Digital Commons Network^™

Transition Metal Catalysts For Hydrodesulfurization Reactions Applied To Petroleum Industry, Brenda Torres

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Catalysis plays a fundamental role in petroleum refining and basic petrochemical industries creating new routes in the development of industrial processes. Moreover, catalysis has become indispensable to the solution of environmental pollution problems and therefore on public health. World wide concerns for preservation of the environment has motivated the development of "Green" catalyst based technologies, to achieve a better utilization of petroleum resources and demands for cleaner transportation fuels. These environmental concerns have led to increasingly drastic regulations on sulfur, nitrogen and aromatics content in fuels. Sulfur content in the motor and diesel fuels is continuously reduced by regulations to …

The Development Of A Pore Pressure And Fracture Gradient Prediction Model For The Ewing Banks 910 Area In The Gulf Of Mexico, Jeffrey Steven Fooshee

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this project is to develop a pore pressure and fracture gradient prediction strategy for the Ewing Banks 910 (EW 910) area. Petrophysical and measured pressure data for eight wells previously drilled in the EW 910 area will be examined and reviewed. This strategy will help design future drilling and completion operations in the aforementioned area. Two pore pressure prediction strategies and one fracture gradient prediction strategy will be reviewed and applied to the available data. The first pore pressure prediction strategy reviewed was developed by W. R. Matthews. This strategy utilizes a geologic age specific overlay which …

A Simulation-Based Evaluation Of Alternative Initial Responses To Gas Kicks During Managed Pressure Drilling Operations, Majid Davoudi

LSU Master's Theses

Managed pressure drilling (MPD) is an adaptation of conventional drilling that has been developed to manage and control subsurface pressures in the well in order to minimize specific drilling problems. The constant bottom hole pressure approach (CBHP) is a versatile method of MPD, where a closed annulus allows initial responses to kicks other than simply shutting in the well. The objective of this research was to identify and evaluate the best initial response to gas kicks taken during drilling as a basis for developing reliable well control procedures for CBHP operations. Nine non-circulating and circulating responses (NCRs and CRs) were …

Progressive Water-Oil Transition Zone Due To Transverse Mixing Near Wells, Shengkai Duan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study derives from observations made in petroleum research and practices of chemical industry that efficient mixing takes place in segregated immiscible fluid flow in granular packs and static mixers. A hypothesis was formulated that transverse mixing (TM) across oil-water interface may occur in segregated inflow to wells resulting in progressive transition zone, more water production, and reduced oil productivity. “Mixing” is broadly interpreted here to address the entire range of stirring, splitting, dispersion and diffusion processes between two fluids.

Initial study showed that a commercial reservoir simulator would not model any transition zone in segregated oil-water flow at high …

Mechanistic Foam Modeling And Simulations: Gas Injection During Surfactant-Alternating-Gas Processes Using Foam-Catastrophe Theory, Ali Afsharpoor

LSU Master's Theses

The use of foam for mobility control is a promising means to improve sweep efficiency in subsurface applications such as improved/enhanced oil recovery and aquifer remediation. Foam can be introduced into geological formations by injecting gas and surfactant solutions simultaneously or alternatively. Alternating gas and surfactant solutions, which is often referred to as surfactant-alternating-gas (SAG) process, is known to effectively create fine-textured strong foams due to fluctuation in capillary pressure. Recent studies show that foam rheology in porous media can be characterized by foam-catastrophe theory which exhibits three foam states (weak-foam, strong-foam, and intermediate states) and two strong-foam regimes (high-quality …

Downhole Water Loop (Dwl) Well Completion For Water Coning Control --- Theoretical Analysis, Lu Jin

LSU Master's Theses

The Thesis is an analytical and numerical analysis of a new method for completing and producing oil wells affected by water coning. The method enables producing oil with no or minimal water cut while keeping the water subsurface with downhole water loop (DWL) installation. Typically, a DWL well is triple-completed in the oil and water zones with the three completions separated by parkers. The top completion produces oil to the surface while the middle and bottom completions drain from and inject into the bottom water zone, respectively. Segregated-inflow operation of DWL well requires keeping the production and drainage-injection rates below …

Carbon Dioxide Capture From Flue Gases, Mohamed Rashid Al Rashid

Theses

Global warming and climate change are believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect. CO₂ has been regarded as the main contributor to global climate change which directly results in serious environmental problems. Half of the anthropogenic CO₂ emission sources are emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels in industries and power plants worldwide. The absorption behavior of Carbon dioxide from flue gases can be studied using conventional absorber and polymeric hollow fiber membrane contractors. An industrial absorber data was compared with simulated data using hollow fiber membrane contractor using the gPROMs software package. In this analysis, with …

Evaluation Of Interwell Connectivity Of Little Creek Field, Mississipii [Sic] From Production Data, Gbemisola Yewande Ogunyomi

LSU Master's Theses

The understanding of geological characteristics and heterogeneity of a reservoir enables better decisions for reservoir development. Statistical methods use universally available injection and production rate data to help evaluate reservoir characteristics and behavior.In this research project, statistical methods typically used to infer communication between injector-producer well pairs in a waterflood reservoir using only production and injection rate data are applied to a CO2 flood. The multivariate linear regression (MLR) technique computes weighting coefficients possibly related to the fraction of the flow in a producer that comes from each of the injectors (Albertoni and Lake, 2002). MLR was applied to the …

Simulation Study Of Emerging Well Control Methods For Influxes Caused By Bottomhole Pressure Fluctuations During Managed Pressure Drilling, Hakan Guner

LSU Master's Theses

Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD) is an emerging drilling technology that utilizes mud weight, surface backpressure and annular frictional pressure loss (AFP) to precisely control the wellbore pressure. The goal of this project is to identify the most appropriate initial response and kick circulation method for the kicks that result from complications specific to MPD. These complications that can cause a reduction in bottomhole pressure were classified as surface equipment failures and unintended equivalent circulating density (ECD) reductions. Rotating control device (RCD) and pump failures are the examples of surface equipment failures. Pump efficiency loss and BHA position change represent the …

Realtime Reservoir Characterization And Beyond: Cyber-Infrastructure Tools And Technologies, Yaakoub Youssef El-Khamra

LSU Master's Theses

The advent of the digital oil _x000C_eld and rapidly decreasing cost of computing creates opportunities as well as challenges in simulation based reservoir studies, in particular, real-time reservoir characterization and optimization. One challenge our e_x000B_orts are directed toward is the use of real-time production data to perform live reservoir characterization using high throughput, high performance computing environments. To that end we developed the required tools of parallel reservoir simulator, parallel ensemble Kalman _x000C_lter and a scalable work ow manager. When using this collection of tools, a reservoir modeler is able to perform large scale reservoir management studies in short periods …