Importance of Well Completion Methods and Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques in Oil and Gas Industry Operations

As production chemists, we are all aware of the overall concepts of improved oil recovery (IOR) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Perhaps, though, fewer of us are aware of the different idiosyncrasies that exist within (and even between) these two broad categories of recovery and then how chemistry and chemicals can have an effect upon these processes. I would like to propose that the lines once were quite distinct between IOR and EOR: IOR was a standard waterflood operation, and EOR (from a chemist’s perspective) was the addition of chemistry to that waterflood (typically polymer or surfactant). Nowadays, the science has evolved massively to create many sub-genres of IOR and EOR. A waterflood is rarely just a waterflood anymore. We can alternate water and gas injection. We can add chemical conformance aids to direct better the flow of water. We can change the salinity of the water to promote better wettability for higher recovery factors. The list goes on. One just has to search out the number of EOR papers vs. (pretty much) every other discipline of production chemistry to see the commitment this industry still has to the research of this discipline. In recent years, the focus has tended to move away from deep-reservoir EOR to focus on near-wellbore stimulation. Interestingly, the mechanistic considerations that we make as production chemists are nearly identical in all cases, and significant synergies exist between these subdisciplines. Therefore, from the recent research published by SPE, two focused topics of IOR/EOR have arisen: the use of nanoparticles and the use of water-shutoff technologies. Nanoparticle use is gaining significant traction in the oil and gas industry, and field applications are now being reported. The area of IOR/EOR is no exception. Water shutoff is not a new technology area. However, are these established, production-sustaining IOR techniques seeing a resurgence caused by the headwinds our industry has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic? Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. OTC 30123 - Thermal and Rheological Investigations on N,N’-Methylenebis Acrylamide Cross-Linked Polyacrylamide Nanocomposite Hydrogels for Water-Shutoff Applications by Mohan Raj Keishnan, Alfiasal University, et al. IPTC 20210 - Chemical and Mechanical Water Shutoff in Horizontal Passive ICD Wells: Experience and Lessons Learned in Giant Darcy Reservoir by Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Schlumberger, et al. SPE 203831 - Efficient Preparation of Nanostarch Particles and Mechanism of Enhanced Oil Recovery in Low-Permeability Oil Reservoirs by Lei Zhang, China University of Geosciences, et al.

Download Full-text

Application of Nanotechnology for Enhanced Oil Recovery: A Review

Defect and Diffusion Forum ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/ddf.367.149 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 367 ◽

pp. 149-156 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

M. Sabet ◽

S.N. Hosseini ◽

A. Zamani ◽

Z. Hosseini ◽

H. Soleimani

Keyword(s):

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Oil And Gas Industry ◽

Energy Industry ◽

Gas Industry ◽

Rock Types ◽

Method Effects ◽

Exploration Drilling ◽

Significant Factors

Nanotechnology has significant contributions on developing modern industries, such as electronics, biomedical, materials, manufacturing, and energy industry. The changes introduced by nanotechnology, have currently extended to several areas for oil and gas industry, namely exploration, drilling, production, refining and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). This study focuses on attraction to the worldwide attention of nanotechnology and how this method effects oil breakthrough and improves EOR. This Study also implies that parameters such as rock types, crude oil types, nanoparticle types, concentrations, and sizes, have significant factors on recovery factor (RF) through improving key-parameters such as oil relative permeability, interfacial tension (IFT), wettability, transmissibility and particles retention.

Download Full-text

Reuse of Produced Water Grows in the Oil and Gas Industry

Journal of Petroleum Technology ◽

10.2118/1220-0060-jpt ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 72 (12) ◽

pp. 60-61

Author(s):

Judy Feder

Keyword(s):

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Produced Water ◽

Petroleum Industry ◽

Oil And Gas Industry ◽

Environmental Conservation ◽

Gas Industry ◽

External Stakeholders ◽

Oil And Gas Operations

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Judy Feder, contains highlights of paper SPE 199498, “Reuse of Produced Water in the Oil and Gas Industry,” by Madeleine Gray, International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association, prepared for the 2020 SPE International Conference and Exhibition on Health, Safety, Environment, and Sustainability, originally scheduled to be held in Bogota, Colombia, 28-30 July. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The onshore oil and gas industry investigates new and improved ways to manage the supply and disposal of produced water continually. Within oil and gas operations, produced water increasingly is being recycled and reused for enhanced oil recovery, drilling, and well stimulation. The growing global demand for water resources also is creating interest in reusing produced water outside oil and gas operations. The complete paper focuses on sources of produced water from conventional and unconventional onshore oil and gas operations and addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with reusing the produced water. Introduction Produced water is water that is brought to surface during oil and natural-gas production. It includes formation, flowback, and condensation water. Produced water varies in composition and volume from one formation to another and is often managed as a waste material requiring disposal. In recent years, increased demand for, and regional variability of, available water resources, along with sustainable water-supply planning, have driven interest in reusing produced water with or without treatment to meet requirements within the industry or by external users. Reuse of produced water can provide important economic, social, and environmental benefits, particularly in water-scarce regions. It can be used for hydraulic fracturing, waterflooding, and enhanced oil recovery, decreasing the demand for other sources of water. However, reuse for offsite, non-oilfield applications such as crop irrigation, wildlife and livestock consumption, industrial processes, and power generation, is subject to a variety of constraints and risks. Practical considerations for offsite reuse include supply and demand and regulatory, infrastructural, economic, legal, social, and environmental factors. Sources, Chemical Properties, and Management of Produced Water The information contained in the paper is based on an internal survey conducted by the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) of 14 of its member companies, interviews with selected external stakeholders covering a range of sectors and geographic regions, and a literature review of readily available information. The external stakeholders were identified from the membership survey as well as from IPIECA and consultant experience. Sources and Volumes. Onshore oil and gas operations generate millions of barrels of produced water each day world-wide. The composition and flow of produced water can differ dramatically from one source to another.

Download Full-text

Nanoemulsion Applications in Enhanced Oil Recovery and Wellbore Cleaning: An Overview

Applied Mechanics and Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.754-755.1161 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 754-755 ◽

pp. 1161-1168 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Nur Hashimah Alias ◽

Nurul Aimi Ghazali ◽

Tengku Amran Tengku Mohd ◽

Sitinoor Adieb Idris ◽

Effah Yahya ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Oil And Gas Industry ◽

Particle Size Distributions ◽

Gas Industry ◽

Particle Distributions ◽

Potential Applications ◽

Excellent Property ◽

Nanosize Particle

This article is an overview of potential applications of nanoemulsion as a promising candidates for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and as a medium for wellbore cleaning. Nanoemulsion is an emulsion that has nanosize particle distributions in the range of below 500 nm. It also has lower interfacial tension (IFT) as low as the value of 0.001 mN/m. The small particle size distributions in nanoemulsion resulted the good properties of nanoemulsion in term of large surface area. This excellent property will improve the sweeping efficiency of the oil droplet in the reservoir and finally increase the oil recovery. Besides that, the unique features possess by nanoemulsion make it suitable as superior wellbore cleaner as compared to conventional detergent-based cleaner. Thus, the significance of nanoemulsion becomes the major highlight in oil and gas industry. This overview on nanoemulsion applications is imperative and necessary in order to provide an insight for the future development and perhaps open a door to extend the applications of nanoemulsion to other more challenging areas.

Download Full-text

Guest Editorial: Artificial Intelligence in the E&P Industry: What Have We Learned So Far and Where to Next?

Journal of Petroleum Technology ◽

10.2118/0121-0012-jpt ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 73 (01) ◽

pp. 12-13

Author(s):

Manas Pathak ◽

Tonya Cosby ◽

Robert K. Perrons

Keyword(s):

Artificial Intelligence ◽

Science Fiction ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Autonomous Systems ◽

Oil And Gas Industry ◽

Human Judgment ◽

Gas Industry ◽

The Media ◽

And Function

Artificial intelligence (AI) has captivated the imagination of science-fiction movie audiences for many years and has been used in the upstream oil and gas industry for more than a decade (Mohaghegh 2005, 2011). But few industries evolve more quickly than those from Silicon Valley, and it accordingly follows that the technology has grown and changed considerably since this discussion began. The oil and gas industry, therefore, is at a point where it would be prudent to take stock of what has been achieved with AI in the sector, to provide a sober assessment of what has delivered value and what has not among the myriad implementations made so far, and to figure out how best to leverage this technology in the future in light of these learnings. When one looks at the long arc of AI in the oil and gas industry, a few important truths emerge. First among these is the fact that not all AI is the same. There is a spectrum of technological sophistication. Hollywood and the media have always been fascinated by the idea of artificial superintelligence and general intelligence systems capable of mimicking the actions and behaviors of real people. Those kinds of systems would have the ability to learn, perceive, understand, and function in human-like ways (Joshi 2019). As alluring as these types of AI are, however, they bear little resemblance to what actually has been delivered to the upstream industry. Instead, we mostly have seen much less ambitious “narrow AI” applications that very capably handle a specific task, such as quickly digesting thousands of pages of historical reports (Kimbleton and Matson 2018), detecting potential failures in progressive cavity pumps (Jacobs 2018), predicting oil and gas exports (Windarto et al. 2017), offering improvements for reservoir models (Mohaghegh 2011), or estimating oil-recovery factors (Mahmoud et al. 2019). But let’s face it: As impressive and commendable as these applications have been, they fall far short of the ambitious vision of highly autonomous systems that are capable of thinking about things outside of the narrow range of tasks explicitly handed to them. What is more, many of these narrow AI applications have tended to be modified versions of fairly generic solutions that were originally designed for other industries and that were then usefully extended to the oil and gas industry with a modest amount of tailoring. In other words, relatively little AI has been occurring in a way that had the oil and gas sector in mind from the outset. The second important truth is that human judgment still matters. What some technology vendors have referred to as “augmented intelligence” (Kimbleton and Matson 2018), whereby AI supplements human judgment rather than sup-plants it, is not merely an alternative way of approaching AI; rather, it is coming into focus that this is probably the most sensible way forward for this technology.

Download Full-text

An Experimental Research on Enhanced Oil Recovery Using Local Polymers

10.2118/207130-ms ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Abiola Oyatobo ◽

Amalachukwu Muoghalu ◽

Chinaza Ikeokwu ◽

Wilson Ekpotu

Keyword(s):

Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽

Experimental Research ◽

Oil Recovery ◽

Capital Investment ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Produced Water ◽

Water Injection ◽

Gum Arabic ◽

Oil And Gas Industry ◽

Profile Control

Abstract Ineffective methods of increasing oil recovery have been one of the challenges, whose solutions are constantly sought after in the oil and gas industry as the number of under-produced reservoirs increases daily. Water injection is the most extended technology to increase oil recovery, although excessive water production can pose huge damage ranging from the loss of the well to an increase in cost and capital investment requirement of surface facilities to handle the produced water. To mitigate these challenges and encourage the utilization of local contents, locally produced polymers were used in polymer flooding as an Enhanced Oil Recovery approach to increase the viscosity of the injected fluids for better profile control and reduce cost when compared with foreign polymers as floppan. Hence this experimental research was geared towards increasing the efficiency of oil displacement in sandstone reservoirs using locally sourced polymers in Nigeria and also compared the various polymers for optimum efficiency. Starch, Ewedu, and Gum Arabic were used in flooding an already obtained core samples and comparative analysis of this shows that starch yielded the highest recovery due to higher viscosity value as compared to Ewedu with the lowest mobility ratio to Gum Arabic. Finally, the concentration of Starch or Gum Arabic should be increased for optimum recovery.

Download Full-text