Petroleum Engineering Commons^™

Economic Profitability Of The Bakken, North Dakota Unconventional Oil Plays Based On A Typical Well Performance With Current Market Conditions, Mehmet Apaydin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Increases in oil prices after the economic recession have been surprising for domestic oil production in the United States since the beginning of 2009. Not only did the conventional oil extraction increase, but unconventional oil production and exploration also improved greatly with the favorable economic conditions. This favorable economy encourages companies to invest in new reservoirs and technological developments. Recently, enhanced drilling techniques including hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have been supporting the domestic economy by way of unconventional shale and tight oil from various U.S. locations. One of the main contributors to this oil boom is the unconventional oil …

Spatial Moment Analysis Of Reactive And Radioactive Solute In River System With Layered Porous Bed, Shadab Anwar

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Mass exchange between river stream and riverbed is critical towards remediation of contaminated river system. Spatial moment analysis of reactive and radioactive solute in river channel with underlying porous bed is applied to understand the qualitative description of solute plume in riverbed and river stream. Semi-analytical solutions for zeroth-, first- and second-order spatial moment of reactive and radioactive solute are derived in Laplace domain. The spatial moments of concentration are numerically inverted. Parabolic velocity in river channel and exponentially decaying velocity in porous bed are linked using a slip velocity at the interface. The model is verified against the semi-analytical …

Performance Comparison Of Transverse And Longitudinal Fractured Horizontal Wells Over Varied Reservoir Permeability, Fen Yang

Masters Theses

"Since the first application in the mid-1980's, multiple fractured horizontal wells have proven to be an effective means of extracting hydrocarbons. These wells require careful consideration of wellbore orientation relative to the horizontal principle stress. Wellbore orientation can lead to transverse fractures which are perpendicular to the wellbore, or longitudinal fractures parallel the wellbore. Questions arise regarding whether one fracture orientation is consistently preferred over the other, or if certain conditions affect the choice.

Historical work has examined the impact of horizontal wellbore azimuth in the Barnett and Marcellus Shale where public data was reviewed and statistical well analysis was …

Modeling Of Foam Flow In Porous Media For Subsurface Environmental Remediation, Seungjun Lee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Among numerous foam applications in a wide range of disciplines, foam flow in porous media has been spotlighted for improved/enhanced oil recovery processes in petroleum-bearing geological formations and shallow subsurface in-situ NAPL (non-aqueous phase liquid) environmental remediation in contaminated soils and aquifers. In those applications, foams are known to reduce the mobility of gas phase by increasing effective gas viscosity and improve sweep efficiency by mitigating subsurface heterogeneity. This study investigates how surfactant/foam process works fundamentally for environmental remediation purpose by using MoC (Method of Characteristics) based foam modeling and simulation techniques. It consists of two main parts: Part 1, …

Less Is More: Long-Term In Vitro Exposure To Low Levels Of Silver Nanoparticles Provides New Insights For Nanomaterial Evaluation, Kristen K. Comfort, Laura K. Braydich-Stolle, Elizabeth I. Maurer, Saber M. Hussain

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

In view of the vast number of new nanomaterials (NMs) that require testing and the constraints associated with animal models, the majority of studies to elucidate nanotoxicological effects have occurred in vitro, with limited correlation and applicability to in vivo systems and realistic, occupational exposure scenarios.

In this study, we developed and implemented a chronic in vitromodel coupled with lower, regulatory dosages in order to provide a more realistic assessment of NM-dependent consequences and illuminate the implications of long-term NM exposure. When keratinocytes were exposed to 50 nm silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs), we determined that chronically dosed cells operated …

A Circuit-Based Algorithm For Two-Phase Flow At The Pore Scale In Porous Media, Todd Dorethy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Models of two-phase flow in porous media are of practical interest in many fields of science and engineering such as in oil recovery and hydrology. For this class of problem, an immiscible fluid is injected into a single-phase, porous medium to evict its valuable, native fluid. Because the aim is to amass as much of the indigenous fluid as possible, models attempt to output reliable flow regime patterns depicting how well the invading fluid displaces the native fluid.

Flow regime patterns generally depend upon the geometry of the domain, stimulation at the boundaries, and properties of the invading and native …

The Effect Of Using Different Rock Failure Criteria In Wellbore Stability Analysis, Reza Rahimi

Masters Theses

"Determination of the appropriate drilling fluid density by rock failure analysis is an essential step to control wellbore instability. To determine wellbore failure stresses, the rock strength has to be known, an appropriate constitutive model has to be selected, and finally an accurate rock failure criterion must be chosen. Linear-poro elastic modeling of the mechanical wellbore failure is the most common approach to investigate wellbore instability. Numerous failure criteria have been used for the rock failure analysis but there is not any commonly accepted agreement of which failure criteria to use. Rock failure criteria differ in two main characteristics. First, …

Quantifying Phase Configuration Inside An Intact Core Based On Wettability Using X-Ray Computed Tomography, Dinara Dussenova

LSU Master's Theses

The ability to evaluate rock and fluid properties on the order of a few microns opens new areas in reservoir engineering and reservoir simulation. Multiple studies have been done on the application of x-ray computed tomography (microCT) for the pore-scale evaluation of fluid interfaces and rock-fluid interaction. A majority of the fluid flow governing interactions occur at the pore scale level and is usually overseen on large reservoir scales. Hence, it is important to carefully investigate such interactions. Multi-fluid-phase distribution and interaction of two immiscible fluids such as oil and water is one of the most important and constantly investigated …

Effect Of Forced Flow Oscillation On Churn And Annular Flow In Vertical Wellbores, Catalina Posada

LSU Master's Theses

Producing oil and gas from marginal hydrocarbon reservoirs and mature fields present particular challenges. One of the challenges for these types of fields is flow instability. Pipeline risers and artificial gas-lift systems experience instabilities, which cause significant reductions in production among others operational drawbacks. Different types of instabilities (static and dynamic) have been identified affecting those systems. However, there is still a lack of systematic investigations associated with the understanding of dynamic instabilities (periodic oscillations) and their impact in production systems. A systematic investigation of the effects of periodic forced oscillations on gas-liquid flows in a 42 m (140-ft) long, …

Analysis Of Microseismic Events Associated With Hydraulic Fracture Propagation, Chennu Fan

LSU Master's Theses

Previous practice to determine the source mechanism of microseismic events associated with hydraulic fracture typically includes only far-field terms in moment tensor inversion. The intermediate-field terms and near-field term are normally ignored because of increased complexity in the calculation. Source-receiver distances in hydraulic fracturing are usually 1000 ft and the effects of near and intermediate-field terms are still unknown. We perform a study to improve the precision of the source mechanism by including the intermediate-field term in moment tensor inversion. We find that the intermediate-field term contributes 1/3 of the signal amplitude when the source-receiver distance is 1000 ft. The …

Numerical Simulations For Wellbore Stability And Integrity For Drilling And Completions, Nevan Christopher Himmelberg

Masters Theses

"Conventional wellbore trajectory planning is commonly based on an Andersonian state of stress [SoS] and the optimum well azimuth and inclination for a specific depth can be determined using stereographic projections of the safe mud weight window. In this thesis a new methodology using the complete stress tensor is developed to determine optimal well trajectories for complex in-situ stress scenarios. This study uses a 3D finite element analysis to simulate the SoS based on an integrated 3D MEM. The model yields the complete stress tensor at every location for a planned future well path. Using standard equations to determine the …

Updated Screening Criteria For Steam Flooding Based On Oil Field Projects Data, Mariwan Qadir Hama

Masters Theses

"Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) screening is considered the first step in evaluating potential EOR techniques for candidate reservoirs. Therefore, as new technologies are developed, it is important to update the screening criteria. Many of the screening criteria for steam flooding that have been described in the literature were based on data collected from EOR surveys biennially published in the Oil & Gas Journal. However, these datasets contain some problems, including outliers, missing data, inconsistent data and duplicate data, that could affect the accuracy of the results. Despite the importance of ensuring the quality of a dataset before running analyses, data …

An Analytical Pressure Model To Guide Downhole Sensor Placement For Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Monitoring, Yilin Mao

Masters Theses

"Injecting CO₂ into saline aquifers is currently the most viable approach to mitigate global greenhouse gas effect. Various monitoring techniques are required to achieve 99% accuracy in determining the location of the injected CO₂ plume. Sensor locations are critical to the monitoring quality necessary to meet this requirement but have scarcely been discussed. The pressure profile needs to be modeled accurately at the initial stage of CO₂ injection to guide sensor locations. The objective of this thesis was to develop an analytical solution for CO₂ sequestration based on time and distance. This will guide the locations of downhole pressure sensors …

Studies Of Influencing Factors For Shale Gas Reservoir Performance, Jiaqi Wang

Masters Theses

"Shale gas resource plays a significant role in energy supply worldwide. For economic production of shale gas, technologies of horizontal well and hydraulic fracturing are used for shale gas reservoirs. Therefore, the productivity of the shale gas reservoirs will be influenced by both reservoir condition, and hydraulic fracture properties.

In this thesis, parameters that will influence shale gas production were classified into two categories: reservoir properties and hydraulic fracture properties. Published shale gas simulation studies were surveyed for determining the typical ranges of those properties. CMG-GEM was employed to finish the reservoir simulation work, and CMG-CMOST was used to complete …

Investigation Of Cased Wellbore Integrity In The Wabamun Area Sequestration Project, Benjamin Lee Weideman

Masters Theses

"Loss of cased wellbore integrity can cause many significant problems, including lost production, aquifer contamination, blowouts, and other environmental damage. The objective of this study is to conduct an analysis of the Wabamun Area Sequestration Project (WASP) to determine if wells in that area are suitable for CO₂ sequestration. This was done by conducting laboratory experiments on the common cement compositions found in the area, simulating the various conditions possible in a wellbore, and by analyzing three case studies from the WASP. The cases include two existing production wells and a proposed injection well specifically designed for CO₂ sequestration. This …

Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd) Modeling Of Proppant Transport In A Plug-And-Perf Completion With Different Perforation Phasing, Jinlin Zhang

Masters Theses

"Perf-and-plug is a completion technique commonly used in multistage fracturing. Fracture performance modeling assumes that fluid and proppant distributes uniformly among all perforations along the length of the wellbore in a plug and perf completion Crespo et al. (2012) has conducted a limited proppant flow experiment using a 63 foot stage, and three 0.42 inch, zero phased simulated perforations. His work demonstrates proppant does not distribute evenly, but the work is limited to a single perforation scheme.

In this study, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software has been used to simulate proppant transport and distribution in a single stage of a …

Data Mining And Statistical Analysis Of Completions In The Canadian Montney Formation, Mustafa Adil Al-Alwani

Masters Theses

"This thesis documents a data-mining study and statistical analysis of well completion methods and their impact on production for more than 3300 horizontal wells in the Canadian Montney resource play.

The statistical software JMP is used to analyze well and production data for both horizontal Montney gas and oil wells, examining production trends with changes in completion parameters, such as the type of completion, fluid volume pumped, proppant load, number of fracture stages and completion costs. The analysis also provides a general understanding of average treatment characteristics, and how completions have changed with time for the Montney play.

Among the …

Data Analysis And Summary For Surfactant-Polymer Flooding Based On Oil Field Projects And Laboratory Data, Pratap D. Chauhan

Masters Theses

"Enhanced oil recovery screening is considered as an important first step towards evaluating a potential EOR technique for a candidate reservoir. A vast amount of research is continuously been conducted in EOR. Therefore, it is imperative to update the screening criteria regularly.

This study involves updating the screening criteria for surfactant polymer flooding for field projects dataset and laboratory dataset. Many of the screening criteria for surfactant-polymer flooding in the literature were achieved on the basis of data collected from the EOR surveys published biennially in Oil & Gas Journals. However, these datasets contain problems like missing data and inconsistent …

Influence Of Erosional Unloading On The State Of Stress For Low Amplitude Single-Layer Buckle Folds - Implications For Tensile Fracture Occurrence, Mengke Li

Masters Theses

"The existence of fractures associated to buckle folds is related to the strain distribution of the fold. The erosional unloading process can amplify the remnant strain in the folded layer. Two-dimensional plane strain Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is used to investigate the influence of the erosional unloading step on both the evolution of the state of stress and the associated failure patterns in low amplitude buckle folds. Sensitivity analyses on different input parameters, including viscosity, shortening ratio, and overburden pressure, are performed. Based on the simulation results, tensile stress can be initiated both in the crest and in the limb …

Gel Treatment Field Application Survey For Water Shut Off In Production Wells, Jingyi Liao

Masters Theses

"Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) screening criteria are considered as a guideline for candidate evaluation and determination. Not many screening criteria for gel treatment had been published. Some published gel treatment application surveys for water shut off only include limited number of oil fields and locations.

The current work aims to summarize the worldwide gel treatment applications for water shut off in production wells by creating and analyzing a dataset from a variety of sources. This study started from collecting and cleaning the gel treatment application data. All the data were from SPE field publications from 1990 to 2012 and from …