Review: Horizontal, directionally drilled and radial collector wells

Horizontal wells play an often overlooked role in hydrogeology and aquifer remediation but can be an interesting option for many applications. This study reviews the constructional and hydraulic aspects that distinguish them from vertical wells. Flow patterns towards them are much more complicated than those for vertical wells, which makes their mathematical treatment more demanding. However, at some distance, the drawdown fields of both well types become practically identical, allowing simplified models to be used. Due to lower drawdowns, the yield of a horizontal well is usually higher than that of a vertical well, especially in thin aquifers of lower permeability, where they can replace several of the latter. The lower drawdown, which results in lower energy demand and slower ageing, and the centralized construction of horizontal wells can lead to lower operational costs, which can make them an economically feasible option.

Pumping Schedule Optimization in Acid Fracturing Treatment by Unified Fracture Design

Acid fracturing simulation has been widely used to improve well performance in carbonate reservoirs. In this study, a computational method is presented to optimize acid fracturing treatments. First, fracture geometry parameters are calculated using unified fracture design methods. Then, the controllable design parameters are iterated till the fracture geometry parameters reach their optimal values. The results show higher flow rates are required to achieve optimal fracture geometry parameters with larger acid volumes. Detailed sensitivity analyses are performed on controllable and reservoir parameters. It shows that higher flow rates should be applied for fluids with lower viscosity. Straight acid reaches optimal conditions at higher flow rates and lower volumes. These conditions for retarded acids appear to be only at lower flow rates and higher volumes. The study of the acid concentration for gelled acids shows that both flow rate and volume increase as the concentration increases. For the formation with lower permeability, a higher flow rate is required to achieve the desired larger fracture half-length and smaller fracture width. Further investigations also show that the formation with higher Young’s modulus requires decreasing the acid volume and increasing the optimal flow rate, while the formation with higher closure stress requires increasing the acid volume and decreasing the flow rate.

Influence of Abandonment Pressure on Recoverable Reserves, Special Application to the Depleted Dnipro-Donetsk Basin Reservoirs

Volumetric gas reservoirs are driven by the compressibility of gas and a formation rock, and the ultimate recovery factor is independent of the production rate but depends on the reservoir pressure. The gas saturation in the volumetric reservoir is constant, and the gas volume is reduced causing pressure drop in the reservoir. Due to this reason, it is crucial to minimize the abandonment pressure to the lowest possible level. Concerning Dnipro-Donetsk Basin (DDB) gas reservoirs, it is widespread to recover sometimes more than 90% of the OGIP. Often, OGIP was estimated not considering lower permeability gas layers due to inaccurate logging equipment used in the past, causing that such layers were not included in the total netpay. This is one of the reasons for OGIP overestimation and higher recovery factors. On many P/Z graphs, we observe that at certain drawdown, lower permeability reservoirs kick in lifting up P/Z plot curve. Abandonment pressure is a major factor in determining recovery efficiency. Permeability and skin are usually the most critical factors in determining the magnitude of the abandonment pressure. Reservoirs with low permeability will have higher abandonment pressures than reservoirs with high permeability. A specific minimum flow rate must be sustained to keep the well unloading process, and a higher permeability will permit this minimum flow rate at lower reservoir pressure. Abandonment pressure will depend on wellhead pressure, friction and hydrostatic pressures in the system, pressure drop in reservoir, and pressure drop due to skin. This last factor is often neglected, which sometimes leads to a significant reduction of the recovery factor. It is common practice that skin factor and pressure drop due to the skin are solved with well stimulation. Also, well stimulation has its limits concerning the level of reservoir pressure. It is very common that the stimulation effect of low reservoir pressure well is negligible or even negative. This is caused by the minimum required drawdown to flow back a stimulating aqueous fluid out of the reservoir. The required minimum drawdown is caused by the Phase Trapping Coefficient (PTC), which drives reservoir stimulation fluid cleaning behavior. For water drive gas reservoirs, Cole (1969) suggests that the recovery is substantially less than recovery from bounded gas reservoirs. As a rule of thumb, recovery from a water-drive reservoir will be approximately 50 to 75% of the initial gas in place. The structural location of producing wells and the degree of water coning are essential considerations in determining ultimate recovery. In the cases studied in this paper, we consider gas and rock expansion reservoir energy, if abandonment pressure needs to be coupled with a water drive, then it is recommended to use a numerical, not analytical approach.

Cellulose Nanocrystal Switchable Gel Improves CO2 Sweep Efficiency

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 201609, “Cellulose Nanocrystal Switchable Gel for Improving CO2 Sweep Efficiency in Enhanced Oil Recovery and Gas Storage,” by Ali Telmadarreie, University of Calgary and Cnergreen; Christopher Johnsen, University of Calgary; and Steven Bryant, University of Calgary and Cnergreen, prepared for the 2020 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, originally scheduled to be held in Denver, 5–7 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The entanglement of biopolymers is a well-known phenomenon that, when controlled, can result in a smart fluid with strong gelation properties. The authors write that, when a suitable salt is incorporated into the cellulose nanocrystal (CNC), the fluids undergo gelation upon contact with bulk-phase carbon dioxide (CO2) but remain a flowing liquid otherwise. In this study, this composition-selective trigger was applied to improve sweep efficiency in CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and sequestration. Introduction Hydrogels are hydrophilic structures that swell when hydrated and have various applications in industry. Hydrogels are of interest in EOR because of their ability to respond to stimuli such as pH, temperature, light, and ionic strength. CNCs are nanoparticles derived from cellulose, one of the more sustainable natural resources available. CNC hydrogels could have specific applications as a solution to media het-erogeneity and poor gas-sweep efficiency. The hydrogels can be tuned to set over time, allowing the intentional placement of gels into already-swept areas of a reservoir. CNC hydrogels are unique in that they can be formed when contacted with CO2 and broken by the application of nitrogen (N2) gas. The pH of the solution will be increased as the nitrogen partitions across the gel, reversing the CO2 reaction. This gives the gel-forming solution the added benefit of being transmittable throughout a reservoir. Material and Procedure Spray-dried CNCs with an average length of 100–200 nm and a width of 15 nm were used. Imidazole was used as the salt mixed with water and CNC suspension to create a pH-triggered gel system. CO2 gas and N2 gas were used as received. Mineral oil with a viscosity of approximately 20 cp was used at the oil phase. Solution preparation, and the process for gel strength in bulk testing, are provided in the complete paper. All tests were performed at a pressure of 400 psi and an ambient temperature of 21°C. Two sets of flow experiments were performed. The first included flow in a single sandpack saturated with water to investigate the in-situ gelation and reversibility of the gel. The second set used a dual-sandpack system. The shorter sandpack with higher permeability was saturated with water to create a path of less resistance compared with the longer sandpack with lower permeability saturated with viscous oil. Further details of these experiments are provided in the complete paper.

Study on the Seepage Force-Induced Stress and Poroelastic Stress by Flow Through Porous Media Around a Vertical Wellbore

Fluid flowing through reservoir pores not only generates poroelastic stress but also exerts seepage force on rock skeleton. However, the mechanism of seepage force is not clear. Traditional methods of analyzing wellbore stability and hydraulic fracture initiation are mainly focused on the poroelastic stress without the effects of seepage force. Based on the linear elasticity and consolidation theory, this paper analyzed the mechanism of seepage force and poroelastic stress, and presented an analytical solution for seepage force-induced stress around a vertical wellbore. It also introduced how to calculate poroelastic stress by exerting hypothetical body force and surface force. Through comparison and superposition of stress fields, this paper studied the change characteristics of the poroelastic and seepage force-induced stress under different borehole pressures and the effects of seepage force on the wellbore tensile failure. Numerical simulation results show that when fluid flows through the rock, using traditional models without considering, the effect of seepage force to calculate the borehole pressure-induced stress will result in lower calculation results. Compared with the traditional model, seepage force-induced circumferential tensile stress is larger, and the seepage force significantly reduces the formation breakdown pressure. Rocks near the borehole wall with lower permeability and larger Poisson’s ratio have a greater action of seepage force. When fluid flows through the reservoir, the effects of seepage forces cannot be ignored in the analysis of hydraulic fracturing and wellbore stability.

Analysis of Modular Stator PMSM Manufactured Using Oriented Steel

Oriented steel has higher permeability and lower losses in the direction of orientation (the rolling direction) than non-oriented steel. However, in the transverse direction, oriented steel typically has lower permeability and higher losses. The strategic use of oriented steel in a modular Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine (PMSM) stator can improve machine performance, particularly when compared to a machine designed with non-oriented steel, by increasing both torque and efficiency. Typically, steel manufacturers provide magnetic properties only in the rolling and transverse directions. Furthermore, in modern Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software, the magnetic properties between the rolling and transverse directions are interpolated using an intrinsic mathematical model. However, this interpolation method has proven to be inaccurate; to resolve this issue, an improved model was proposed in the literature. This model requires the magnetic properties of the oriented steel in between the rolling and transverse directions. Therefore, a procedure for extracting the magnetic properties of oriented steel is required. The objective of this work is to propose a method of determining the magnetic properties of oriented steel beyond just the oriented and transverse directions. In this method, flux-injecting probes, also known as sensors, are used to inject and control the flux density in an oriented steel segmented stator in order to extract the properties of the oriented steel. These extracted properties are then used to model an oriented steel modular stator PMSM. The machine’s average torque and core losses are compared with conventional, non-modular, non-oriented steel stator PMSM, and modular, non-oriented steel stator PMSM. It is shown that both the average torque and the core loss of the oriented steel modular stator PMSM have better performance at the selected number of segments than either of the two non-oriented steel stators.

Impacts of Surface Hydrophilicity of Carboxylated Polyethersulfone Supports on the Characteristics and Permselectivity of PA-TFC Nanofiltration Membranes

Our current study experimentally evaluates the impacts of surface hydrophilicity of supports on the properties of polyamide (PA) thin-film composite (TFC) nanofiltration (NF) membranes. A series of “carboxylated polyethersulfone” (CPES) copolymers with an increasing “molar ratio” (MR) of carboxyl units were used to prepare supports with diverse surface hydrophilicities by the classical nonsolvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) method. Then, the PA-TFC NF membranes were finely fabricated atop these supports by conventional interfacial polymerization (IP) reactions. The linkages between the surface hydrophilicity of the supports and the characteristics of the interfacially polymerized PA layers as well as the permselectivity of NF membranes were investigated systematically. The morphological details of the NF membranes indicate that the growth of PA layers can be adjusted through increasing the surface hydrophilicity of the supports. Moreover, the separation results reveal that the NF membrane fabricated on the relatively hydrophobic support exhibits lower permeability (7.04 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1) and higher selectivity (89.94%) than those of the ones prepared on the hydrophilic supports (14.64~18.99 L·m−2·h−1·bar−1 and 66.98~73.48%). A three-stage conceptual scenario is proposed to illustrate the formation mechanism of the PA layer in NF membranes, which is due to the variation of surface hydrophilicity of the supports. The overall findings specify how the surface hydrophilicity of the supports influences the formation of PA layers, which ultimately defines the separation performances of the corresponding NF membranes.

Mitigating Water Production from High Viscosity Oil Wells in Unconsolidated Sandstone Formations

Large reserves of High-Viscous Oil in Kuwait calls for Improved Oil Recovery scenarios. In Kuwait unconsolidated sandstone formations, the sandstone intervals represent extensive reservoir intervals of sand separated by laterally extensive non-reservoir intervals that comprise finer-grained, argillaceous sands, silts and muds. The reservoir is shallow with high permeability (above 1000 mD) and under bottom aquifer pressure support. Due to strong viscosity contrast between oil and water, after breakthrough, the water cut rises quickly resulting in strong loss of production efficiency. Mitigating water production is thus mandatory to improve production conditions. The candidate wells have 2 to 3 open intervals in different rock facies with comingle production. The total perforated length is between 38 and 48 ft. Production is through PCP at a rate of around 300 bpd and BS&W is between 71 and 87%. The technology applied utilizes pre-gelled size-controlled product (SMG Microgels) having RPM properties, i.e. inducing a strong drop of relative permeability to water without affecting oil relative permeability. The size is chosen to selectively treat the high-permeability water producing zones while preserving the lower-permeability oil zones. The chemical can also withstand downhole harsh conditions such as salinity of around 170,000ppm and presence of 2% H2S. The treatment consisted of bullhead injection of 300 bbls of pre-gelled chemical through tubing. The first results seem very favourable, sincefor two wells, the water cut has dropped from 80 to 40% with almost same gross production rate. The incremental oil is more than 100 bopd. The third well did not show marked change after WSO treatment. The wells are under continuous monitoring to assess long-term performance. Such result, if confirmed, may lead to high possibilities for the improvement of heavy-oil reservoir production under aquifer support by mitigating water production with simple chemical bullhead injection.

The Impact of Package Type and Temperature on the Changes in Quality and Fatty Acids Profile of Table Eggs during Their Storage

The aim of the study was to evaluate the possibility of reducing changes in the quality of consumer hen eggs by storing them in various package type and under various temperature conditions (room and refrigeration). The material consisted of 960 chicken eggs packed in cardboard or plastic boxes, 10 pcs in each. Half of the packages were stored at room temperature (21 °C), the rest in the refrigerator (5 °C). The eggs were stored for 28 days qualitatively evaluated at 14-day intervals. The characteristics of whole egg (weight, specific weight, proportion of morphological elements, air cell depth) as well as of shell (weight, color, crushing strength, thickness, density, water conductivity), albumen (height, Haugh units, weight, pH) and yolk (weight, color, pH) were analyzed. The fatty acids profile of yolks was also evaluated as a freshness indicator. Packaging types available on the market, apart from its marketing and eggs protection function, can also influence the quality and stability of the product during storage. The use of plastic boxes can help to maintain higher eggs quality during the storage period, even after a significant extension of the storage time. Eggs stored in plastic boxes at room temperature had very similar results to those stored under refrigeration using conventional cardboard boxes. This effect is probably related to the lower permeability of plastic boxes in comparison to cardboard ones, but detailed research work in this direction is necessary to verify this relation.

How Do Observable Characteristics of Post-Mining Forests Affect Their Attractiveness for Recreation?

Afforestation is a popular practice of the recovery of landscape affected by open-cast coal mining. We investigated what impact the observable characteristics of restored forests have on their attractiveness for recreation framed as a one hour walk in a respective type of forest. In this study, we elaborate on some of the observable characteristics which have been previously found in the literature to affect the perceived attractiveness of outdoor environments. Environmental preference data were collected online using a quasi-representative sample of affected and control populations of the Czech Republic (N = 869). The questionnaire employed visual representations of typical reclaimed forest sites on spoil heaps in the Sokolov mining district. A mediation analysis revealed that forests growing in post-mining areas are perceived more negatively than the typical commercial spruce forest due to their lower permeability, lower level of stewardship, and perceived low safety. However, there are differences in observed characteristics also between different types of restored forests, even when controlling the effect of forest age. The results show for forestry practice that while some of the observed characteristics change by themselves with the increasing age of the forest (permeability, perceived safety, and naturalness of successional forests), improvement in others requires targeted after-care (perceived stewardship). In any case, our results are promising in that they imply that the recreational value of restored forests in post-mining areas may further increase in the future.