scholarly journals Catalytic Aquathermolysis of Boca de Jaruco Heavy Oil with Nickel-Based Oil-Soluble Catalyst

Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexey V. Vakhin ◽  
Firdavs A. Aliev ◽  
Irek I. Mukhamatdinov ◽  
Sergey A. Sitnov ◽  
Andrey V. Sharifullin ◽  
...  

This paper investigates aquathermolysis of heavy oil in carbonate reservoir rocks from Boca de Jaruco, which is developed by the cyclic steam stimulation method. The nickel-based catalyst precursor was introduced in order to intensify the conversion processes of heavy oil components. The active form of such catalysts—nickel sulfides—are achieved after steam treatment of crude oil at reservoir conditions. The experiments were carried out on a rock sample extracted from the depth of 1900 m. Changes in composition and structure of heavy oil after the conversion were identified using SARA-analysis, Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy of saturated fractions, FTIR spectroscopy of saturated fractions, and MALDI of resins. It is revealed that catalyst particles provide a reduction in the content of resins and asphaltenes due to the destruction of carbon-heteroatom bonds. Moreover, the destruction of C=Carom. bonds and interactions with aromatic rings are heightened. In contrast, the results of experiments in the absence of catalysts exposed polymerization and condensation of aromatic rings. The most remarkable result to emerge from the thermo-catalytic influence is the irreversible viscosity reduction of produced crude oil enhancing the oil recovery factor. Moreover, the introduction of catalysts increases the gas factor due to additional gas generation as a result of aquathermolysis reactions. The yield of methane gas is significantly high in the experimental runs with oil-saturated rocks rather than crude oil experiments. The gas factor reaches 45 m3/ton.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexey V. Vakhin ◽  
Irek I. Mukhamatdinov ◽  
Firdavs A. Aliev ◽  
Dmitriy F. Feoktistov ◽  
Sergey A. Sitnov ◽  
...  

Abstract A nickel-based catalyst precursor has been synthesized for in-situ upgrading of heavy crude oil that is capable of increasing the efficiency of steam stimulation techniques. The precursor activation occurs due to the decomposition of nickel tallate under hydrothermal conditions. The aim of this study is to analyze the efficiency of in-situ catalytic upgrading of heavy oil from laboratory scale experiments to the field-scale implementation in Boca de Jaruco reservoir. The proposed catalytic composition for in-reservoir chemical transformation of heavy oil and natural bitumen is composed of oil-soluble nickel compound and organic hydrogen donor solvent. The nickel-based catalytic composition in laboratory-scale hydrothermal conditions at 300°С and 90 bars demonstrated a high performance; the content of asphaltenes was reduced from 22% to 7 wt.%. The viscosity of crude oil was also reduced by three times. The technology for industrial-scale production of catalyst precursor was designed and the first pilot batch with a mass of 12 ton was achieved. A «Cyclic steam stimulation» technology was modified in order to deliver the catalytic composition to the pay zones of Boca de Jaruco reservoir (Cuba). The active forms of catalyst precursors are nanodispersed mixed oxides and sulfides of nickel. The pilot test of catalyst injection was carried out in bituminous carbonate formation M, in Boca de Jaruco reservoir (Cuba). The application of catalytic composition provided increase in cumulative oil production and incremental oil recovery in contrast to the previous cycle (without catalyst) is 170% up to date (the effect is in progress). After injection of catalysts, more than 200 samples from production well were analyzed in laboratory. Based on the physical and chemical properties of investigated samples and considering the excellent oil recovery coefficient it is decided to expand the industrial application of catalysts in the given reservoir. The project is scheduled on the fourth quarter of 2021.


2012 ◽  
Vol 594-597 ◽  
pp. 2451-2454
Author(s):  
Feng Lan Zhao ◽  
Ji Rui Hou ◽  
Shi Jun Huang

CO2is inclined to dissolve in crude oil in the reservoir condition and accordingly bring the changes in the crude oil composition, which will induce asphaltene deposition and following formation damage. In this paper, core flooding device is applied to study the effect of asphaltene deposition on flooding efficiency. From the flooding results, dissolution of CO2into oil leads to recovery increase because of crude oil viscosity reduction. But precipitated asphaltene particles may plug the pores and throats, which will make the flooding effects worse. Under the same experimental condition and with equivalent crude oil viscosity, the recovery of oil with higher proportion of precipitated asphaltene was relatively lower during the CO2flooding, so the asphltene precipitation would affect CO2displacement efficiSubscript textency and total oil recovery to some extent. Combination of static diffusion and dynamic oil flooding would provide basic parameters for further study of the CO2flooding mechanism and theoretical evidence for design of CO2flooding programs and forecasting of asphaltene deposition.


2012 ◽  
Vol 268-270 ◽  
pp. 547-550
Author(s):  
Qing Wang Liu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Zhen Zhong Fan ◽  
Jiao Wang ◽  
Rui Gao ◽  
...  

Liaohe oil field block 58 for Huancai, the efficiency of production of thickened oil is low, and the efficiency of displacement is worse, likely to cause other issues. Researching and developing an type of Heavy Oil Viscosity Reducer for exploiting. The high viscosity of W/O emulsion changed into low viscosity O/W emulsion to facilitate recovery, enhanced oil recovery. Through the experiment determine the viscosity properties of Heavy Oil Viscosity Reducer. The oil/water interfacial tension is lower than 0.0031mN•m-1, salt-resisting is good. The efficiency of viscosity reduction is higher than 90%, and also good at 180°C.


SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Lee Yeh Seng ◽  
Berna Hascakir

Summary This study investigates the role of polar fractions of heavy oil in the surfactant-steamflooding process. Performance analyses of this process were done by examination of the dipole-dipole and ion-ion interactions between the polar head group of surfactants and the charged polar fraction of crude oil, namely, asphaltenes. Surfactants are designed to reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) between two immiscible fluids (such as oil and water) and effectively used for oil recovery. They reduce the IFT by aligning themselves at the interface of these two immiscible fluids; this way, their polar head group can stay in water and nonpolar tail can stay in the oil phase. However, in heavy oil, the crude oil itself has a high number of polar components (mainly asphaltenes). Moreover, the polar head group in surfactants is charged, and the asphaltene fraction of crude oils carries reservoir rock components with charges. The impact of these intermolecular forces on the surfactant-steam process performance was investigated with 10 coreflood experiments on an extraheavy crude oil. Nine surfactants (three anionic, three cationic, and three nonionic surfactants) were tested. Results of each coreflood test were analyzed through cumulative oil recovery and residual oil content. The performance differences were evaluated by polarity determination through dielectric constant measurements and by ionic charges through zeta potential measurements on asphaltene fractions of produced oil and residual oil samples. The differences in each group of surfactants tested in this study are the tail length. Results indicate that a longer hydrocarbon tail yielded higher cumulative oil recovery. Based on the charge groups present in the polar head of anionic surfactants resulted in higher oil recovery. Further examinations on asphaltenes from produced and residual oils show that the dielectric constants of asphaltenes originated from the produced oil, giving higher polarity for surfactant-steam experiments conducted with longer tail length, which provide information on the polarity of asphaltenes. The ion-ion interaction between produced oil asphaltenes and surfactant head groups were determined through zeta potential measurements. For the most successful surfactant-steam processes, these results showed that the changes on asphaltene surface charges were becoming lower with the increase in oil recovery, which indicates that once asphaltenes are interacting more with the polar head of surfactants, then the recovery rate increases. Our study shows that the surfactant-steamflooding performance in heavy oil reservoirs is controlled by the interaction between asphaltenes and the polar head group of surfactants. Accordingly, the main mechanism that controls the effectiveness of the process is the ion-ion interaction between the charges in asphaltene surfaces and the polar head group of crude oils. Because crude oils carry mostly negatively charged reservoir rock particles, our study suggests the use of anionic surfactants for the extraction of heavy oils.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1010-1012 ◽  
pp. 1693-1698
Author(s):  
Yi Ding ◽  
Guo Wei Qin ◽  
Peng Liu ◽  
Zi Li Fan ◽  
Hong Wei Xiao ◽  
...  

Heat self-generated CO2 technique is proposed, which is focused on the problems of recovery difficulty, poor effect steam soaking and so on for heavy oil reservoirs. This technology is combining of steam flooding and gas flooding and so on. Its main mechanism is the application of steam heating blowing agent to generate a large volume of gases (including CO2, NH3, etc) in the formation. While some of these gases acting with the oil to reduce the oil viscosity, some form miscible flooding to reduce water interfacial tension, so as to achieve the purpose of enhancing oil recovery. An optimized selection of the heat blowing agents was performed. By comparison the difference before and after the reaction of blowing agent solution, the increase of alkaline is occurred after the reaction, and is helpful to reduce oil viscosity and lower interfacial tension, etc. Studies indicate that heat-generating CO2 flooding technology can get a maximum viscosity reduction rate of 76.7%, oil-water interfacial tension decreased by 54.77%, further improve oil recovery by 4.17% based on the steam drive, which shows a technical advantage toward conventional EOR method. The field experiments indicate that the technique can greatly improve the oil production, which will provide a powerful technical supporting for the efficient development of heavy oil.


2011 ◽  
Vol 347-353 ◽  
pp. 3219-3222
Author(s):  
Xi Shun Zhang ◽  
Xiao Dong Wu ◽  
Shu Qin Ma

In-situ combustion (fire flooding) is one of important methods to improve heavy oil recovery ratio, utilizing the reservoir itself heavy component burning as dynamic displacement of crude oil, improving the crude oil character, flooding efficiency is high, applicability is extensive, and other recover techniques can not match. But the technical support is difficult and broad, and is the key in restricting the effect of in-situ combustion, especially for the effectiveness of development. With the increase of fire flooding development, flowing wells turns to artificial lifting wells, the gas production increases deeply, and the lifting technology faces a lot of new problems. Aiming at the problems of combustion in-situ, the relevant technologies were researched, then some methods and measures suiting to heavy oil fire flooding technology were proposed. And it provided reference for researching of deep heavy oil fire flooding lifting technology in the future.


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