Engineering Commons^™

Application Of Foam Assisted Water-Alternating-Gas Flooding And Quantification Of Resistivity And Water Saturation By Experiment And Simulation To Determine Foam Propagation In Sandstone, Javed A. Khan, Jong Kim, Sonny Irawan, Karina A. Permatasar, Patrick G. Verdin, Baoping Cai, Nurudeen Yekeen

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Foam flooding by Foam Assisted Water-Alternating-Gas (FAWAG) is an important enhanced oil recovery method that has proven successful in experimental and pilot studies. The present study is carried out to monitor the movement of the foam front once injected into the porous medium. This study aims to investigate applications of resistivity waves to monitor foam propagation in a sandstone formation. In the present lab-scale experiments and simulations, resistivity measurements were carried out to monitor the progression of foam in a sand pack, and the relationships between foam injection time and resistivity, as well as brine saturation, were studied. The brine …

Investigation Of Asphaltene Instability Under Gas Injection In Unconventional Reservoirs And Its Impact On Oil Recovery Performance, Mukhtar Elturki

Doctoral Dissertations

"Unconventional reservoirs, such as shale gas and tight oil formations, have become an important source of energy in recent years. However, these reservoirs often contain high levels of asphaltenes, which can lead to deposition and blockages in production wells and reduce the flow of hydrocarbons during gas enhanced oil recovery (GEOR) techniques. This study aims to experimentally evaluate the impact of miscible and immiscible carbon dioxide (CO₂) and nitrogen (N₂) on asphaltene deposition and its impact on oil recovery performance in unconventional shale reservoirs.

This research began with a comprehensive literature review and data analysis of GEOR methods in unconventional …

Experimental Data Supporting Co2 Enhanced Oil Recovery And Storage Potential In The Bakken Petroleum System (Bps), University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

Fact sheet on CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Bakken petroleum system. Highlights experimental data concerning CO₂’s role in oil recovery in the region.

Investigation Of Cyclic Gaseous Solvent Injection For Enhanced Oil Recovery In Unconventional Formations, Samuel Asante Afari

Theses and Dissertations

Unconventional resources have been known to hold vast quantities of hydrocarbons. However, exploiting the oil and gas they hold was previously challenging due to their low permeabilities. Recent advances in horizontal well drilling and hydraulic fracturing have enabled oil and gas production from these reservoirs, leading to significant increases in energy supply to meet the growing energy demand. However, despite the relative technological success, considerable obstacles persist; oil production from unconventional wells often declines by more than 20% of their initial production rate within the first two years, leaving significant volumes of residual oil trapped in the formations. This overarching …

A Systematic Design Approach For Bulk Gel Treatments Based On Gel Volume-Concentration Ratio In Field Projects, Munqith Aldhaheri, Mingzhen Wei, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Controlling excessive water production in mature oil fields has always been a desired objective of the oil and gas industry. This objective calls for planning of more effective water-control gel treatments with optimized designs to obtain more attractive outcomes. Unfortunately, planning such effective treatments remains a dilemma for reservoir engineers due to the lack of methodical design tools in the industry. This paper presents a novel systematic design approach for polyacrylamide-based bulk gel treatments by classifying their field projects according to the gel volume-concentration ratio (VCR) into three design types. In terms of one another, the approach estimates either the …

Using Magnesium Oxide Nanoparticles In A Magnetic Field To Enhance Oil Production From Oil-Wet Carbonate Reservoirs, F. Amrouche, M. J. Blunt, Stefan Iglauer, M. Short, T. Crosbie, E. Cordero, D. Xu

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Enhanced oil production can maximise yield from depleted reservoirs, and in the face of dwindling global oil reserves can reduce the need for exploratory drilling during the transition away from fossil fuels. A hybrid technique, merging a magnetic field (MF) and magnesium oxide (MgO) nanoparticles (NPs), was investigated as a potential method of enhancing oil production from oil-wet carbonate reservoirs. The impact of this hybrid technique on rock wettability, zeta potential, and interfacial tension was also investigated. Displacement experiments were carried out on oil-wet Austin chalk – a laboratory carbonate rock analogue – using MgO NPs in deionized water (DW) …

Selective Penetration Behavior Of Microgels In Superpermeable Channels And Reservoir Matrices, Yang Zhao, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Gel treatment is an effective way to attack excessive water production in many mature oilfields around the world. Selective penetration is desired for successful gel treatments. That is, gel materials should easily penetrate the target zones (i.e., channeling features such as superpermeable channels) without entering/damaging the nontarget zones (i.e., reservoir matrices or oil zones). This study revealed that presence of threshold penetration pressure (ΔPth) was responsible for selective penetration behavior of tested microgels. The concept of ΔPth was utilized to figure out favorable working conditions for effective gel treatments. Microgel dispersions were injected into superpermeable (super-k) sandpacks (mimicking super-k channels …

Fundamentals Of Microgel Flooding And Nanoparticles-Stabilized Foams In Enhanced Oil Recovery, Shuaijun Li

Dissertations and Theses

For centuries oil has remained a critical energy source for human civilization. After years of extraction, many oil fields have reached or are reaching a decline stage of production, even though up to a half of the total crude oil reserves in these fields has not been recovered yet. One reason is due to the structural heterogeneity of the oil reservoirs—reservoirs may consist of regions of higher permeability with larger pore size and regions of lower permeability with smaller pore size. Displacing fluids tend to flow through large permeability zones only without reaching the oil trapped in low permeability region; …

Effect Of Methyl Orange On Wettability Of Sandstone Formations: Implications For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Fatemah Alhamad, Mujahid Ali, Muhammad Ali, Hussein Abid, Hussein Hoteit, Stefan Iglauer, Alireza Keshavarz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

With the increasing global population, fossil fuel resources still represent a main contributor to the energy supply, despite the progress made in the field of renewable energies. Large quantities of residual oil from mature reservoirs cannot be produced through primary and secondary recovery methods. Among alternative recovery techniques, chemically enhanced oil recovery methods are attracting considerable interest to increase the hydrocarbon recovery from oil-bearing geological formations. The wettability of any particular formation can be used to predict the oil recovery factor of a reservoir based on its wetting state. However, due to the complex nature of geological porous media, special …

Characterization And Oil Recovery Enhancement By A Polymeric Nanogel Combined With Surfactant For Sandstone Reservoirs, Mustafa Mohammed Almahfood, Baojun Bai

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The characterization and enhanced oil recovery mechanisms of a nanosized polymeric cross-linked gel are presented herein. A negatively charged nanogel was synthesized using a typical free radical suspension polymerization process by employing 2-acrylamido 2-methyl propane sulfonic acid monomer. The synthesized nanogel showed a narrow size distribution with one peak pointing to a predominant homogeneous droplet size. The charged nanogels were also able to adsorb at the oil-water interfaces to reduce interfacial tension and stabilize oil-in-water emulsions, which ultimately improved the recovered oil from hydrocarbon reservoirs. In addition, a fixed concentration of negatively charged surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate or SDS) was …

Enhanced Oil Recovery By Hydrophilic Silica Nanofluid: Experimental Evaluation Of The Impact Of Parameters And Mechanisms On Recovery Potential, Tariq A. Chandio, Muhammad A. Manan, Khalil R. Memon, Ghulam Abbas, Ghazanfer R. Abbasi

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Nanofluids as an EOR technique are reported to enhance oil recoveries. Among all the nanomaterial silica with promising lab results, economic and environmental acceptability are an ideal material for future applications. Despite the potential to enhance recoveries, understanding the two-fold impact of parameters such as concentration, salinity, stability, injection rate, and irreproducibility of results has arisen ambiguities that have delayed field applications. This integrated study is conducted to ascertain two-fold impacts of concentration and salinity on recovery and stability and evaluates corresponding changes in the recovery mechanism with variance in the parameters. Initially, silica nanofluids’ recovery potential was evaluated by …

Physicochemical Characterisation Of Zirconia Nanoparticles Based Sodium Alginate Polymer Suspension For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Udit S. Mohanty, Faisal Ur Rahman Awan, Muhammad Ali, Adnan Aftab, Alireza Keshavarz, Sefan Iglauer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Biopolymers have been employed in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) due to their high viscosity and significant effects on waterflooding performance. Sodium alginate (NaAlg) is an excellent biopolymer that is extracted primarily from brown algae. It has been used in the biotechnology industry as a thickening agent, colloidal stabilizer, and oil recovery application. In the present study, a series of sodium alginate/zirconium oxide nanoparticle suspensions were prepared via solution mixing, and the effect of nanoparticle content, polymer concentration, temperature, salinity was investigated on the rheological behavior using a concentric cylinder dynamic rheometer. The rheology results revealed that the lower concentration of …

Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery By Low Salinity Polymer Flood Combined With Microgel Treatment, Yang Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

“Heavy oil resources account for a large portion of the total oil reserves around the world. The target heavy oil reservoir is located on Alaska’s North Slope (ANS). Advantages of low-salinity HPAM polymer (LSP) over high-salinity polymer (HSP) were demonstrated. LSP could recover more oil with 40% less polymer consumption. No additional oil was recovered by HSP after LSP flood. The first-ever polymer flood pilot on ANS showed remarkable success regarding water cut reduction, oil production increase, delayed breakthrough, and projected oil recovery improvement. Polymer alone was insufficient to achieve satisfactory recovery as the reservoirs were highly heterogeneous. Microgels could …

Synergistic Effect Of Hydrophilic Nanoparticles And Anionic Surfactant On The Stability And Viscoelastic Properties Of Oil In Water (O/W) Emulations; Application For Enhanced Oil Recovery (Eor), Sarmad Al-Anssari, Zain-Ul-Abedin Arain, Haider A. Shanshool, Alireza Keshavarz, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

With the rapidly increased global energy demand, great attention has been focused on utilizing nanotechnology and particularly nanofluids in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) to produce more oil from low-productivity oil reservoirs. Nanofluid flooding has introduced as one of the promising methods for enhanced oil recovery using environment-friendly nanoparticles (NPs) to be as an innovative-alternative for chemical methods of EOR. This work investigates the synergistic effects of anionic surfactant and hydrophilic silica nanoparticles on the stability and the mechanical behavior of oil in water (O/W) emulsions for their application in EOR. To achieve this, an extensive series of experiments were conducted …

Preformed Partial Gel Injection Chased By Low-Salinity Waterflooding In Fractured Carbonate Cores, Ali K. Alhuraishawy, Baojun Bai, Mingzhen Wei, Abdullah Almansour

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Fractures and oil-wet conditions significantly limit oil recovery in carbonate reservoirs. Gel treatment has been applied in injector wells to modify the prevailing reservoir streamlines and significantly reduce fracture permeability, whereas low-salinity waterflooding has been applied experimentally to modify rock wettability toward water-wet for improved oil recovery. However, both processes have limitations that cannot be resolved using a single method. The objective of this study was to test whether low-salinity water could enable gel particles to move deeply into fractures to efficiently increase oil recovery and control water production. A semitransparent fracture model of carbonate cores and acrylic plates was …

Comparison Between Cold/Hot Smart Water Flooding In Sandstone Reservoirs, Hasan N. Al-Saedi, Ariel Williams, Ralph E. Flori

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The incremental oil recovery has been investigated and approved by many laboratory and field projects using water flooding in tertiary stage. The salinity of the injected water is an important factor observed by many researchers. The more salinity decreases the more oil recovery obtained. The investigations on the hot low salinity water flooding have been conducted by many researchers and they found out that it is useful for increasing oil recovery especially heavy oil due to reducing oil viscosity and make it easy to produce to the surface. The thermal expansion of water plays an important role in the incremental …

Oil Recovery By Surfactant Flooding; Sensitivity Analysis To Technical Parameters And Economic Analysis, Hadel Mohsen Moustafa

Theses

Various enhanced oil recovery methods including miscible gas injection, chemical, thermal and other methods are applied at the third phase of production after the primary and secondary recovery have been exhausted. Surfactant flooding is one of the chemical methods that is capable of recovering more oil by decreasing the IFT and/or wettability alteration.This piece of work aims to asses and select the development options using surfactant process that maximize oil recovery for a synthetic reservoir model by optimizing technical and economic analysis.

Reservoir simulation study using ECLIPSE 100 was used to study the different development options of surfactant flooding applied …

Exploring The Effects Of Aromatic Molecules In Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery, Jacob M. Crain, Cliff Johnston, Rituraj Borgohain

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Chemical enhanced oil recovery (cEOR) methods are being used as a viable contributor to the world’s growing energy demands. Due to the complex chemical composition of crude oil, attempting to optimize the surfactant concentration and salinity of formulations is done empirically. This process can be very time intensive due to the wide variety of surfactant structures available for cEOR. Surfactant selection is typically done by matching the average chain length of the oil with that of the surfactant. In this study, we are trying to understand how aromatic structures present in Illinois Basin crude oil interact with surfactants. This will …

Oil Recovery By Polymer Flooding; Sensitivity Analysis To Technical Parameters, Rana Osama Fahmi Saqer

Theses

Numerous enhanced oil recovery techniques including miscible gas injection, chemical, thermal and other methods are applied at the third phase of production after both primary and secondary recovery have been exhausted. Polymer flooding is one of the chemical methods that recover more oil by decreasing the mobility of the system; by increasing the viscosity of the injected water that results in an improvement in the volumetric sweep efficiency.

The objective of this work is to asses and select the development options using polymer process that maximize oil recovery for a synthetic reservoir model where technical parameters are optimized thoroughly.

Reservoir …

Oil Recovery By Flooding; Sensitivity Analysis To Technical Parameters, Rana Osama Fahmi Saqer

Theses

Numerous enhanced oil recovery techniques including miscible gas injection, chemical, thermal and other methods are applied at the third phase of production after both primary and secondary recovery have been exhausted. Polymer flooding is one of the chemical methods that recover more oil by decreasing the mobility of the system; by increasing the viscosity of the injected water that results in an improvement in the volumetric sweep efficiency.

The objective of this work is to asses and select the development options using polymer process that maximize oil recovery for a synthetic reservoir model where technical parameters are optimized thoroughly.

Reservoir …

Wetting Kinetics In Forced Spreading, Amer Mohammad Al-Shareef

Doctoral Dissertations

"Under dynamic conditions, the dynamic contact angle (the angle that the liquid makes with the solid) of a liquid on a solid surface varies dramatically with substrate velocity from its equilibrium value. Experimental data of the dynamic contact angles for polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS or silicone oil) under air on a glass substrate coated with teflon, for water under PDMS, for solutions of the polymer polyethylene oxide (PEO) under air, for solutions of PEO under PDMS, were obtained to simulate and understand the systems of brine or brine containing a polymer displacing viscous crude. A variety of solid substrates were used other …

An Investigation Of Plugging And Increasing Oil Recovery In Sandstone Porous Media By Micrometer-Size Particle Gel, Haifeng Ding

Masters Theses

"Micrometer-size particle gel (microgel) has been developed and successfully applied to improve conformance in mature reservoirs. However, quite few researches have been published to address on their effect on oil recovery and rock permeability modification.

This work conducted a series of core flooding experiments to investigate the injectivity, plugging efficiency and improving oil recovery potentials of a couple of microgels synthesized in our lab.

First, this work studied the impact of permeability and crosslinker concentration on PAM type microgel treatment. Results shows that microgel treatment would have a less plugging efficiency in lower permeability rocks, which could be caused by …

Oil Recovery In Low Temperature And Salinity Reservoir Rock Using Anionic And Anionic/Cationic Surfactant Formulations, Alec D. Bokhart, Ryan Mulvenna, Bryan Boudouris, Rituraj Borgohain, Cliff Johnston

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

As oil reserves are being depleted in the United States, there is an increasing need to recover the trapped oil in the reservoir rock which accounts for up to 60% of the total oil available. This oil may be recovered using chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. In our case study, we investigated viable EOR surfactant/polymer formulations for conditions conducive to high efficiency oil recovery in ultra-low salinity, low temperature, and high hardness reservoirs. Formulations were screened for Winsor Phase I (microemulsions) or Winsor Phase III (bicontinuous emulsions),: both of which are conducive to high efficiency oil recovery. Strong emulsion …

Particle Gel Propagation And Blocking Behavior Through High Permeability Streaks And Fractures, Abdulmohsin Imqam

Doctoral Dissertations

Water channeling, one of the primary reservoir conformance problems, is caused by reservoir heterogeneities that lead to the development of high-permeability streaks and fractures. These streaks and fractures prevent large amounts of oil from being recovered. The ultimate objective of this research was to provide comprehensive insight into designing better particle gel treatments intended for use in large openings, including open fractures, high permeability streaks, and conduits to increase oil recovery and reduce water production.

An intensive laboratory study was conducted to better understand the injection and placement mechanisms of millimeter and micron size preformed particle gels (PPGs) through thief …

Development Of A Framework For Scaling Surfactant Enhanced Co₂ Flooding From Laboratory Scale To Field Implementation, Gbolahan I. Afonja

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The efficiency of the use of CO2 as a displacement fluid in oil recovery is hampered by the existence of an unfavorable mobility ratio that is caused by the large difference in viscosity between the injected fluid (CO2) and the reservoir fluids. This viscosity contrast results in early CO2 breakthrough, viscous fingering, gas channeling, and consequently, the inability of CO2 to effectively contact much of the reservoir and the oil it contains. Improvement of sweep efficiency and mobility control in CO2 injection require solutions to these problems. The use of surfactants and other chemical means for mobility control has been …

Effect Of Surfactants And Brine Salinity And Composition On Spreading, Wettability And Flow Behavior In Gas-Condensate Reservoirs, Yu Zheng

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The well-known condensate blockage problem causes severe impairment of gas productivity as the flowing bottom-hole pressure falls below the dew point in gas-condensate reservoirs. Hence, this study attempts to investigate the concept of modifying the spreading coefficient and wettability using low-cost surfactants in the near wellbore region, to prevent the gas flow problems associated with condensate buildup. This study also examines the effect of brine salinity and composition on wettability, spreading and adhesion in condensate buildup regions, to evaluate the ability of brine salinity/composition for enhanced gas productivity in gas-condensate reservoirs. In this study, experiments were performed at both ambient …

Physical Model Study Of The Effects Of Wettability And Fractures On Gas Assisted Gravity Drainage (Gagd) Performance, Wagirin Ruiz Paidin

LSU Master's Theses

The Gas-Assisted Gravity Drainage (GAGD) process was developed to take advantage of the natural segregation of injected gas from crude oil in the reservoir. It consists of placing a horizontal producer near the bottom of the reservoir and injecting gas using existing vertical wells. As the injected gas rises to the top to form a gas cap, oil and water drain down to the horizontal producer. Earlier experimental work using a physical model by Sharma had demonstrated the effectiveness of the GAGD process in improving the oil recovery when applied in water-wet porous media. The current research is an extension …

Relative Permeability And Wettability Implications Of Dilute Surfactants At Reservoir Conditions, Ayodeji Adebola Abe

LSU Master's Theses

The improvement or increase of oil recoverable from discovered reservoirs has always been a very important issue as this helps to meet ever growing energy demand. Several methods have been put forward as means of achieving this objective. Chemical flooding, using surfactants has been considered in enhanced oil recovery processes. Surfactants are used primarily to lower oil-water interfacial tension (IFT) and thus improve production. However, surfactants possess the ability to alter rock wettability and hence increase oil production. Previous investigations were performed at ambient conditions using stocktank oil. Extrapolation of the findings from the ambient conditions testing to reservoir conditions …