Sharif Digital Repository

In this study, the dynamic adsorption of asphaltene on a calcite surface is investigated. This study investigates the effect of mixed-salt brines on asphaltene adsorption. The results of this work can facilitate the understanding of the complex wettability behaviour of carbonate reservoirs. All experiments were performed in porous media, which were sand-packs filled with calcite powder, to study the influence of the type and concentration of salt on adsorption. The experiments were conducted with asphaltene concentration of 500 mg/L for brines of NaCl, Na2SO4, and a mixture of the two at various ionic strengths. In addition, two tests were performed with an asphaltene concentration of 2000... 

This study aims to elucidate the impact of salinity on the interactions governing the adsorption of polar aromatic oil compounds onto calcite. To this end, molecular dynamics simulations were employed to assess adsorption of a model polar organic molecule (deprotonated benzoic acid, benzoate) on the calcite surface in NaCl brines of different concentration levels, namely, deionized water (DW), low-salinity water (LS, 5000 ppm), and sea water (SW; 45,000 ppm). Calcite was found to be completely covered by several well-ordered water layers. The top hydration layer is very compact and prevents direct adsorption of benzoates onto the substrate. Instead, Na+ ions form a distinct positively... 

Tortuosity and cementation factor are two critical parameters that significantly affect estimates of reservoir properties. Tortuosity factor can be used to estimate permeability using the Carman-Kozeny equation and is an important parameter for formation resistivity factor calculation using a modified version of Archie's formula. It is also used to predict water saturation of reservoir rocks. Tortuosity as an input parameter in Biot's equation can be used to estimate velocity dispersion. In this work, based on the Generalized Archie Equation Curve Fitting (GAECF), tortuosity and cementation factor are determined for selected intervals in a carbonate reservoir. Formation resistivity factor... 

Alkaline-Surfactant-Polymer flooding is one of the most novel chemical enhanced oil recovery methods in the petroleum industry. This method has attracted interest due to its remarkable advantages. In this work, a series of ASP floods are conducted on fractured/non-fractured carbonate rocks. The performance of the tests was investigated by various ASP floods consisting of five types of polymers, two surfactants and one common alkaline. ASP was flooded simultaneously and sequentially in four defined scenarios after water flooding. The results showed that although using hydrolysed polymers increases the recovery factor in the fractured medium, sulfonated polymers increase oil recovery even more... 

The construction of a facies model could be employed as a conditional data for any property simulation that results in a more reliable reservoir characterization in further steps. In this study, an Iranian gas reservoir with six wells was studied to determine the 3D reservoir facies model. Fifteen reservoir facies were first detected along one of the wells with detailed core and thin section descriptions. Due to the significant difference between the core and log data resolution, facies were clustered into four major groups regarding the digenetic processes and petrophysical lithofacies properties (permeability and porosity). The lithofacies specification effect on petrophysical properties... 

This experimental study is aimed at evaluation of the performance of secondary WAG injection in carbonate cores at different pressures. To do so, a comprehensive series of high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) core flooding tests are conducted. The fluid system includes reservoir dead and live crude oil, CO 2, and synthetic brine while the chosen porous media consists of a number of fractured carbonate core samples. Parameters such as oil recovery factor, water and oil production rates, and pressure drop along the core are recorded for both dead and live oil. According to results, at first increasing pressure improves the oil recovery, but this improvement after MMP is not as significant as... 

Top-down in situ combustion (ISC) involves the stable propagation of a combustion front from the top vertical injector to the bottom horizontal producer. With the exception of laboratory studies of conventional sandstones, no application of the process in fractured carbonates has been addressed. The aim of the present work is to study ISC in the presence of a system of networked fractures using a thermal reservoir simulator from the Computer Modeling Group (CMG; Calgary, AB, Canada). The performance of ISC is compared with nonfractured system under similar conditions. To obtain more realistic results, a history-matched and validated combustion model of an Iranian naturally fractured... 

The aim of the present work is to evaluate the effect of fractures geometrical properties such as orientation, density, location, and networking on the conventional fire flooding (CFF) process performance through simulation analysis. Combustion parameters of a fractured low-permeable carbonate heavy oil reservoir in Iran called Kuh-E-Mond (KEM); applied for simulation study and simulator has been validated with KEM combustion tube experimental data. The validated model was modified to study CFF in 3D semi-scaled combustion cells. Simulation results confirmed that CFF is more feasible in the case of densely fractured reservoirs such as those in the Middle East  

The top-down in situ combustion (ISC) involves the stable propagation of the combustion front from the top vertical injector to the bottom horizontal producer. Apart from laboratory studies in conventional sandstones, no application of the process in fractured carbonates has been addressed yet. The authors modified a successful combustion tube history matched model of an Iranian low-permeable heavy oil reservoir called Kuh-E-Mond to investigate the feasibility of ISC in fractured carbonate reservoirs mimicking block-scale combustion cells. Effects of fractured geometrical properties such as orientation, location, extension, density, spacing, and dispersion were considered. Results confirmed... 

Beside their worldwide abundance, oil recovery from fractured carbonate reservoirs is commonly low. Such reservoirs are usually oil-wet, thus, waterflooding leads into early breakthrough and low recovery due to the high conductivity of the fracture network, negative capillary pressure of the matrix and, consequently, the poor spontaneous imbibitions of water from fractures into the matrix during the course of waterflooding. In such problematic reservoirs, changing the wettability of the matrix toward water-wetness can improve spontaneous imbibition by changing the sign and, thus, the direction of capillary forces, resulting in an improvement of waterflood efficiency and, consequently, oil... 

The modification of the surface wetting characteristics in fractured oil-wet carbonate reservoirs, by reversing wettability from oil-wet to water-wet, leads to improved oil recovery. However, in order to obtain a successful oil recovery process, it is crucial to understand the active mechanisms of wettability alteration. This study looks at the effect of sulfate ions as one of the most promising wettability influencing ions on the wetting properties of oil-wet calcite; the effect is studied both with and without the presence of cationic surfactant and possible mechanisms of wettability alteration are explored. A number of analytical techniques were utilized to analyze the mineral surface... 

Oil recovery from carbonate reservoirs can be enhanced by altering the wettability from oil-wet toward water-wet state. Recently, silica nanoparticle (SNP) suspensions are considered as an attractive wettability alteration agent in enhanced oil recovery applications. However, their performance along with the underlying mechanism for wettability alteration in carbonate rocks is not well discussed. In this work, the ability of SNP suspensions, in the presence/absence of salt, to alter the wettability of oil-wet calcite substrates to a water-wet condition was investigated. In the first step, to ensure that the properties of nanofluids have not been changed during the tests, stability analysis... 

Anisotropy and heterogeneity in reservoir properties introduce challenges during the development of hydrocarbon reservoirs in naturally fractured reservoirs. In reservoir simulations, grid-block properties are frequently assigned to obtain reasonable history matches. Even then, accuracy with regard to some aspects of the performance such as water or gas cuts, breakthrough times, and sweep efficiencies may be inadequate. In some cases, this could be caused by the presence of substantial flow through natural fractures. In this work the fracture characterization and modeling was performed in a highly fractured carbonate reservoir in SW Iran. It was observed that reservoir simulation based on... 

Changing the wettability of reservoir rock towards strongly water-wet state is effective way to enhance oil recovery from fractured carbonate reservoirs which are typically oil-wet. Regarding this fact, the injection of surfactant and the bacterial solution as EOR agents is proposed in the current work as a potential method to alter the wettability of rock surface reservoir. Nevertheless, there is a definite lack of experimental data regarding this method and the synergistic effect of both chemical and bacterial solutions on this process. In this study, the sole and combined effects of the bacterial solution using an Enterobacter cloacae strain as a biosurfactant-producer are compared with... 

The high reactivity of the carbonate rocks at various pH makes it difficult to evaluate the wettability, hence to find the recovery mechanisms behind modified waterflood in carbonate reservoirs. More recently, the streaming potential measurement is introduced as a method of electrokinetic phenomena more relevant to the subsurface systems. Regarding few experimental studies and in order to improve our understanding on streaming potential measurement, the electrokinetic studies on quartz and calcite surface were conducted as a function of pH in the range of 1.5–11.5 using an in-house novel setup of streaming potential measurement. High sensitivity of streaming potential coupling coefficient to... 

Smart water flooding as a developing technique utilizes modified water chemistry in terms of salinity and composition to prepare the best-suited brine composition for a specific brine/oil/rock system to obtain higher oil recovery efficiency. Huge amount of unrecovered oil is expected to be remained in carbonate reservoirs; however, few research works on incremental oil recovery during smart water injection in carbonate cores at reservoir condition are reported. Several core flooding tests using one of the Iranian carbonate reservoir rock are conducted to check the effectiveness of smart water injection for more oil recovery efficiency. The results reaffirm the positive effect of sulfate ions... 

Cementation factor greatly affects water saturation estimation. Factors such as depositional environment, diagenesis and depositional architecture make the estimation of water saturation a big challenge in carbonate reservoirs. The current study is introduced a method for calculating cementation factor in Archie formula. First, (MRGC) technique was applied on the (NMR) logging parameters along with (NDS) data to obtain the optimum number of clustering. After that, fuzzy logic method was applied on conventional log parameters obtained from the wells without any NMR log data. In the third part of the study, a novel crossplot introduced including compressional to shear-wave velocity ratio... 

In upstream oil industry, microorganisms arise some opportunities and challenges. They can increase oil recovery through microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) mechanisms, or they can increase production costs and risks through reservoir souring process due to H2S gas production. MEOR is mostly known by bioproducts such as biosurfactant or processes such as bioclogging or biodegradation. On the other hand, when it comes to treatment of reservoir souring, the only objective is to inhibit reservoir souring. These perceptions are mainly because decision makers are not aware of the effect microorganisms’ cell can individually have on the wettability. In this work, we study the individual effect... 

Two main reservoir mechanisms that impact oil recovery factors are wettability alteration and interfacial tension (IFT) change. In this study, these two key mechanisms are evaluated experimentally for samples from the Asmari (carbonate) oil reservoir utilizing silica nanoparticles in the presence of low-salinity water. The nanofluid, rock formation and crude oil samples were prepared meticulously to ensure meaningful experimental could be conducted over a range of low-salinity conditions. The results show that across the range of salinities studied, the absolute value of zeta potential of nanofluids decreases with increasing total dissolved solids (TDS) in the water treated with silica... 

Smart water injection is recognized as an effective EOR process to alter the wettability and interfacial tension to obtain higher micro/macro sweep efficiencies. This water contains reactive ions such asMg2+, Ca2+ andSO42- which can act as potential-determining ions and change the surface charge of calcite rocks. One of the major concerns in the execution of an effective water-flood process, especially in tight carbonate reservoirs, is the chemical incompatibility between the formation brine and the injecting water. In the present study, laboratory fluid compatibility tests were carried out and software simulation was done to investigate the most important challenges of the water-flooding...