Sharif Digital Repository

ABSTRACT: Pyrolysis, so-called devolatilization, is one of the first steps of all thermochemical processes occurring in an inert atmosphere. The authors discuss the main kinetic features of heavy oil pyrolysis, on the basis of the data derived m from a TGA analysis and by using a kinetic model. The samples were heated over a range of temperature from 400 K to 430°C at various heating rates between 10 and 80°C/min. Experimental results showed that the effect of time is considerable in the case of tar conversion, compared to char and gases  

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... 

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... 

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... 

Water-in-oil emulsion usually forms during waterflooding in some heavy oil reservoirs. The composition and salinity of the injected water critically affect the w/o emulsion droplet size distribution, which control the emulsion stability and emulsion flow in porous media. The aim of the present work is to assess the effect of different sea water salinities on w/o emulsion stability through microscopic imaging. Therefore, w/o emulsions were prepared with different sea water samples, which were synthesized to resemble Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, Red Sea, and North Sea water samples. The results showed that log-normal distribution function predicts very well the experimental data to track the... 

Water-in-oil emulsion usually forms during waterflooding in some heavy oil reservoirs. The composition and salinity of the injected water critically affect the w/o emulsion droplet size distribution, which control the emulsion stability and emulsion flow in porous media. The aim of the present work is to assess the effect of different sea water salinities on w/o emulsion stability through microscopic imaging. Therefore, w/o emulsions were prepared with different sea water samples, which were synthesized to resemble Persian Gulf, Mediterranean, Red Sea, and North Sea water samples. The results showed that log-normal distribution function predicts very well the experimental data to track the... 

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  

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 aim of this contribution is to evaluate the performance of an expanding solvent steam assisted gravity drainage (ES-SAGD) process in naturally fractured systems. Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and ES-SAGD processes have been investigated in both conventional and fractured reservoir models and the effect of networked fractures on the recovery mechanism and performance of ES-SAGD has been investigated. Operational parameters such as steam quality, vertical distances between wells, and steam injection temperature have been also evaluated. Finally, to study the effect of a well's horizontal offset, a staggered ES-SAGD well configuration has been compared to a stacked ES-SAGD  

It is well established that the heavy oil components including asphaltenes and resins play vital roles on the interfacial tension (IFT) of acidic crude oil (ACO) and aqueous solutions. Therefore, this experimental work is designed to investigate the possible synergism between salt ions, resin, and asphaltene on the IFT of ACO/low and high salinity brines containing MgCl2/NaCl and CaCl2. The results demonstrate that a complex ion of MgCl2 - resin component created in the solution could occupy the sites at the interface at high MgCl2 concentration. However, the results show that on the contrary, the molecular arrangement of MgCl2 and asphaltene at low and high MgCl2 concentration could be... 

In this study, a mixture-based sulfonate-based surfactant with a novel formula capable of functioning in real oil reservoir conditions was prepared and some microscopic parameters, like its compatibility state, emulsion behavior, interfacial tension, and temperature dependency in the presence of a heavy oil sample, and two of the most popular alkalis were analyzed; then the results were compared with those of a commercial sulfate-based surfactant. The designed surfactant provided an optimum three-phase region in relatively high salinity media; however, its optimum value decreased when adding any alkaline materials; this trend was reversed for the solutions made with the sulfate-based... 

In this study, a mixture-based sulfonate-based surfactant with a novel formula capable of functioning in real oil reservoir conditions was prepared and some microscopic parameters, like its compatibility state, emulsion behavior, interfacial tension, and temperature dependency in the presence of a heavy oil sample, and two of the most popular alkalis were analyzed; then the results were compared with those of a commercial sulfate-based surfactant. The designed surfactant provided an optimum three-phase region in relatively high salinity media; however, its optimum value decreased when adding any alkaline materials; this trend was reversed for the solutions made with the sulfate-based... 

In this work, the potential for the auto-ignition of Iranian heavy oil during in situ combustion (ISC) process conditions was studied. Kinetic studies were carried out using thermal analysis techniques. Effects of oxygen partial pressure, reservoir pressure, and clay on the auto-ignition condition were investigated. Based on the experimental results obtained, a kinetic equation was derived for each of the different oil samples in the presence of different sands. The effect of partial pressure of oxygen in the injected air showed that at atmospheric pressure, low temperature combustion (LTC) was initiated at 275°C. Also, enriching the injected air by oxygen lowers the initial LTC temperature... 

Application of solar energy compared to conventional gas-burning boilers for steam generation in thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery processes is a newly attended technology, which brings significant benefits to the petroleum industry through environmental and economical aspects. This technique is especially designed for the regions in which gas-burning steam generation is not viable in large scale. The objective of this study is to investigate about viability of using solar energy to generate steam instead of using conventional steam generators in a Venezuelan extra heavy oil reservoir. Limited gas production policy of the Venezuelan government is the major challenge for utilizing gas steam... 

The Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) process, a developed Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) process to recover oil and bitumen, has been studied theoretically and experimentally in conventional reservoirs and models and is found a promising EOR method for certain heavy oil reservoirs. In this work simulation studies of the SAGD process were made on different fractured models consisting of fractures in both Near Well Region (NWR) and Above Well Region (AWR) and even in the presence of networked fractures. At early stage of the SAGD process in fractured system, steam moves through the fractures first and then the matrix blocks are heated primarily by conduction and possibly some steam... 

The Conventional Fire Flooding (CFF) process application feasibility on fractured carbonated reservoirs remained questionable. In this paper first combustion parameters and reaction kinetics of a naturally fractured low permeability carbonated heavy oil reservoir in Iran called Kuh-E-Mond applied to simulation study. After that, simulator has been validated with Kuh-E-Mond combustion tube experiment. Recovery mechanism in single block matrix is different from one in conventional model since oxygen first flows into the fractures and then diffuses from all sides into the matrix. Combustion of the oil in the fractures produces some water ahead of fracture combustion front which prohibits oxygen... 

Vapour extraction (VAPEX), a newly developed heavy oil recoveiy (HOR) method, has been extensively studied, both theoretically and experimentally, in conventional sandstone models. However, the applicability of this process to naturally fractured reservoirs has not yet been addressed. The objective of this work is to evaluate the effects of fractures' geometrical properties, such as orientation, length of extension, discontinuity in both the upper well region (UWR) and the far well region (FWR) and vertical fracture location on VAPEX performance. Additionally, the effects of horizontal and vertical fracture dispersion in various density, dispersion scheme and networking on the performance of... 

Porous medium characteristics (e.g., pore geometry and medium heterogeneity) as well as the chemical nature of the co-solvents crucially affect the oil displacement efficiency during solvent flooding processes. In this work, initially saturated models with heavy crude oil were used to perform a series of solvent injection experiments. Several onequarter five-spot micromodels with pre-designed pore geometry were constructed and used. In addition, rock-look-alike flow patterns generated from thin sections of sandstone and dolomite reservoir rocks were etched onto glass plates to form micromodels mimicking the pore geometry and heterogeneity of these rocks. Four different groups of chemicals... 

This work examines the operational parameters that may influence the performance of toe-to-heel steamflooding in a laboratory-scale simulation model built on the basis of the fluid and rock samples from a fractured, low-permeable, carbonate heavy oil reservoir in Southwestern Iran, called KEM (Kuh-e-Mond). Using vertical (V) or horizontal (H) injectors (I) and producers (P), the effects of different well configurations including VIVP, VIHP, 2VIHP, VI2HP, HIHP, and HI2HP, injectors' traversal distance, producers' traversal distance, and horizontal producer length have been investigated. In summary, the results show that 2VIHP scheme performs best in terms of oil recovery and areal/volumetric... 

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...