Sharif Digital Repository

Chemical flooding such as surfactant flooding in oil reservoirs can change the wettability and interfacial tension between oil and water and so reduce the residual oil saturation in the reservoir. Some of these materials can be adsorbed a lot on the surface of carbonate rocks, so it is difficult to predict the oil recovery factor in such process. Therefore it is necessary to survey the adsorption amount of surfactants in chemical EOR injections.In this thesis, the adsorption of a nonionic surfactant on the surface of carbonate rock is experimented and the proper model is obtained. Then the surfactant is injected in a core saturated with oil to observe the efficiency of this surfactant in... 

Nowadays, application of ultrasonic wave technology as a novel method of enhancing oil recovery and also gas and oil well stimulation is prevailing. Not only this method is environment friendly, but also it is economic. Although the application of this method is proved to be of outstanding positive influences in field operations. In this study, it is intended to investigate the effect of ultrasonic waves on the rate and final recovery of miscible and immiscible injection of fluids as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods by using the Micro model apparatus and Although the effect of the waves on fluid flow through the porous media can be studied. The results of this work are a good guidance to... 

Heavy oil reservoirs contain huge amount of initial oil in place in the world. Thus, enhancement of their production attracts lots of attention. Primary and secondary oil recovery methods have just little effects on the production of these reservoirs, thus, using innovative chemical methods which lead them to increase their mobility is recommended to improve their oil recovery efficiency. One of these proper and novel methods which has been established recently to enhance oil recovery is ASP1 flooding that can significantly increase oil recovery from petroleum heavy oil reservoirs. In addition, considerable numbers of reservoirs especially heavy oil reservoirs are fractured reservoirs. In... 

One of the most important production mechanisms of fractured reservoirs is wettability alteration. Since most fractured reservoirs are carbonate, and thus are often oil-wet; production of these reservoirs is facing their special challenges. Since most of our country reservoirs are fractured carbonate type, determination of the exact mechanisms of their production is necessary. Thermal EOR methods traditionally have been welcomed by big oil companies. Also, these methods of enhanced oil recovery techniques, have a much greater share in the production history of all EOR methods, rather than other EOR methods. Exponentially decreasing of oil viscosity on heating, is the main reason for using... 

The gas injection is one of the most common methods of increasing recovery from oil reservoirs, especially when a suitable source for gas is available. For example, available sources of carbon dioxide or associated gas produced from the reservoir or adjacent reservoirs. In general, the gas injection may be miscible or immiscible, which is a function of the type and composition of the gas-oil and the reservoir conditions in terms of temperature and pressure. In miscible gas injection, different mechanisms such as molecular diffusion of gas in oil or evaporation of lighter components of oil in gas and condensation of heavier components of gas in the oil phase can be shown. To occur of such... 

One of the suitable methods in EOR processes is miscible and immiscible gas injection. By gas injection, it is possible to replace all the oil, which is in contact with the gas. However, reservoir heterogeneity, low density, and low viscosity of gas result in problems such as gravity segregation, and fingering and consequently the gas reach the production well without any significant contact with reservoir oil. A way to deal with this problem is gas injection in the form of foam. In fact, gas injection in this manner increases the oil production by decreasing gas mobility and the negative effects of reservoir heterogeneity on gas displacement. Foam stability has a key role on the efficiency... 

Among chemical enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) methods, polymer flooding has the highest commercial potential. However, the most widely used conventional polymers such as partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) are not applicable for high temperature and high-salinity reservoirs. To overcome above mentioned problems, in this work, a series of water- soluble hydrophobically modified polymers (HMPs) nanostructures comprising styrene (hydrophobic monomer) and acrylamide (hydrophilic monomer) have been produced. The copolymers have been synthesized using inverse miniemulsion synthesis method by adjusting synthesis conditions to optimize solution characteristic of copolymers for applying under... 

Among chemically enhanced oil recovery (CEOR) methods, polymer flooding has the highest commercial potential. However, the most widely used conventional polymers such as partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) are not applicable for high-temperature and high-salinity reservoirs. To overcome above-mentioned problems, in this work, a series of water-soluble hydrophobically modified polymers (HMPs) nanostructures comprising 2-vinyl naphthalene (hydrophobic monomer) has been produced by freestyle method (without Surfactant), micellar (with Surfactant). The size of the particles was investigated using scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and optical scattering (DLS). Results from FT-IR... 

Visual investigation of the low salinity water injection into micromodel is the goal of this research. Although many researches have been performed to realize the dominating mechanism behind the increased oil recovery after low salinity water injection, many contradictions exist among the studies. Mechanisms are generally divided into two classes. One class is due to fluid/fluid interactions and the other one is due to fluid/rock interactions. A comprehensive set of experiments are conducted in this study to find out the dominating mechanism behind low salinity water injection under the existing conditions of the experiments. Effect of different wettability condition and presence and absence... 

Gas injection processes are considered as the second largest Enhanced Oil Recovery processes after thermal processes. In Dealing with the problems of Continuous Gas Injection (CGI) processes, the substitute method of Water Alternating Gas (WAG) is gaining ever increasing attention in field applications. The Hybrid method has the advantages both CGI and WAG processes. Laboratory studies of gas injection methods to show the optimum method and the effect of pressure on the performance of this method is the main objective of this project. Results obtained from these tests can be used in the Enhanced Oil Recovery scenarios for this reservoir. In this project, experiments for Continuous Gas... 

Foam injection for enhanced oil recovery is concerned by petroleum engineers because it decreases adverse effects of fingering and gravity segregation caused by the injected fluid .Obviously foam stability is an important factor in the efficiency of this process. So investigating it is an imperative. One of the ways that less studied and can improve foam stability is using of nanoparticles. In this project effect of nanoparticles on foam stability and displacement mechanism during foam flooding has been discussed.
Study consisted of two sets of experiments. In the first part, the static foam stability in the presence of silica nanoparticles has been investigated. Also influence of... 

Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is a collection of techniques that utilize microorganisms and their metabolic products to improve the recovery of crude oil from reservoir rock. From the advantages of this method, independency to the oil price and environmental benign can be mentioned. Many mechanisms have been proposed to contribute on MEOR, but still there is no enough knowledge about the mechanisms that causes inabilities in manipulating the process to get more oil production.
In the present study, the effect of a native type of bacteria, Enterobacter cloacae, on the glass surfaces wettability which were aged in expose of model oil with different asphaltene concentration was... 

Water injection, as one of the conventional methods to increase the oil recovery factor has always been at the center of research works for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The conducted studies show that by controlling the amount and type of ions in the injected water, the recovery efficiency can be improved. In the meantime, most of the investigations are focused on the interaction between water/rock/oil to trace the wettability alteration. However, these interactions especially between the injected water and the oil phase, would lead to change of surface charge distribution of the reservoir rock. Besides, this effect can change some of the characteristics of the fluid phases, especially in... 

As many oil fields are reaching their final stage of production, new technologies are required in order to maintain production and increase recovery of hydrocarbons. Among these techniques of enhanced oil recovery (EOR), chemical injection method focuses on increasing the effectiveness of waterflooding. Due to the relatively high costs and considerable adsorption on the rock formations, this method is no longer used. In Recent years nanofluids (nanoparticles dispersed in brine) have been used as a cheap, efficient and environmentally friendly alternative more than any other chemicals. It has been stated that the Smart Water method and enhanced oil recovery by SiO2 nanoparticles are effective... 

Interfacial Tension (IFT) as a main parameter for gas flooding efficiency in oil reservoirs depends highly on pressure, temperature, and composition of the reservoir fluids. Therefore, it is important to measure this parameter at real reservoir condition for successful field development plan. In this study, an axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA) has been utilized to measure the equilibrium IFTs in crude oil-flue gas systems at different temperatures and pressures. Moreover, minimum miscibility pressures (MMP) of crude oil/flue gas and crude oil/N2 systems at different temperature levels are determined by applying vanishing interfacial tension (VIT) technique. Then, the effect of oil... 

Gas injection is a well-known enhanced recovery method which can improve recovery using two different displacement processes, miscible and immiscible. Typical non-hydrocarbon gases which have been utilized in these 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 paper, we have focused on sequential carbon-dioxide and nitrogen gas injection as a novel EOR 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 have been also investigated... 

In water drive or waterflooded reservoirs, a significant amount of oil is remained in the reservoir as the residual oil. A process known as gas assisted gravity drainage, in its tertiary mode, has been applied in a number of conventional reservoirs to recover this residual oil. Gravity drainage is the main mechanism of oil recovery in the gas assisted gravity drainage enhanced oil recovery process. Previous investigations has shown that gravity force, spreading coefficient, three phase capillary pressure and reservoir wettability have significant effect on oil recovered via this process. The feasibility of using such a process in a naturally fractured reservoir is investigated in this work... 

With the production from the reservoirs, the amount of in-situ oil storage has decreased and there is a need to increase oil recovery (EOR) from the reservoir. Increased oil recovery (EOR) includes operations such as acidizing and hydraulic fracturing. Considering the economic and high operational costs and geomechanical complexities, as well as the technical progress of hydraulic fracturing and its future; It is necessary to manage hydraulic fracturing operations optimally. This research is about hydraulic fracturing and its main goal is to optimize the parameters of the fracture or the geometry of the fracture. The research study was carried out on the Bangistan Reservoir located in the... 

There is increasing evidence that injecting modified brines has a significant impact on the amount of oil recovered, but the exact mechanism by which this occurs is an unsettled issue, and is supposed to be a cause of the complex interactions occurring between the phases insitu. In this thesis, surface chemistry of smart water has been investigated. Fluid/solid and fluid/fluid interactions for Bangestan crude oil in tfhe presence of designed solutions and a set of dilutions of Persian Gulf seawater have been studied and compared. Fluid/solid interactions were investigated through wettability studies. Impact of salinity and ionic composition on this interaction was measured through contact... 

Gas-oil displacement, when stabilized by gravity forces leads to high displacement efficiency, as manifested in high recovery factor associated with gas-cap drive and gravity drainage. The main objective of this research is improved understanding of drainage behavior and changes in flow properties when the importance of viscous, gravity and capillary forces varies. The influence of interplaying between controlling forces on relative permeabilities is also studied. Another objective of this work is to study effect of wettability on recovery under forced gravity drainage. To study drainage behavior under various dominant driving/resistive forces, a number of forced gravity drainage experiments...