Sharif Digital Repository

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... 

Application of solar energy compared to conventional gas-burning boilers for steam generation in thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery processes is a newly attended technology, which brings significant benefits to the petroleum industry through environmental and economical aspects. This technique is especially designed for the regions in which gas-burning steam generation is not viable in large scale. The objective of this study is to investigate about viability of using solar energy to generate steam instead of using conventional steam generators in a Venezuelan extra heavy oil reservoir. Limited gas production policy of the Venezuelan government is the major challenge for utilizing gas steam... 

Production logging is used to evaluate wells production performance. Interpretation of production log data provides velocity profile and contribution of each zone on total production. In multi-phase flow conditions, production log interpretation can be challenging since producing fluids do not have similar densities and travel with different speed depending on fluids properties and wellbore deviation. Production log interpretation in multi-phase producing wells requires identifying downhole flow regimes and determining velocity profile for each phase. There are different flow regimes and velocity models available, which are being used in production log interpretation to determine wells flow... 

Oil trapping behavior during the pre-flush stage is critically important to evaluate the effectiveness of matrix acidizing for the oil well stimulation. In this study, the visco-capillary behavior of the two-phase flow in the pore-scale is analyzed to investigate the influence of wetting properties for a natural rock sample. A two-dimensional model, based on Cahn-Hilliard phase-field and Navier-Stokes equations, was established and solved using the finite element method. A stability phase diagram for log capillary number (Ca)-log viscosity ratio (M) was constructed and then compared with the reported experimental works. The maximum and minimum ranges of capillary number and viscosity ratio... 

As the oil production from conventional oil reservoirs is decreasing, oil production through Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes is supposed to compensate for both the oil production reduction in matured oil reservoirs and the worldwide dramatic increase in oil demand. Therefore, developing a strategy to choose an optimized EOR technique is crucial to find a resolution for production decline in oil reservoirs. A screening tool recommending the most appropriate EOR method is proposed in this study. An expert fuzzy logic system is employed to screen four well-known EOR methods including miscible CO2 injection, miscible HC gas injection, polymer flooding and steam injection based on the... 

As the oil production from conventional oil reservoirs is decreasing, oil production through Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes is supposed to compensate for both the oil production reduction in matured oil reservoirs and the worldwide dramatic increase in oil demand. Therefore, developing a strategy to choose an optimized EOR technique is crucial to find a resolution for production decline in oil reservoirs. A screening tool recommending the most appropriate EOR method is proposed in this study. An expert fuzzy logic system is employed to screen four well-known EOR methods including miscible CO2 injection, miscible HC gas injection, polymer flooding and steam injection based on the... 

Ultrasonic waves have been extensively used in many industrial applications including clean devices, pipes and vessels. A clear extension of this usage is the removal of wellbore contaminants by exposing it to high-power ultrasonic waves. In this paper, a mathematical model for ultrasonic propagation through the porous medium around the wellbore is presented. The equations of wave propagation are written in a cylindrical coordinate according to Biot theory and the induced stress in the rock are calculated at each point using finite difference approach Comparison of imposed local stresses with adhesion forces between scales and rock, the properties of ultrasonic transducer, such as frequency... 

In this paper we consider a single machine multi-product lot scheduling problem in which defective items are produced in any production run of each product. In each cycle after the normal production of each product the machine is setup for the rework of the defectives of the same product and then the rework process starts. We assume that the setup time for the normal production process as well as the rework process is non-zero. Further we consider the waiting time cost of defectives for rework. This paper has two objectives. The first objective is to obtain the economic batch quantity (EBQ) for a single product. The second objective is to extend the result of the first objective to the... 

Iran, with a record of over one century of oil production, is currently one of the major oil producing countries of the world. Several of the old fields have been depleted to an uneconomical level of production which requires significant amount of natural gas for re-injection so that currently over 100 million cubic meters of natural gas is reinjected daily to maintain or enhance oil production to an economical level. It is estimated that in order to maintain oil production, over 200 million cubic meters of natural gas will be needed daily by 2015. However, due to the increased level of domestic and export demands for natural gas, EOR with natural gas is prohibitive and therefore portions of... 

Animal models and traditional cell cultures are essential tools for drug development. However, these platforms can show striking discrepancies in efficacy and side effects when compared to human trials. These differences can lengthen the drug development process and even lead to drug withdrawal from the market. The establishment of preclinical drug screening platforms that have higher relevancy to physiological conditions is desirable to facilitate drug development. Here, a heart-on-a-chip platform, incorporating microgrooves and electrical pulse stimulations to recapitulate the well-aligned structure and synchronous beating of cardiomyocytes (CMs) for drug screening, is reported. Each chip... 

Acidizing is widely used to remove near-wellbore damage and enhance the inflow performance of the reservoir to boost the well oil production rate. However, when the injected acid exposes to reservoir oil, either asphaltic sludge or emulsion forms as acid-induced damages. Therefore, laboratory compatibility tests are required before every acidizing job to determine both the acid sensitivity of oil samples and the optimal dosage of chemical inhibitors that should be used to prevent sludge and emulsion formation. The lack of knowledge to predict the risk of asphaltic sludge and emulsion damages for different oil and acid systems necessitates expensive and time-consuming compatibility tests... 

Steam-assisted gravity drainage is one of the most promising strategies to develop huge heavy oil and bitumen accumulations. Like the other thermal processes, this method aims at reducing oil viscosity by increasing the temperature. But in an economical point of view, it requires a great volume of steam for injection. Moreover, early breakthrough of steam and high steam-oil ratio makes it uneconomical, especially in long production time. In this study, a new method, two wells cyclical steam-assisted gravity drainage is compared with a conventional steam-assisted gravity drainage process. Well configuration in two wells cyclical steam-assisted gravity drainage is the same as the... 

After a brief review of the global gas flaring and venting in oil industries including the emission of air pollutants and greenhouse gases and the amount of energy resources wasted, the focus is on Iran as a major oil producing and the world's third largest gas flaring country. Gas flaring is also practiced in natural gas industries, petroleum refining and petrochemical plants, although the level of emission is very low compared with emissions from oil production. The historical emission of these gases globally and Iran specifically, geographic location of emission sources, composition of gases, environmental impacts of gas flaring and the current and future projects to mitigate emissions...