Tectonic aspects of super-viscous oil deposits formation and placement within the Volga-Ural anteclise

The article discusses the tectonics and developmental features of the Volga-Ural anteclise during the Baikalian, Caledonian, Hercynian and Alpine tectogenesis cycles. In this paper, particular attention is paid to stages and directional development during the evolution of geological structures. The main factors of the formation and destruction of Permian viscous oil and natural bitumen reservoirs are presented in the provisions of oil ontogenesis. It was noted the cyclical nature of these phenomena. Keywords: Volga-Ural anteclise; super-viscous oil; tectonic; reservoir; oil.

The natural bitumen additive Selenizza® SLN: A promising alternative for producing high-performance asphalt mixes

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the benefits of using natural bitumen in the context of global environmental change and increasing transportation demands in terms of traffic volume and loads. Despite the advantages of using these additives as binder modifiers to implement high modulus asphalt mixes characterized by high stiffness, high durability, superior resistance to permanent deformation, and good fatigue resistance, they remain still largely unknown and far from being effectively exploited. The paper displays for the first time a collection of scientific data based on previously published research works, enriched by new laboratory testing, whose results are not published yet. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of various aspects of the natural bitumen Selenizza® (extracted from the deposit located in southeast Albania) and the role that this natural additive plays in achieving the desired asphalt pavement performance. The dynamic rheological and Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry (MDSC) analysis proved that natural bitumens are fully compatible with straight-run bitumen and contribute to increasing the consistency, viscosity, and stability of natural bitumen-modified binders. The Rolling Thin-Film Oven Test (RTFOT), followed by Pressure Aging Vessel (PAV) aging analysis of road bitumen modified with Selenizza®, revealed that the resulting binders are resistant to aging and relatively efficient at low temperatures. A Life Cycle Assessment study compared the environmental impact of the Albanian natural bitumen production process with that of conventional crude oil bitumen, leading to the conclusion that the CO2 emission released during the production of Selenizza® is reduced by approximately 44 % compared to that of crude oil bitumen. The various research works described in this paper provide evidence that the natural bitumen-based asphalt mixes feature enhanced quality in terms of mechanical and rheological properties compared to reference asphalt mixes produced with equivalent traditional paving grade bitumen.

Insight into the structure of black coatings of ancient Egyptian mummies by advanced Electron magnetic resonance of vanadyl complexes

Advanced EPR techniques such as ENDOR and pulsed EPR are used to investigate the enigmatic black coatings of ancient Egyptian mummies, consisting in a complex and heterogeneous mixtures of conifer resins, wax, fat and oil with variable amounts of bitumen. Natural bitumen always contains traces of vanadyl porphyrin complexes that we used here as internal probes to explore the nanoscale environment of V4+ ions in these black coatings by hyperfine spectroscopy. Four types of vanadyl porphyrins were identified from the analysis of 14N hyperfine interactions. Three types (referred to as VO-P1, VO-P2 and VO-P3) are present in natural bitumen from the Dead Sea, among which VO-P1 and VO-P2 are also present in black coatings of mummies. The absence of VO-P3 in mummies, which is replaced by another complex VO-P4, may be due to its transformation during preparation of the black matter for embalming. Analysis of 1H hyperfine interaction shows that bitumen and other natural substances are intimately mixed in these black coatings, with bitumen aggregate sizes not larger than a few nanometres.

IR-Spectroscopic Studies of Bituminous Sands of the Zhyly-Oi Deposit

The organic part of bituminous Sands (BS) is a chemical raw material of complex and unstable composition. The physical and chemical properties and composition of this raw material depend on the BS Deposit, the method of separation of the organic part, methods and equipment for analysis. The organic component-natural bitumen-is an oil dispersed system, the dispersed phase of which is formed by high – molecular components-resins and asphaltenes; the dispersed medium is made up of lighter hydrocarbons. It was found that traces of tungsten oxide (V), primary and secondary alcohols, and esters were found in the bituminous rock of the Deposit. It was found that natural bitumen extracted from BS contains saturated hydrocarbons: linear: n-heptane, n-decane and cycloparaffins: 1-phenyldodecane, methylcyclohexane, various primary and secondary alcohols, ketone and esters.

Hyperspectral fluorescence imaging: robust detection of petroleum in porous sedimentary rock formations

Examining hand samples can be a necessary step for geological studies, and effective mapping of such samples can be achieved through the high spectral and spatial resolutions of ground-based hyperspectral imaging (HSI) at the millimeter to centimeter scale. We present a simple approach to crude oil identification and characterization—feasible in 16 hours—based on hyperspectral data collected under ultraviolet lighting and normalized with respect to the fluorescence patterns of Spectralon diffuse reflectance material. The samples under consideration were extracted from a core acquired from an Early Cretaceous bituminous sandstone formation in the Athabasca basin located near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. This basin contains the largest natural bitumen deposit in the world, where surface mining operations currently are viable only for approximately 20% of the estimated 164 billion barrels of total recoverable oil reserves. This deposit is unique in that its tar sands are water-wet, which facilitates the separation of bitumen from the sandstone via water-based gravity separation. However, large amounts of water are still required for oil recovery, so a fast and reliable way to mark portions of the deposit where ample petroleum has accumulated and assess its extractability based on its physical characteristics prior to mining can be helpful for optimizing resource usage. For this reason, we test and visually evaluate the ability of three classification methods—Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Supervised Neural Network (SNN)—to distinguish between bitumen, Spectralon, and a non-fluorescent slate background based on the emission of visible light in response to absorbing ultraviolet light of different wavelengths. We also propose spectral indices useful for indicating concentrated bitumen in tar sands. Errors inherent to the methodology are discussed along with ways to mitigate them. After accounting for these, HSI can be a valuable asset alongside other techniques used for production economics evaluation.

Application of the steаm аssisted grаvity drаinаge (SAGD) method in the heavy oil fields

Recently, the prospects for the development of the oil industry have been associated with the development of deposits of heavy oils and natural bitumen. It is economically feasible and possible to extract high-viscosity oil (HVO) and natural bitumen (NB) only thanks to the development and application of effective technologies for their development. Unconventional oil production requires an unconventional exclusive approach, one of them is the steam — gravity method of oil production. The creation of SAGD models involves solving problems of heat and mass transfer in wells and a productive reservoir to optimize the production mode. To calculate the parameters of heat transfer, reliable information is required about the complex of thermal properties (thermal conductivity, thermal conductivity, volumetric heat capacity) of rocks of the productive formation, the underlying and overlapping layers of the mountain massif. Currently, when conducting research and constructing geological and technological models for predicting development indicators, the degree of influence of variations in the thermophysical properties of reservoir rocks on the efficiency of the SAGD process is not taken into account. Due to the absence until recent years of the possibility of obtaining reliable representative data on the thermal properties of rocks of a particular deposit, averaged values based on single measurements or on reference data that do not take into account the features of the object being developed and do not contain a detailed geological description of the studied rocks are usually used. In this regard, it was necessary to conduct a study of the influence of real spatial variations of the thermophysical properties of rocks, studied in detail for one of the deposits with the help of a new highly efficient hardware and methodological measuring base, on the development indicators by the SAGD method. In this article, the authors considered the effectiveness of using horizontal wells with cyclic steam exposure at the Yareg field.

Cast-in-situ piles encasements based on oil-bituminous rocks (kirs) in saline soils

A technology of building a pile foundation in saline soils with a protective and load-bearing shell based on bituminous rocks (kirs) is proposed that makes it possible to eliminate water permeability, to increase suffusion resistance and bearing capacity of the soil, as well as durability. The method of extracting natural bitumen from bituminous rocks (kirs) is based on the ability of kirs to self-grind or disintegrate into small parts at elevated temperatures in aqueous salt solutions. The proposed method excludes mechanical grinding and allows reducing the consumption of reagents and improving the quality of extracted natural bitumen. The compositions of the obtained mastics based on natural bitumen are not inferior in their properties to the known compositions of waterproofing cold mastics based on industrial bitumen at a lower cost.