Sharif Digital Repository

Well deliverability is an important issue in forecasting the performance of many gas condensate reservoirs. Condensate accumulation near the wellbore can cause a significant reduction in productivity, even in reservoirs where the fluid is very lean. Generally, the well deliverability is affected by two pressure-drop sources due to depletion and condensate buildup. Recently Rapid spreadsheet tools have developed to evaluate the well performance using material balance equation for depletion and two-phase pseudo pressure integral for well inflow performance. Most of them account for the effects of negative inertia and positive coupling in the calculation of gas relative permeability. This paper... 

During the past two decades, the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method has been introduced as a class of computational fluid dynamic methods for fluid flow simulations. In this method, instead of solving the Navier Stocks equation, the Boltzmann equation is solved to simulate the flow of a fluid. This method was originally developed based on uniform grids. However, in order to model complex geometries such as porous media, it can be very slow in comparison with other techniques such as finite differences and finite elements. To eliminate this limitation, a number of studies have aimed to formulate the lattice Boltzmann on the unstructured grids. This paper deals with simulating fluid flow through a... 

The coning phenomenon usually occurs in water and gas cap drive reservoirs. Water coning in Iranian hydrocarbon reservoirs is one of the most important problems that affects the cumulative production, operation costs and causes environmental problems. Before producing from a reservoir, its fluids are in equilibrium and their contact surfaces remain unchanged, but after starting production from the reservoir, when the viscous force overcome gravitational force in vertical direction, contact surfaces will displace and coning will occur. So, the production rates will be controlled in a range that prevents entering water and gas to the production well. For this reason, investigation and modeling... 

During the past two decades, the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method has been introduced as a class of computational fluid dynamic methods for fluid flow simulations. In this method, instead of solving the Navier Stocks equation, the Boltzmann equation is solved to simulate the flow of a fluid. This method was originally developed based on uniform grids. However, in order to model complex geometries such as porous media, it can be very slow in comparison with other techniques such as finite differences and finite elements. To eliminate this limitation, a number of studies have aimed to formulate the lattice Boltzmann on the unstructured grids. This paper deals with simulating fluid flow through a... 

The coning phenomenon usually occurs in water and gas cap drive reservoirs. Water coning in Iranian hydrocarbon reservoirs is one of the most important problems that affects the cumulative production, operation costs and causes environmental problems. Before producing from a reservoir, its fluids are in equilibrium and their contact surfaces remain unchanged, but after starting production from the reservoir, when the viscous force overcome gravitational force in vertical direction, contact surfaces will displace and coning will occur. So, the production rates will be controlled in a range that prevents entering water and gas to the production well. For this reason, investigation and modeling... 

Well deliverability is an important issue in forecasting the performance of many gas condensate reservoirs. Condensate accumulation near the wellbore can cause a significant reduction in productivity, even in reservoirs where the fluid is very lean. Generally, the well deliverability is affected by two pressure-drop sources due to depletion and condensate buildup. Recently Rapid spreadsheet tools have developed to evaluate the well performance using material balance equation for depletion and two-phase pseudo pressure integral for well inflow performance. Most of them account for the effects of negative inertia and positive coupling in the calculation of gas relative permeability. This paper... 

Gravity drainage is known to be one of the most effective methods for oil recovery in fractured reservoirs. In this study, both free fall and controlled gravity drainage processes were studied using a transparent fractured experimental model, followed by modelling using commercial CFD software. The governing equations were employed based on the Darcy and mass conservation laws and partial pressure formulation. Comprehensive examination was done on variables such as fluid saturation, velocity, and pressure distribution in the matrix and fracture, as well as fluid front level and production rate. Additionally, effects of the model parameters on the gravity drainage performance were... 

The formation of liquid bridge is pertinent to many fields including seepage into underground fractured rocks as an environmental issue and capillary continuity between matrix blocks which controls oil recovery in fractured reservoirs. Evaporation from the surface of liquid bridge into the surrounding gas could affect the stability of liquid bridge and fracture capillary pressure, which is not well discussed in the available literatures. In this research, by the aid of analogy between the diffusive flux and electrostatic potential, a new model for predicting evaporation rate from a liquid bridge inside a horizontal fracture is presented. The proposed model is then coupled with Young-Laplace... 

Although alkaline-surfactant-polymer flooding is proved to be efficient for oil recovery from heavy oil reservoirs, the displacements mechanism/efficiency of this process in fractured systems needs to more discussion, especially in five-spot patterns. In this work, several ASP flooding test were performed on fractured micromodels which were initially saturated with heavy oil at constant flow rate and different fracture geometrical characteristics conditions. The ASP solutions are constituted from 5 polymers i.e. four synthetic polymers include three hydrolyzed polyacrylamide with different molecular weight as well as a non-hydrolyzed polyacrylamide and a biopolymer, 2 surfactants i.e. a... 

Microscopic and macroscopic displacements of polymer flooding to heavy oil at various levels of salinity and connate water saturation have been investigated. Both oil-wet and water-wet conditions in fractured five-spot micromodel systems, initially saturated with the heavy crude oil are utilized. The primary contribution is to examine the role of salinity, wettability, connate water, and fracture geometry in the recovery efficiency of the system. The microscopic results revealed that the increase in the connate water saturation decreases the oil recovery, independent of the wettability conditions. Moreover, the increase in salinity of the injected fluids lowers the recovery efficiency due to... 

Finger initiation/development at fluid-fluid interface during miscible floods can cause poor displacement efficiency, which is undesirable in enhanced oil recovery processes. In this work, a series of hydrocarbon injection experiments performed on 5-spot glass micromodels that were initially saturated with the heavy crude oil. The fractured micromodels with different fracture geometrical characteristics were used in the tests. High quality image analysis was applied to determine the fluid flow behavior, solvent front movement, and viscous fingering associated with solvent movement in matrix and fractures. Observations showed that higher solvent dispersion in the fractures rather than matrix... 

Three distinct methods, namely, the spectral density, the multifractal random walk approach, and the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis are utilized to study the properties of four distinct types of well logs from three oil and gas fields, namely, the natural gamma ray emission, neutron porosity, bulk density, and the sonic transient time logs. Such well logs have never been analyzed by the methods that we utilize in the present study. The results indicate that the well logs exhibit multifractal characteristics, and the estimated Hurst exponents by the three methods are close to each other. Using multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis and the shuffled and surrogated data, we... 

Despite numerous experimental and modeling studies, the role of temperature changes on phase behavior modeling of asphaltene precipitation and, in consequence, developing of asphaltene phase envelope in heavy crudes, remains a topic of debate in the literature. In this work, a computer code based on the non-isothermal improved solid model has been developed and used for predicting asphaltene precipitation data for one of the Iranian heavy crudes at different levels of temperature and pressure. The parameters of the non-isothermal model were tuned using three onset pressures at three different temperatures, and the asphaltene phase envelope was developed. The results showed that at high... 

This work concerns a fundamental understanding of how heterogeneities induced by flow barriers and connate water affect the displacement efficiency of polymer floods, which has rarely been studied in the available literature. Here, a series of water/polymer injection experiments to heavy oil performed on five-spot glass micromodels containing randomly distributed shale structures is presented. It has been found that macroscopic efficiency of polymer flooding majorly depends on flow barriers distribution/configuration; shale content and geometrical characteristics; presence of connate water and wettability of medium. Microscopic pictures revealed that the main parts of connate water were... 

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... 

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... 

Finger initiation/development at fluid-fluid interface during miscible floods can cause poor displacement efficiency, which is undesirable in enhanced oil recovery processes. In this work, a series of hydrocarbon injection experiments performed on 5-spot glass micromodels that were initially saturated with the heavy crude oil. The fractured micromodels with different fracture geometrical characteristics were used in the tests. High quality image analysis was applied to determine the fluid flow behavior, solvent front movement, and viscous fingering associated with solvent movement in matrix and fractures. Observations showed that higher solvent dispersion in the fractures rather than matrix... 

Three distinct methods, namely, the spectral density, the multifractal random walk approach, and the multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis are utilized to study the properties of four distinct types of well logs from three oil and gas fields, namely, the natural gamma ray emission, neutron porosity, bulk density, and the sonic transient time logs. Such well logs have never been analyzed by the methods that we utilize in the present study. The results indicate that the well logs exhibit multifractal characteristics, and the estimated Hurst exponents by the three methods are close to each other. Using multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis and the shuffled and surrogated data, we... 

Plenty of oil reservoirs contain discontinuous shale layers that act as flow barriers. Therefore, understanding their influences on reservoir performance, especially during enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes, is of great importance. For this purpose, several experiments of water and alkaline-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding have been performed on a number of one-quarter five-spot micromodels that contain various configurations of shale layers to simulate shaly porous media. Several features, such as various shale geometrical characteristics and the presence of connate water saturation, were investigated at both macro- and micro-scales. The presence of shales resulted in earlier... 

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...