Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, oil recovery and permeability reduction of a tight sandstone core sample in miscible CO2 flooding processes due to asphaltene deposition were studied using an Iranian bottom hole live oil sample in order to distinguish between the mechanical plugging and adsorption mechanisms of asphaltene involved in the interfacial interaction of the asphaltene/mineral rock system. A novel experimental method was designed and proposed to measure the amount of deposited asphaltene due to different mechanisms using the cyclohexane or toluene reverse flooding and spectrophotometer. In this work, the bottom hole live oil sample was injected first to a long core and then CO 2 injection was... 

In this work, experimental studies were conducted to determine the effect of asphaltene deposition on the permeability reduction and porosity reduction of carbonate, sandstone and dolomite rock samples using an Iranian bottom hole live oil sample which is close to reservoir conditions, whereas in the majority of previous work, a mixture of recombined oil (a mixture of dead oil and associated gas) was injected into a core sample which is far from reservoir conditions. The effect of the oil injection rate on asphaltene deposition and permeability reduction was studied. The experimental results showed that an increase in the oil injection flow rate can result in an increase in asphaltene... 

Production optimization is defined as the process of maximizing oil production over the long term while minimizing total production costs. The overall goal is to achieve the optimum profitability from the well or field. In this process, the reservoir system can be considered as a multiple input–output system. In this complex system injection and production wells are known as inputs and outputs. The output of the system is often affected by various parameters consisting reservoir conditions, petrophysics, and PVT data. The optimization of the injector rates and number and installation of submersible pumps are the main issues which have been studied in this paper. Determining the factor with... 

Ionic liquids (ILs) are a growing trend in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) studies as alternatives to commercial surfactants due to their environmentally friendly nature, and their resistance in harsh temperatures and salinities. ILs are customizable and come in an immense variety, and therefore, it is vital that different combinations of cation/anion be investigated for use in the industry. In this work, experiments are designed and performed to evaluate novel ILs’ surface activity and performance in a lab-scale EOR set-up, compatible with Iranian oil reservoir conditions. Three imidazolium-based ionic liquids were used, namely, butyl-methylimidazolium nitrate, hexyl-methylimidazolium nitrate,... 

Interfacial tension (IFT) as one of the main properties for efficient CO2 flooding planning in oil reservoirs depends strongly on pressure, temperature, and composition of the reservoir fluids. Therefore, it is important to measure this property at real reservoir conditions for successful field development plan. In this study, an axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA) has been utilized to measure the equilibrium IFTs between crude oil and CO2 at different temperatures and pressures. Moreover, minimum miscibility pressures (MMP) and first-contact miscibility pressures (P max) of crude oil/CO2 systems at different temperatures are determined by applying the vanishing interfacial tension (VIT)... 

Changes in thermodynamic properties such as pressure, temperature, and composition may result in asphaltene precipitation and deposition in porous media. In addition, asphaltene deposition can cause wettability alteration, permeability reduction, and ultimately a decrease in the productivity of a reservoir. Natural depletion is one of the most common processes of asphaltene deposition in which pressure changes destabilize the dissolved asphaltene in the oil and settle them onto the rock surface. In this work, natural depletion experiments in consolidated core samples were performed under simulated reservoir conditions to obtain reliable data and analyze the asphaltene deposition mechanisms.... 

In this work effect of composition changes of injection gas, CH4 + CO2, on the performance of immiscible WAG injection in light oil, 41 oAPI, which has been rarely attended in the available literature is investigated. Presence of CO2 helps to reduce the MMP of CH4 significantly. Core flood experiments are conducted at reservoir conditions and fixed flow rate of 0.5cc/min on a sandstone sample with the brine concentration of 5000 ppm, and the influence of injection gas composition as well as WAG ratio on oil recovery is investigated. Different mole percents of methane in mixture, 0%, to 100% are examined, and the tests continued to ten alternate cycles with a slug size of 0.1 pore volumes and... 

This work concerns the experimental investigation of surfactant alternating CO 2 injection in carbonate rocks. The core samples provided from a low-temperature fractured light oil reservoir, located in southwest Iran. The experiments were designed to observe the effect of CO 2-foam injection on gas mobility and oil recovery at different surfactant concentrations. The core samples were initially saturated with synthetic/field brine, 5,000 ppm, and then flooded with live oil to reach connate water saturation at reservoir condition, 115F and 1,700 psia. The commercial surfactant used was sodium lauryl sulfate as an anionic surfactant. The results of this work, along with field-scale simulation... 

Accurate determination of relative permeability (kr) curves and their hysteresis is needed for reliable prediction of the performance of oil and gas reservoirs. A few options (e.g., Carlson, Killough and Jargon models) are available in commercial reservoir simulators to account for hysteresis in kr curves under two-phase flow. Two-phase kr curves are also needed for estimating kr hysteresis under three-phase flow during water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection. Although, most oil reservoirs are mixed-wet, the existing hysteresis predictive approaches have been developed based on water-wet conditions. Experimentally measured data are needed to assess the performance of these methodologies under... 

As the oil production from conventional oil reservoirs is decreasing, oil production through Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes is supposed to compensate for both the oil production reduction in matured oil reservoirs and the worldwide dramatic increase in oil demand. Therefore, developing a strategy to choose an optimized EOR technique is crucial to find a resolution for production decline in oil reservoirs. A screening tool recommending the most appropriate EOR method is proposed in this study. An expert fuzzy logic system is employed to screen four well-known EOR methods including miscible CO2 injection, miscible HC gas injection, polymer flooding and steam injection based on the... 

As the oil production from conventional oil reservoirs is decreasing, oil production through Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) processes is supposed to compensate for both the oil production reduction in matured oil reservoirs and the worldwide dramatic increase in oil demand. Therefore, developing a strategy to choose an optimized EOR technique is crucial to find a resolution for production decline in oil reservoirs. A screening tool recommending the most appropriate EOR method is proposed in this study. An expert fuzzy logic system is employed to screen four well-known EOR methods including miscible CO2 injection, miscible HC gas injection, polymer flooding and steam injection based on the... 

It is widely accepted that under reservoir conditions there exists some degree of block to block interaction that may result in capillary continuity. The formation of liquid bridges causing capillary continuity between blocks will significantly affect ultimate recovery. In this work a mechanistic model with original thought from hydrology for a given steady feeding volumetric flow rate from an upper block (under both gravity and matrix capillary pressure effects) is developed which considers the formation, growth and detachment of pendant liquid droplets perpendicular to the horizontal fracture (assuming to be smooth and parallel walled) between blocks. The length of detached liquid droplet... 

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... 

Seismic modeling of massive structures requires special caution, as wave propagation effects significantly affect the responses. This becomes more crucial when the path-dependent behavior of the material is considered. The coexistence of these conditions renders numerical earthquake analysis of concrete dams challenging. Herein, a finite element model for a comprehensive nonlinear seismic simulation of concrete gravity dams, including realistic soil-structure interactions, is introduced. A semi-infinite medium is formulated based on the domain reduction method in conjunction with standard viscous boundaries. Accurate representation of radiation damping in a half-space medium and wave... 

The main purposes of this study were to scrutinize experimentally effects of polymer and rock types on the oil recovery using water and polymer flooding processes. Four dynamic flooding experiments were carried out at simulated reservoir condition of temperature and pressure. According to the obtained results, the ultimate oil recovery by water flooding in highly fractured reservoirs was less than reservoirs with the microfractures. The results of polymer flooding showed that in addition the polymer molecular weight, the sulfonation of polymers also affects the oil recovery  

Experimental Investigation of the Asphaltene Deposition Process during Different Production Schemes - This paper presents the results of asphaltene precipitation and deposition during lean gas injection, CO2 injection and natural depletion in reservoir conditions. In addition, the effect of variations in operating pressure, injection gas concentration and production rate on asphaltene precipitation and deposition were investigated. The severity of asphaltene deposition was found to be more pronounced in lean gas injection in comparison with CO2 injection and natural depletion. Increasing the flow rate in natural depletion xperiments showed a considerable increase in asphaltene deposition,... 

Many oil reservoirs encounter asphaltene precipitation as a major problem during natural production. In spite of numerous experimental studies, the effect of temperature on asphaltene precipitation during pressure depletion at reservoir conditions is still obscure in the literature. To study their asphaltene precipitation behavior at different temperatures, two Iranian light and heavy live oil samples were selected. First, different screening criteria were applied to evaluate asphaltene instability of the selected reservoirs using pressure, volume, and temperature data. Then, a high pressure, high temperature filtration (HPHT) setup was designed to investigate the asphaltene precipitation...