main mechanisms of surfactant flooding in reservoir consist of reduction of interfacial tension between water and oil and modification of rock wettability. In this study, the authors simulate the surfactant injection process in Darcy scale and in one-dimensional, multicomponent, multiphase state, and effects of physical phenomena such as adsorption, dispersion, convection, and exchange between fluids and solids are considered. Wettability alteration of reservoir rock due to presence of surfactant in injected fluid is detected in relative permeability and capillary pressure curves. First, the authors... 

When the reservoir energy is too low for the well to flow, or the production rate desired is greater than the reservoir energy can deliver, using some kind of artificial lift method to provide the energy to bring the fluid to the surface, seems to be necessary. Continuous flow gas lift is one of the most common artificial lift methods widely used in the oil industry during which, at appropriate pressure, gas is injected in a suitable depth into the tubing to gasify the oil column, and thus assist the production. Each well has an optimal point at which it will produce the most oil. In ideal conditions, at which there is no limitation in the total amount of available gas, a sufficient amount... 

The authors simulated a reservoir by using two-layer perceptron. Indeed a model was developed to simulate the increase in oil recovery caused by bacteria injection into an oil reservoir. This model was affected by reservoir temperature and amount of water injected into the reservoir for enhancing oil recovery. Comparing experimental and simulation results and also the erratic trend of data show that the neural networks have modeled this system properly. Considering the effects of nonlinear factors and their erratic and unknown impacts on recovered oil, the perceptron neural network can develop a proper model for oil recovery factor in various conditions. The neural networks have not been...