Sharif Digital Repository

Nanoparticles can be applied as chemical agent in enhnaced oil recovery like surfactants and polymers. One of nanoparticles usefull capabilities is modification of their surface. This research investigates this capabilty of nanoparticles in enhanced oil recovery. Surface modification of nanoparticles with both agents can bring new abilities to these materials. Here surface of silica nanoparticles is modified by hydrophilic agent comprising PEG groups, hydrophobic agent comprising propyl group and both agents. FT-IR tests showed that grafting of modifiyng agents on surface of nanoparticles is well done. To investigate effect of nanoparticles surface modification on nanoparticles capability in... 

Oil composition plays an undeniable role on the low salinity water flooding (LSWF) efficiency. This property directly affects the kinetics of wettability alteration through electrostatic interactions and interfacial tension (IFT). For instance, mixing in stagnant zones through a thin water film is considered as one of the most important diffusion controlled phenomenon which is goverened by Non-Fickian solute transport model. The major two potentials controlling the solute transport in thin film are salinity gradient and electrostatic potentials, which can be affected by oil composition and surface charges. This study aims to investigate the effect of oil composition on low salinity... 

The study of flood control operation in large scale multipurpose reservoir systems is deals with various objectives, such as flood damage reduction, hydropower generation and reliability of the system for supplying demands after flood seasons. The introduction of these objectives, introduces a conflict in objective function where tradeoff must be made. The purpose of this study is helping to decision making process in evaluation, planning and operation phases through preparing the Pareto curves that include various optimum alternatives for operation. For this purpose, we develop a multiobjective optimization model, based on use the mixed-integer linear programming. This model considers two... 

Among the methods for increasing chemical oil extraction,the polymeric flood method has the most commercialization capability.However,most commonly used polymers such as Hydrolyzed Polyacrylamide (HPAM) are not able to withstand high levels of salinity and high temperatures.To overcome these problems,in this project,new types of polymer nanostructures were synthesized with hydrophobic groups consisting of styrene (hydrophilic monomer) and malic anhydride (hydrophilic monomer) acrylamide (hydrophilic monomer). These polymers were synthesized by reversible mini-emulsion by adjusting the synthesis conditions for the purpose of producing the terpolymer with suitable conditions for tolerating... 

In oil industry, increment of drilling mud viscosity is of great importance. Water based polymers are widely use as drilling fluid to achieve this goal. Formation damages can be occurred by invading polymer solution into the formation in different ways such as scale and precipitation. These damages appear in different shapes such as reduction in relative permeability and productivity index reduction. In this study we have proposed, designed and fabricated a novel device, called sand pack, to measure the damage of the reservoir which enable us to calculate relative permeability and recovery factor by means of pressure difference and flow rate. Using this lab-scaled device we have measured... 

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the reduction of relative permeability caused by salt precipitation. Series of isothermal sand pack flood experiments were conducted on a sand pack composed of several minerals and relative permeability of the involved phases were determined. This compose was taken south of Iranian reservoir properties. A stainless steel sand-pack of 2.5cm internal diameter and 19.2 cm long was designed and built for experimental procedure. There are is different methods to determine relative permeability of porous media, According to available facilities in the lab and objective of this study unsteady state have been chosen to determine relative... 

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... 

Chemical flooding has great potential to recover significant fractions of remaining oil for medium to heavy oil reservoirs not applicable for thermal recovery techniques. Nowadays, with gradual crude oil price increase the chemical process is receiving renewed attention, however, illustration of the possibility of various chemical injection scenarios for medium to heavy oil reservoirs has not been clearly reported and these kinds of reservoirs require more investigation for the applicability of these techniques in the fields. The interfacial active molecules are responsible for providing low IFT range and water/oil emulsions which in many cases could improve the oil displacement efficiency.... 

Heavy oil reservoirs are becoming more important as the oil price increase and more light oil reservoirs are being depleted. Thermal oil recovery, especially steam flooding is considered as the most efficient EOR technique for heavy oil reservoirs that stays on the top of the recent EOR field experiences. However this method is not applicable in some reservoir conditions like deep reservoirs or reservoirs with thin pay zones.
Due to sever viscous fingering during water flooding heavy oil reservoirs, a large amount of oil would remain untouched in the reservoir. Polymer flooding could be a potential method for enhanced oil recovery by improving sweep efficiency. However there haven’t been... 

Heavy oil reservoirs include a major part of the world’s oil reservoirs. Therefore consideration to their enhanced oil recovery (EOR) aspects has a great importance. In heavy oil reservoirs secondary and tertiary EOR methods, have an insignificant effect on oil recovery and so we’d better to use chemical methods to improve mobility and oil recovery. One of the appropriate EOR methods which has attracted a lot of attention is alkaline – surfactant – polymer (ASP) flooding which has a considerable impact on EOR from heavy oil reservoirs. In this EOR method, the low concentration of surfactant in the injecting fluid, results in a low or ultra-low interfacial tension (IFT) between residual oil... 

It is about half century passed from the invention and application of the polymer flooding. Although there are successful reports from the using polymer flooding, but there are problems that in some cases this process fails. For more insight on the problems and in order to improve
the efficiency of this process the conceptual understanding of the process is required. More conceptual understanding from this process, requires investigation in pore scale. In the presenting investigation, the flow of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids in the single phase and two phase form and in pore scale are simulated using finite volume method. Because, the finite volume method is used in very... 

Polymer flooding is a famous enhanced oil recovery method and is used to reduce mobility ratio of displacing fluid to displaced fluid by forming a stable front in displacing process. Due to high costs, polymer flooding faces economical risks and from this point of view, performance investigation of polymer flooding in laboratory scale was concerned. In this project, performance of 7 types of polymers which have different rheological properties were investigated in fractured/non-fractured carbonated and sandstone reservoirs. These polymers consists of 4 commercial polymers, one branched polymer, one synthetic polymer and one polymer composite which have different molecular weight,... 

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... 

Hydrophilic polymers are widely used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes to increase water viscosity during polymer flooding. However, these polymers increase the viscosity of injected water in undesirable strands, before reaching considerable positions that make some problems in polymer flooding process such as thermal, mechanical, bacterial degradation, surface absorption and undesirable plugging. In this study, a novel core-shell structure of polyacrylamide as an active polymer and nanoscale coating polystyrene as a shell polymer was designed and prepared to intelligently control mobility ratio in oil reservoirs and overcome weakness and limitations of classical polymer flooding.... 

Most of residual oil is difficult to displace and recover during water flooding process. One of the most important chemical flooding processes is polymer flooding that can improve microscopic and macroscopic sweep efficiency. Since, a large percent of reservoirs rocks is consisted of the dead ends in which oil remains immobile during water flooding, study of sweep efficiency from dead ends is important to improve oil recovery efficiency. In this study, effects of polymer flooding on oil recovery from dead end in glass micromodel have been studied experimentally and obtained results are compared with those of simulation of polymeric fluids in this micromodel. A correlation has been presented... 

Asphaltenedeposition is a major problem during natural depletion and EOR processes due to formation damage issues. It is necessary to reveal asphaltene deposition mechanisms and its effective parameters to prepare an acceptable prevention strategy. Therefore, different natural depletion and EOR experiments must performed on core samples. In this research, Effect of CO2 injection on asphaltene deposition phenomena has been surveyed. Two carbonate core samples and one sandstone core sample was used in experiments. The oil used in these experiments was recombinedoilfrom one of Iranian offshore oilfield.In order to estimate permeability reduction during experiment, injection of oil and CO2 was... 

Polymer flooding can yield considerable increase in percentage recovery. However, there are limitations with the existing polymer flooding technology, such as thermal, mechanical, bacterial degradation, surface absorption and undesirable plugging. A novel nanocore shell structure of polyacrylamide and polystyrene designed and prepared to intellectually control mobility ratio in oil reservoirs and overcome weakness and limitations of classical polymer flooding. Polyacrylamide particles have been obtained using spray drying of dilute solution of polyacrylamide. Then, polystyrene shell has been produced on polyacryamide particles by in-situ polymerization of styrene monomer in hydrophobic... 

Water in oil emulsion usually forms during natural water encroachment or enhanced oil recovery processes due to the reaction between asphaltenic and naphthenic acid part of oil with brine in some heavy oil reservoirs. This results in major production challenges because of high w/o emulsion viscosity which leads to significant pressure drops. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the dominant mechanisms of w/o emulsion flow in porous media to overcome the production challenges. In the present study, w/o emulsion behavior is investigated through both static and dynamic tests. The w/o emulsion was prepared through mixing of a crude with brine using magnet stirrer. Emulsion stability... 

Most of Iranian oil reservoirs, usually fractured carbonate, are in the end of primary or secondary recovery. Enhanced oil recovery methods are required for obtaining more performance from these resources. It seems to obtain more oil from reservoirs by flooding polymer after water flooding due to persistence of polymer effect, so the cost remain low. In this project, at the first the theory of water flooding and polymer flooding is described and after that we have done the following steps: •Injection of water into the plugs and calculate secondary recovery •Injection of polymer samples with 700 ppm concentration into the plugs •Injection of polymer samples with 1500 ppm concentration into... 

Due to several reasons such as water deficiency and gradual reduce in water resources, dams had always been prominent during past centuries. Most of the dams have been built proximate to cities to provide water for drinking and industries thus, it’s vital to examine them in the aspects of safety factor and capacity to contain overflow. Failure of the dames should also studied considering different features such for instance sudden increment of stored water behind the dam as a result of gigantic floods, leakage in the body of soil dams, overflow in the dam crest due to insufficient functionality of spillway and etc. which could cause the failure of dams.
The main purpose of this thesis...