scholarly journals Oil Recovery Efficiency and Mechanism of Low Salinity-Enhanced Oil Recovery for Light Crude Oil with a Low Acid Number

ACS Omega ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 1506-1518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhijit Kakati ◽  
Ganesh Kumar ◽  
Jitendra S. Sangwai
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Acid Number ◽  
Recovery Efficiency ◽  
Light Crude Oil ◽  
Low Salinity

Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery and Nanotechnology: Effects of Silica-Based Nanofluids on Low-Salinity Water Flooding and Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes in Oil-Wet and Water-Wet Reservoirs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Darnault ◽  
Bruce Phibbs ◽  
Casey McCarroll ◽  
Brightin Blanton
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Flooding ◽  
Light Crude Oil ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Low Salinity Water ◽  
Reservoir Systems ◽  
Salinity Water ◽  
Eor Processes

<p>Advances in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology have resulted in the development of engineered nanoparticles, with unique physico-chemical properties, and their applications to all the sectors of industry, including the petroleum industry. This presentation will discuss several advances and applications of silica-based nanofluids in chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes related to interfacial phenomena in multiphase systems and physics of multiphase flow in porous media, and in particular the oil recovery characteristics resulting from nanofluids based low-salinity water flooding and chemical EOR processes. Laboratory experiments were carried out using homogeneous sandpack columns simulating oil-wet and water-wet reservoirs. To simulate oil-wet reservoirs, the sandpack columns were saturated with a light crude oil (West Texas Intermediate) at first. While in the case of the simulated water-wet reservoirs, these reservoirs were made by saturating the sandpack columns initially with a 1.0 wt% brine (NaCl) and then followed by an injection of the light crude oil. The subsequent oil-saturated (oil-wet system) and oil-brine mixture (water-wet system) within the sandpack columns were then subject to water flooding (non-sequenced recovery) or EOR processes (sequenced recovery) utilizing brine and/or surfactant as controls as well as low (0.01 wt%) and high (0.1 wt%) silica-based nanofluids. When compared with the high concentration of silica-based nanofluid, the low silica-based nanofluid concentration produced low fractional and cumulative oil recovery results in the water flooding process of oil recovery for both oil-wet and water-wet reservoir systems; however, the low silica-based nanofluid concentration was found to be the most effective with EOR process for both oil-wet and water-wet reservoir systems. Our findings permit to choose optimal concentrations of silica nanoparticles to be employed for either water flooding or EOR processes in order to increase the oil extraction efficiency.</p>

Interfacial Viscoelasticity of Crude Oil/Brine: An Alternative Enhanced-Oil-Recovery Mechanism in Smart Waterflooding

SPE Journal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (03) ◽  
pp. 803-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehrnoosh Moradi Bidhendi ◽  
Griselda Garcia-Olvera ◽  
Brendon Morin ◽  
John S. Oakey ◽  
Vladimir Alvarado
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Water Chemistry ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Interaction Mechanism ◽  
Field Trials ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Injection Water

Summary Injection of water with a designed chemistry has been proposed as a novel enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) method, commonly referred to as low-salinity (LS) or smart waterflooding, among other labels. The multiple names encompass a family of EOR methods that rely on modifying injection-water chemistry to increase oil recovery. Despite successful laboratory experiments and field trials, underlying EOR mechanisms remain controversial and poorly understood. At present, the vast majority of the proposed mechanisms rely on rock/fluid interactions. In this work, we propose an alternative fluid/fluid interaction mechanism (i.e., an increase in crude-oil/water interfacial viscoelasticity upon injection of designed brine as a suppressor of oil trapping by snap-off). A crude oil from Wyoming was selected for its known interfacial responsiveness to water chemistry. Brines were prepared with analytic-grade salts to test the effect of specific anions and cations. The brines’ ionic strengths were modified by dilution with deionized water to the desired salinity. A battery of experiments was performed to show a link between dynamic interfacial viscoelasticity and recovery. Experiments include double-wall ring interfacial rheometry, direct visualization on microfluidic devices, and coreflooding experiments in Berea sandstone cores. Interfacial rheological results show that interfacial viscoelasticity generally increases as brine salinity is decreased, regardless of which cations and anions are present in brine. However, the rate of elasticity buildup and the plateau value depend on specific ions available in solution. Snap-off analysis in a microfluidic device, consisting of a flow-focusing geometry, demonstrates that increased viscoelasticity suppresses interfacial pinch-off, and sustains a more continuous oil phase. This effect was examined in coreflooding experiments with sodium sulfate brines. Corefloods were designed to limit wettability alteration by maintaining a low temperature (25°C) and short aging times. Geochemical analysis provided information on in-situ water chemistry. Oil-recovery and pressure responses were shown to directly correlate with interfacial elasticity [i.e., recovery factor (RF) is consistently greater the larger the induced interfacial viscoelasticity for the system examined in this paper]. Our results demonstrate that a largely overlooked interfacial effect of engineered waterflooding can serve as an alternative and more complete explanation of LS or engineered waterflooding recovery. This new mechanism offers a direction to design water chemistry for optimized waterflooding recovery in engineered water-chemistry processes, and opens a new route to design EOR methods.

scholarly journals Predicting the electrokinetic properties of the crude oil/brine interface for enhanced oil recovery in low salinity water flooding

Fuel ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 235 ◽  
pp. 822-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miku Takeya ◽  
Mai Shimokawara ◽  
Yogarajah Elakneswaran ◽  
Toyoharu Nawa ◽  
Satoru Takahashi
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Water Flooding ◽  
Electrokinetic Properties ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Low Salinity Water ◽  
Salinity Water

Effect of Total Acid Number and Recovery Mode on Low-Salinity Enhanced Oil Recovery in Carbonates

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Takaaki Uetani ◽  
Hiromi Kaido ◽  
Hideharu Yonebayashi
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbonate Rock ◽  
Acid Number ◽  
Spontaneous Imbibition ◽  
Wettability Alteration ◽  
Oil Composition ◽  
Total Acid ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Total Acid Number

Summary Low-salinity water (LSW) flooding is an attractive enhanced oil recovery (EOR) option, but its mechanism leading to EOR is poorly understood, especially in carbonate rock. In this paper, we investigate the main reason behind two tertiary LSW coreflood tests that failed to demonstrate promising EOR response in reservoir carbonate rock; additional oil recovery factors by the LSW injection were only +2% and +4% oil initially in place. We suspected either the oil composition (lack of acid content) or the recovery mode (tertiary mode) was inappropriate. Therefore, we repeated the experiments using an acid-enriched oil sample and injected LSW in the secondary mode. The result showed that the low-salinity effect was substantially enhanced; the additional oil recovery factor by the tertiary LSW injection jumped to +23%. Moreover, it was also found that the secondary LSW injection was more efficient than the tertiary LSW injection, especially in the acid-enriched oil reservoir. In summary, it was concluded that the total acid number (TAN) and the recovery mode appear to be the key successful factors for LSW in our carbonate system. To support the conclusion, we also performed contact angle measurement and spontaneous imbibition tests to investigate the influence of acid enrichment on wettability, and moreover, LSW injection on wettability alteration.

Effect of Nickel: Zinc Ratio in Nickel-Zinc-Ferrite Nanoparticles as Surfactant on Recovery Efficiency in Enhanced Oil Recovery

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 115-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasnah Mohd Zaid ◽  
W.A. Wan Azahar ◽  
H. Soleimani ◽  
N.R. Ahmad Latiff ◽  
Afza Shafie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Nanoparticles ◽  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Zinc Ferrite ◽  
Bulk Material ◽  
Recovery Efficiency ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
Nickel Zinc ◽  
A Chain

Integration of nanoparticles in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been intensively studied in recent years due to their unique properties owing to the nanoscale dimensions, rendering them to have different properties in comparison with its bulk material. Application of magnetic nanoparticles such as ferrites was able to exploit their rheological properties as a chain-like structure formed due to dipole-dipole alignment with the applied magnetic field. Ferromagnetic nanoparticles had shown an increment in the oil recovery under the irradiation of an EM wave. In this research, the influence of magnetic nanoparticles nickel-zinc-ferrite, Ni1-xZnxFe2O2 in the form of nanofluids on the recovery efficiency in EOR was studied. Nickel-zinc-ferrite magnetic nanoparticles with various values of x were synthesized to observe the effect of nickel to zinc ratio on recovery efficiency. The nanoparticles were characterized using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM). Coreflooding experiments were conducted where the nanofluids were injected into the compacted sand saturated with crude oil under EM irradiation. The amount of oil recovered from the core was evaluated. VSM tests shows that the sample with x = 0.5 had the highest magnetization of 52.6 emu/g. The nanofluids prepared from the sample also achieved the highest crude oil recovery of 26.07% of the residual oil in place (ROIP).

Numerical Investigation on Low Salinity Augmented Microbial Flooding LSAMF within a Sandstone Core for Enhanced Oil Recovery Under Nonisothermal and Fluctuating pH Conditions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susmit Chakraborty ◽  
Suresh Kumar Govindarajan ◽  
Sathyanarayana N. Gummadi
Keyword(s):  
Crude Oil ◽  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Present Model ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Water Salinity ◽  
Fractional Flow ◽  
Low Salinity ◽  
Microbial Flooding

Summary In an era of increasing energy demand, declining oil fields and fluctuating crude oil prices globally, most oil companies are looking forward to implementing cost effective and environmentally sustainable enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques such as low salinity waterflooding (LSWF) and microbial EOR (MEOR). The present study numerically investigates the combined influence of simultaneous LSWF and microbial flooding for in-Situ MEOR in tertiary mode within a sandstone core under spatiotemporally fluctuating pH and temperature conditions. The developed black oil model consists of five major coupled submodels: nonlinear heat transport model; ion transport coupled with multiple ion exchange (MIE) involving uncomplexed cations and anions; pH variation with salinity and temperature; coupled reactive transport of injected substrates, Pseudomonas putida and produced biosurfactants with microbial maximum specific growth rate varying with temperature, salinity and pH; relative permeability and fractional flow curve variations due to interfacial tension reduction and wettability alteration (WA) by LSWF and biofilm deposition. The governing equations are solved using finite difference technique. Operator splitting and bisection methods are adopted to solve the MIE-transport model. The present model is found to be numerically stable and agree well with previously published experimental and analytical results. In the proposed MIE-transport mechanism, decreasing injection water salinity (IWS) from 2.52 to 0.32 M causes enhanced Ca2+ desorption rendering rock surface towards more water wet. Consequently, oil relative permeability (kro) increases with >55% reduction in water fractional flow (fw) at water saturation of 0.5 from the initial oil-wet condition. Further reducing IWS to 0.03 M causes Ca2+ adsorption shifting the surface wettability towards more oil-wet thus increasing fw by 52%. Formation water salinity (FWS) showed minor impact on WA with <5% decrease in fw when FWS is reduced from 3.15 to 1.05 M. During LSAMF, biosurfactant production is enhanced by >63% on reducing IWS from 2.52 to 0.32 M with negligible increase on further reducing IWS and FWS. This might be due to limiting nonisothermal (40 to 55 °C) and nutrient availability conditions. LSAMF caused significant WA, increase in kro with fw reduction by >84%. Though pH increased from 8.0 to 8.9, it showed minor impact on microbial metabolism. Formation damage due to bioplugging observed near injection point is compensated by effective migration of biosurfactants deep within sandstone core. The present study is a novel attempt to show synergistic effect of LSAMF over LSWF in enhancing oil mobility and recovery at core scale by simultaneously addressing complex crude oil-rock-brine chemistry and critical thermodynamic parameters that govern MEOR efficiency within a typical sandstone formation. The present model with relatively lower computational cost and running time improves the predictive capability to pre-select potential field candidates for successful LSAMF implementation.

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