Performance of 15 Years of Hydraulic Fracturing of Oil Wells in South of Oman

The first application of Hydraulic Fracturing in the South Oman started in 2000 to enhance water disposal wells. In 2004 the first oil wells were frac'ed. Although the technology was deployed many times, it never grew into a conventional practice. From 2004 to 2017 on average 5 Oil Wells were hydraulically fractured on yearly basis. In November 2017, a Hydraulic Fracturing Maturation & Expansion Workshop was conducted with the vision of growing the application by applying new frac concepts. A focused effort was initiated to drastically reduce cost, and simultaneously increase the scope by executing larger frac campaigns. The first hydraulic fracturing campaign introducing the frac new concepts, started end 2018 and a rapid growth from 5 wells per year to 45 wells per year was anticipated in the next three years. This large growth of scope relied on a steady supply of frac candidates and needed to be supported by screening and selecting processes that are fit for purpose in finding candidates. Although more than a hundred wells had already been frac'ed wells, selection of the most appropriate wells for stimulation was and remains one of the greatest challenges. A frac performance database was created for over 100 wells that had been hydraulically fracture stimulated to date. Recognizing that the frac performance depends on many variables ranging from subsurface properties to surface execution of the frac job, the size of the dataset proved to be too small to find correlations using sophisticated multivariable regression methods. Instead, the dataset was analyzed through careful investigation and evaluation of each frac job. In this paper the net oil gain will be used as the key success criteria i.e., value driver to demonstrates how effective the frac is achieving its business objective. Some 40% of the producers had been producing from the same zone before the hydraulic fracture stimulation. This provided the opportunity to understand the efficiency of the stimulation in terms of the "stimulation ratio" i.e., measuring the net oil gain. This paper will focus on investigating the suitability of frac'ing the reservoir based on the initial production variables; Gross Rate and BS&W. Also, this paper will discuss benefits and impacts of Hoist versus Coiled-Tubing clean-out on the frac delivery process and compare the frac performance. To date, the project demonstrated that hydraulic fracturing at low cost, can be applied as a viable development concept for producing oil wells, with the potential unlock additional and new reserves. Significant folds in production increase are possible from 2x to 7x.

High Frequency Pressure Monitoring of the Re-Fracturing or Continuous Pumping Operations: Case Studies

The opportunity to refracture low-producing horizontal wells, which have been fractured few months before is getting more and more popular in the last few years. It provides the opportunity of restoring production without drilling new wells, which might be economically feasible especially in the oil and gas low price environment. However, the success rate of refracturing operations is usually low, mainly driven by the inability to properly stimulate the entire horizontal section. Consequently, many operators do not widely deploy this efficient technology. In contrast, completing a newly drilled well with plug and perf technology allows to individually treat from forty to sixty or even more individual compartments in the lateral section while refracturing attempts to retreat the entire lateral in the absence of any isolating device while trying to cover the entire lateral. There are at least two key factors affecting this operation. First is diversion technology: without efficient chemical diverters, which allow to temporarily block recently treated intervals and divert the stimulation fluid to different open sections of the well is extremely challenging. These diverters should normally be able to hold pressure differentials up to thousand psi or more. Attempting a treatment without this technology, aka a "blind frac" is not an option in many cases. The second factor is monitoring technology: The ability to recognize whether a zone has been successfully stimulated, to decide on the deployment of diverting technology or the further addition of stimulation fluid, to sponsor lateral coverage with minimal risk of premature screen out becomes of utmost importance for the successful outcome of hydraulic refracturing operations. In the absence of either of the aforementioned factors hydraulic refracturing may become inefficient and yield uneconomic success. This paper presents how the application of novel diverters, combined with proper hydraulic fracturing fluid selection, sound engineering design and more importantly hydraulic fracturing monitoring provide a new opportunity for the deployment of hydraulic refracturing to provide significant production increase and enhance recovery factor.

Augmenting recombinant antibody production in HEK293E cells: Optimising transfection and culture parameters

Background Optimising recombinant antibody production is important for cost-effective therapeutics and diagnostics. With impact on commercialisation, higher productivity beyond laboratory scales is highly sought, where efficient production can also accelerate antibody characterisations and investigations. Methods Investigating HEK293E cells for mammalian antibody production, various transfection and culture parameters were systematically analysed for antibody light chain production before evaluating them for whole antibody production. Transfection parameters investigated include seeding cell density, the concentration of the transfection reagent and DNA, complexation time, temperature, and volume, as well as culture parameters such as medium replacement, serum deprivation, use of cell maintenance antibiotic, incubation temperature, medium volume, post-transfection harvest day and common nutrient supplements. Results Using 2 mL adherent HEK293E cell culture transfections with 25 kDa linear Polyethylenimine in the most optimised parameters, we demonstrated a ~ 2-fold production increase for light chain alone and for whole antibody production reaching 536 and 49 μg respectively in a cost-effective manner. With the addition of peptone, κ light chain increased by ~ 4-fold to 1032 μg while whole antibody increased to a lesser extent by ~ 2.5-fold to 51 μg, with benefits potentially for antibodies limited by their light chains in production. Conclusions Our optimised findings show promise for a more efficient and convenient antibody production method through transfection and culture optimisations that can be incorporated to scale up processes and with potential transferability to other mammalian-based recombinant protein production using HEK293E cells. Statement of Significance Recombinant antibody production is crucial for antibody research and development. Systematically investigating transfection and culture parameters such as PEI/DNA concentrations, complexation time, volume, and temperature, supplements, etc., we demonstrated a ~ 4-fold light chain alone production increase to 1032 μg and a 2.5-fold whole antibody production increase to 51 μg from 2 mL transfections.

Sustainable Horticultural Waste Management: Industrial and Environmental Perspective

Horticultural crops are highly nutritious and shared lion portion of our daily diet. These items are consumed in different ways according to their nature and processing processes. These days, a crucial concerning issue is arising globally to ensure nutrition security for huge population that leads to focus on production increase, quality improvement, food safety assurance, and processing strategies. Consequently, a large amount of waste generates in the processing industries, household kitchen, and supply chain of horticultural commodities that has led to a significant nutrition and economic loss, consequently creating environment pollution with extensive burden of landfills. However, these wastes showed magnificent potentiality of re-utilization in several industries owing to as rich source of different bioactive compounds and phytochemicals. Therefore, sustainable extraction methods and utilization strategies deserve the extensive investigations. This review paper extensively illustrates the horticultural waste generation options, sustainable recycling strategies, and potentiality of recycled products in different industries for betterment in population with the assurance of green environment and sustainable ecology.

Agricultural Information Systems (AGRIS) as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa

The absence of well-developed agricultural information systems (AGRIS) has continued to hinder agricultural development in Africa. Efforts designed to modernize agriculture through AGRIS by the public and private sectors have been hindered by administrative bottlenecks, weak political will from governments, display of ineptitude by farmers/associations, and institutional corruption. In view of the foregoing, this chapter discusses AGRIS as a catalyst for SDGs in Africa. An effective AGRIS will strengthen decisions on the general management of the agricultural sector. Deploying the AGRIS for the management of agriculture will boost food production, increase the GDPs and directly strengthen the actualization of SDG 1, SDG 2, SDG 3, SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 10, SDG 11, SDG 12, SDG 14, SDG 15, SDG 17, and indirectly impact other SDGs. Ultimately, this chapter suggests leveraging AGRIS for mitigating all the identified challenges to agricultural development in the continent.

Maximizing Production by Perforating with Accurate Dynamic Underbalance Using Electric Coiled Tubing Offshore Egypt

This paper represents a challenging rig-less intervention in highly deviated wells with heavy oil that has always been a challenge to conventional electric line (e-line) that is not a valid intervention technique due to its inherent limitations in these harsh environments. Electric Coiled Tubing (E-CT) was utilized not only to achieve safer deployment of the guns, but also to allow real-time operations on three wells which were inaccessible due to heavy oil content and restricted e-line accessibility. A case study is presented for a campaign performed using E-CT to convey the perforating string while pumping nitrogen (N2) to lift the well and achieve flowing under-balance to maximize perforation clean-up and minimize skin. Real-time readings from gamma ray, pressure and temperature sensors were used to accurately position the guns, generate the desired dynamic underbalance, and finally validate successful detonation based on pressure and temperature responses. This was achieved while N2 lifting and firing the guns to optimize the required under-balance value providing immediate feedback related to the production gain to determine the zonal contributions and maximize the economical production gains. Dynamic wellbore behavior software modeling was also used to predict the dynamic under-balance effect for maximizing perforation efficiency. Deployment of E-CT was very challenging in terms of operational execution but was extremely beneficial for the safety of the pipe during such operations. A total of 13 runs comprising of milling, tubing cleaning and drifting were performed to remove the accumulated scales inside the production tubing and to ensure full accessibility to target intervals. Coiled Tubing (CT) dynamic modeling software was utilized to simulate the N2 rate needed to achieve the target underbalance while maintaining safe perforating parameters for the CT while firing the guns. As a result of software simulations, one of the three wells was then recommended for an acid wash treatment which achieved very effective results. 15 perforation runs were performed on the three wells re-perforating a total of 188 ft of interval, resulting in a production increase of more than 300%. This was a significant improvement compared to the previous campaign carried out in 2017 where perforating in static conditions showed no increase in production without work-over rig intervention. E-CT intervention also eliminated the need for waiting on rig schedule and avoiding deferred production.

impact of the transnationalization process on the consumer market of Ukraine

During the research it was found that globalization in no way affects the content of monopoly capital, which had changed its form because of existence of transnationalization process. The increasing number of transnational corporations not only enhances engagement with the state at the nowadays process of globalization. Minimization the negative consequences of transnational corporations on the consumer market, providing the country’s food security suggested the implementation of a strategy of import substitution and reasonable protectionism. It triggers upgrades foreign economic strategies, improves institutional and organizational and economic efforts of state regulation to ensure the protection of the boundaries of the consumer market. Here are target goals are defined: growth of own production; increase in investment demand; increasing non-raw exports through the export of high-tech, knowledge-based goods and services; intensification of measures within the system of integrated export support.

The socio-economic effect on microplastic pollution of boiled salted fish

Boiled salted fish is one of the favorite fish processing commodities in Bogor. Every year its production increase in line with potential health hazards for consumers, one of which is caused by contamination of raw materials by microplastics. The socio-economic of people were suspected of having influenced the occurrence of the contamination. The study area took place in Bogor, aiming to analyze the correlation between socio-economic and microplastic contamination in boiled salted fish. The purposive sampling method was used in this study on 150 consumers representing gender, age, education, occupation, and income. The result was analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics using the likelihood ratio, wald, and odds ratio test to determine which variables had the most influence. The analytical results showed that the variables of gender and education had a significant correlation (95%) with 0.5-7 times of risk. It is shown in the wald result, and the odds ratio is 2.619-17.182 (more than x2 (df,a) value) and 0.453-7.044. It can be concluded that the potential of microplastic contamination in boiled salted fish correlated with gender and level of education and can be controlled by enhancing the understanding of gender groups through improving public education to a higher level.

The Integrated Technology of Residual Reserves Localization and Profit Increase on Brownfields

Brown fields that are currently experiencing production decline can benefit a lot from production enhancement operations based on localization of residual reserves and geology clarification. The set of solutions includes targeted recommendations for additional well surveys followed by producers and injectors workovers, like whole wellbore or selective stimulation, polymer flow conformance, hydraulic fracturing and side tracking. As a result, previously poorly drained areas are involved in production, which increases current rates and ultimate recovery. The integrated technology of residual reserves localization and production increase includes: Primary analysis of the production history for reservoir blocks ranking by production increase potential. Advanced bottom-hole pressures and production history analysis by multiwell deconvolution for pressure maintenance system optimization and production enhancement. Advanced production logging for flow profile and production layer-by-layer allocation. Conducting pulse-code interference testing for average saturation between wells estimation. 3D reservoir dynamic model calibration on advanced tests findings. Multi-scenario development planning for the scenario with biggest NPV regarding surface infrastructure. The presented integrated technology is carried stage by stage. Based on the data analysis at the first stage (the Prime analysis) it is possible to get three types of results. The top-level assessment of the current development opportunities of the area, evaluation of current residual reserves on base of displacement sweep efficiency estimation, and evaluation of the potential production increase for various blocks of the field. Results of the second stage were obtained for the block deemed with the highest potential for production increase. Those results may reveal possible complications, and relevant workovers can be advised along with additional surveys that can further help to locate current reserves. The last stage of Prime analysis provides the most suitable choice was to perform an advanced logging and well-testing, as they include both single-well and multi-well tests. Pulse-code interference tests, multi-well retrospective tests and reservoir-oriented production logging make it possible to scan the reservoir laterally and vertically, which is especially important for multi-layered fields. The reservoir parameters obtained from the test results are used to calibrate the dynamic reservoir model. The effects of production enhancement operations are calculated from the 3D model. The set of possible activities is evaluated in terms of their financial efficiency based on the economic model of the operator company using multi-scenario approach on a specifically created digital twin of the field. The unique feature of this approach lies in an integrated usage of advanced production history analysis, advanced logging and well-testing technologies, as well as further calibration of the dynamic reservoir model based on test results and used-friendly interface for field digital twin interaction. This paper demonstrates on how to use the field tests results to calibrate the reservoir model and increase the accuracy of production forecasting by reducing the model uncertainty, with intent to increase profit of brownfields.

Impact Analysis of Kurichedu PMKSY Watershed Project on Land Use, Water Resources, Crop and Livestock Productivity in Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh, India

The study was piloted to assess the impact of watershed project interventions from 2011-2018, largely Natural Resource Management (NRM) and Production System Improvement (PSI) measures in Kurichedu PMKSY watershed project, Prakasam district, Andhra Pradesh. The specific objectives included detecting changes in agricultural land use, water body surface area, soil moisture; ground water levels, crop diversification, crop yields and livestock productivity. The net treatable area of the project is 4311 ha. Area under cultivated crops, both agriculture and horticulture crops increased by 414 ha, accounting to 16.6% over pre project period. The NRM activities augmented total water body surface area from 57 ha to 67 ha (17.5%).Ground water table was mainly impacted by deficit rainfall. In kharif season, the area of rice and plantation crops are reduced, while the area of red gram, cotton and chilli improved. In rabi season, the area of tobacco decreased. The horticultural crop area in post project period increased by 84 ha. The productivity of both agricultural and horticultural crops increased during the project period. The yield increase ranged from 2.0 percent in red gram to 12.1 percent in cotton. The milk productivity enhanced from 2.3 to 3.2 L per animal per day with total milk production increase by 15.8 percent. The milk production increase per year in the project period is mainly due to higher milk yield per day per animal.