Sharif Digital Repository

There are different thermodynamic models that have been applied for modelling of asphaltene precipitation caused by various reasons, such as solvent/CO2 injection and pressure depletion. In this work, two computer codes based on two different asphaltene precipitation thermodynamic models-the first being the thermodynamic micellization model with a different characterization approach and the second being the solid model-have been developed and used for predicting asphaltene precipitation data reported in the literature as well as in the obtained data for Sarvak reservoir crude, which is one of the most potentially problematic Iranian heavy oil reserves under gas injection conditions. For the... 

The vapor extraction process (or VAPEX) uses vaporized solvents injected into a horizontal well to form a vapor chamber within the reservoir. Vapor dissolves in the oil and enhances the oil production by decreasing the oil viscosity in heavy oil reservoirs. To evaluate the process we conduct a simulation study on an Iranian heavy oil reservoir called Kuh-e-Mond. In addition, a semi-analytical investigation of the VAPEX process has been performed. The idea is to perform VAPEX simulation for a laboratory model and find a methodology to compare the results of the simulator with the semi-analytical Butler's model. In particular, a semi-analytical dimensionless correlation for production rate... 

Almost all of the heavy oil reservoirs contain discontinuous permeability barriers (shales) with different structures. However, the effect of shaly layer geometrical characteristics including: spacing from wells, discontinuity, orientation, shaly layers' spacing and length, and heterogeneous distribution on oil recovery factor in the presence of gravity force are not well understood. In this work, a series of solvent injection experiments were conducted on various vertical one-quarter five-spot glass micromodels, containing barriers, which were initially saturated with a heavy oil sample. The oil recovery was measured by analysis of the pictures provided continuously during the injection... 

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... 

Injecting low salinity brines is regarded as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process through IFT reduction. However, the exact mechanism behind this process is an unsettled and complex issue that has not been well understood yet, especially for heavy crude oil system. Besides, limited information is available regarding the key heavy oil/brine interfacial tension (IFT). The present study aims to investigate the sensitivity of dead heavy crude oil/brine IFT to a wide range of properties/conditions and to reveal the underlying physicochemical mechanisms involved in enhanced oil recovery and IFT reduction by low salinity water injection into heavy oil reservoir. IFT was measured as a function of... 

Among various chemical methods, alkaline flooding has a great potential for enhancing heavy oil recovery, especially for reservoirs which contain acidic crude oil. However, fundamental understanding about microscopic displacement mechanisms and macroscopic behavior during alkaline floods at different wettabilities is not well understood, especially in five-spot shaly models. In this work several alkaline floods are performed on a glass micromodel containing randomly distributed shale streaks at different wettability conditions. Various mechanisms responsible for enhancing heavy oil recovery during alkaline flooding are investigated at different wettability conditions. These mechanisms... 

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... 

Anatase and amorphous TiO2 nanoparticles were used to improve recovery of heavy oil from sandstone cores. Before performing core floods, the stability of nanoparticles at different salinities was tested using ζ potential and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) methods. While water recovered only 49% of the oil in the core flood experiments, 0.01% anatase structure solution recovered 80% of the oil after injecting two pore volumes at optimum conditions. To understand the mechanism responsible for improved recovery, contact angle measurements were performed on the rock surface before and after treatment with the nanoparticle solution. Contact angle measurements showed that the rock wettability... 

Asphaltenes are a polydisperse fraction of the crude oil, the phase behavior of which is significantly affected by the changes in pressure, temperature and composition. The focus of this study is to model the polydisperse asphaltenes' precipitation onset condition and the amount of precipitate from solvent-diluted crude oils using the Perturbed Chain form of the Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT) over a wide range of crude oil density. Heavy oil and bitumen production can involve diluting with paraffinic solvents. Different fractions of the polydisperse asphaltenes thus precipitated are predicted and when compared to the experimental data show a remarkable matching for different... 

A Continuous model was developed to describe the kinetics of hydroconversion of Marlim crude oil in a slurry-phase reactor. The model was able to accurately predict the liquid product distributions as well as coke formation. The model contained one temperature-independent and six temperature-dependent parameters.The model parameters were obtained by an optimization procedure using experimental data available in the open literature for reaction temperatures of 440-460°C, hydrogen pressure of 14.7 MPa, liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) of 0.5 h-1, and a hydrogen to oil ratio of 100 to 1 ft3/bbl. Comparison between experimental and predicted product distributions and coke yields indicated a... 

In this article a series of experiments were performed to demonstrate the effect of carbon dioxide injection pressure on a huff and puff process. The experimental data are used in a lab-scale model simulated with a commercial simulator to investigate the effect of soaking time, injection pore volume, and rate of injection on the heavy oil recovery. The result of experiments showed that a huff and puff process under miscible pressure conditions gives the most recovery. Simulation results illustrated that there is an optimum value for soaking time, which, for soaking times less than this value, recovery increases and for values greater than optimum the recovery decreases. The simulation study... 

Heavy and extra heavy crude oils usually have a high weight percentage of asphaltene, which could induce many problems during production to refining processes. Also, asphaltene has the main role on the high viscosity of the heavy and extra heavy crude oils. In this paper, the effects of asphaltene characteristics on the crude oil rheological properties have been experimentally and theoretically investigated using different classes of the suspension models. For experimental investigation, the asphaltene was first precipitated from the original heavy crude oil and then 10 well-defined reconstituted heavy oil samples are made by dispersing the asphaltene into the maltene (i.e., deasphalted... 

Steam injection process has been considered for a long time as an effective method to exploit heavy oil resources. Over the last decades, Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) has been proved as one of the best steam injection methods for recovery of unconventional oil resources. Recently, Fast-SAGD, a modification of the SAGD process, makes use of additional single horizontal wells alongside the SAGD well pair to expand the steam chamber laterally. This method uses fewer wells and reduces the operational cost compared to a SAGD operation requiring paired parallel wells one above the other. The efficiency of this new method in naturally fractured reservoir is not well understood.... 

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... 

This paper concerns on experimental investigation of biopolymer/polymer flooding in fractured five-spot systems. In this study, a series of polymer injection processes were performed on five-spot glass type micromodels saturated with heavy crude oil. Seven fractured glass type micromodels were used to illustrate the effects of polymer type/concentration on oil recovery efficiency in presence of fractures with different geometrical properties (i.e., fractures orientation, length and number of fractures). Four synthetic polymers as well as a biopolymer at different levels of concentration were tested. Also a micromodel constituted from dead-end pores with various geometrical properties was... 

The use of polymer flooding as one of enhanced oil recovery methods has recently increased. The occurrence of high shear rates in reservoir and near well bore through perforation nozzles during polymer flooding cause shear degradation of polymers and therefore polymer viscosity has decreased. Rheological behavior of polymer solution in different conditions of oil reservoir is one of the key factors to develop use of polymer solutions. A few researches are available regarding improving rheological behavior of polymeric solution. In this study, to investigate the effect of nanoparticles on rheological behavior of polymer solutions two samples were prepared: polyacrylamide solution in water and... 

Modeling process is very important and valuable to predict process outcome, especially bioprocesses which are intricate. Because of complex hydrocarbon compounds and oscillations happened in the medium of process, biodegradation of mazut has not already been investigated by mathematical models. In this study, an indigenous bacterium was isolated from oil contaminated soil to investigate biodegradation of mazut at different experimental conditions. Data resulted from mazut degradation, pH, and electrical potential in the medium were recorded. Some reported kinetic models and combinations were investigated to practically model the process. In addition, a new equation that can predict various... 

In this investigation, an accurate high pressure and temperature diffusion setup was applied to measure the diffusion coefficients of methane in Iranian heavy oils in presence and absence of porous media by using the pressure-decay method. The solvent diffusivity in heavy oil was determined by both graphical and numerical methods. In addition, the effects of the porous medium and the temperature on the molecular diffusion coefficient of the solvent gas in the liquid phase were discussed and finally, using experimental data, a functionality dependence of molecular diffusivity on temperature and porous medium characteristics was proposed  

Many bitumen reservoirs contain shale layers of varying thickness, lateral extent, and frequency. These shale layers, depending on their size, vertical and horizontal locations, and continuity throughout the reservoir, may act as a flow barrier and severely reduce vertical permeability of the pay zone and slow down the steam-assisted gravity drainage steam chamber development. Therefore, to improve productivity in these reservoirs, understanding of the effects of reservoir heterogeneities has become necessary. This work presents numerical investigation of the effects of shale barriers on steam-assisted gravity drainage performance when applied to produce mobile heavy oil. The most concern of...