Impacts of interactions with low-mineralized water on permeability and pore behavior of carbonate reservoirs

Laboratory filtration experiments are employed to investigate effective well killing while minimizing its impacts on surrounding rocks.The novelty of this experimental study lies in the prolonged exposure of rock samples to the killing fluid for seven days,corresponding to the average duration of well workovers in the oilfields in Perm Krai,Russia.Our findings indicate that critical factors influencing the interactions between rocks and the killing fluid include the chemical composition of the killing fluid,the mineralogical composition of the carbonate rocks,reservoir pressure and temperature,and the contact time.Petrophysical analyses using multi-scale X-ray computed tomography,field emission scanning electron microscopy,and X-ray diffraction were conducted on samples both before and after the well killing simulation.The experiments were performed using real samples of cores,crude oil,and the killing fluid.The results from this study indicate that low-mineralized water(practically fresh water)is a carbonate rock solvent.Such water causes the dissolution of rock components,the formation of new calcite crystals and amoeba-like secretions,and the migration of small particles(clay,quartz,and carbonates).The formation of deep channels was also recorded.The assessment reveals that the change in the pH of the killing fluid indicates that the observed mineral reactions were caused by carbonate dissolution.These combined phenomena led to a decrease in the total number of voids in the core samples,which was 25%on average,predominantly among voids measuring between 45 and 70μm in size.The change in the pore distribution in the bulk of the samples resulted in decreases in porosity of 1.8%and permeability of 67.0%in the studied core samples.The results from this study indicate the unsuitability of low-mineralized water as a well killing fluid in carbonate reservoirs.The composition of the killing fluid should be optimized,for example,in terms of the ionic composition of water,which we intend to investigate in future research.

Review on application of nanoparticles for EOR purposes: A critical review of the opportunities and challenges

Nanoparticles have already gained attentions for their countless potential applications in enhanced oil recovery.Nano-sized particles would help to recover trapped oil by several mechanisms including interfacial tension reduction, impulsive emulsion formation and wettability alteration of porous media. The presence of dispersed nanoparticles in injected fluids would enhance the recovery process through their movement towards oil–water interface. This would cause the interfacial tension to be reduced. In this research, the effects of different types of nanoparticles and different nanoparticle concentrations on EOR processes were investigated. Different flooding experiments were investigated to reveal enhancing oil recovery mechanisms. The results showed that nanoparticles have the ability to reduce the IFT as well as contact angle, making the solid surface to more water wet. As nanoparticle concentration increases more trapped oil was produced mainly due to wettability alteration to water wet and IFT reduction. However, pore blockage was also observed due to adsorption of nanoparticles, a phenomenon which caused the injection pressure to increase. Nonetheless, such higher injection pressure could displace some trapped oil in the small pore channels out of the model. The investigated results gave a clear indication that the EOR potential of nanoparticle fluid is significant.

Impact of pertinent parameters on foam behavior in the entrance region of porous media:mathematical modeling

Foam injection is a promising solution for control of mobility in oil and gas field exploration and development,including enhanced oil recovery,matrix-acidization treatments,contaminated-aquifer remediation and gas leakage prevention.This study presents a numerical investigation of foam behavior in a porous medium.Fractional flow method is applied to describe steady-state foam displacement in the entrance region.In this model,foam flow for the cases of excluding and including capillary pressure and for two types of gas,nitrogen(N2)and carbon dioxide(CO2)are investigated.Effects of pertinent parameters are also verified.Results indicate that the foam texture strongly governs foam flow in porous media.Required entrance region may be quite different for foam texture to accede local equilibrium,depending on the case and physical properties that are used.According to the fact that the aim of foaming of injected gas is to reduce gas mobility,results show that CO2 is a more proper injecting gas than N2.There are also some ideas presented here on improvement in foam displacement process.This study will provide an insight into future laboratory research and development of full-field foam flow in a porous medium.

Chemical treatment for sand production control:A review of materials,methods,and field operations

Sand production from loosely consolidated reservoirs is one of the critical issues in the oil and gas in-dustry all around the world that can cause many problems,such as erosion of surface and well equip-ment,sand accumulation in wells and operation facilities,buckling of casing in cased-hole wells and well productivity reduction.Sand production control methods include restrictive production rate,mechanical methods(slotted liner,wire-wrapped screen,pre-packed screen,frac-pack,gravel pack,high-rate water pack)and chemical consolidation that chemical method is considered for more effectiveness in sand production alleviation due to increasing formation strength in near wellbore region.This review provides an overview on the laboratory and filed operation investigations of chemical remedy for sand production.Some used chemical agents and more common laboratory tests for evaluating the chemical performance in sand consolidation are introduced in this paper.Furthermore,the results of field operations and in-jections of chemicals into the desired formation are also reported.These results show that the chemical sand consolidation is more effective in newly perforated wells which have no sand production experi-ence and have a production history of less than two years.Finally,it was concluded that the main challenges in applying this method are permeability and capillary force reduction around the wellbore and selective injection into the targeted formation layers.

Enhancing the spontaneous imbibition rate of water in oil-wet dolomite rocks through boosting a wettability alteration process using carbonated smart brines

Most fractured carbonate oil reservoirs have oil-wet rocks.Therefore,the process of imbibing water from the fractures into the matrix is usually poor or basically does not exist due to negative capillary pressure.To achieve appropriate ultimate oil recovery in these reservoirs,a water-based enhanced oil recovery method must be capable of altering the wettability of matrix blocks.Previous studies showed that carbonated water can alter wettability of carbonate oil-wet rocks toward less oil-wet or neutral wettability conditions,but the degree of modification is not high enough to allow water to imbibe spontaneously into the matrix blocks at an effective rate.In this study,we manipulated carbonated brine chemistry to enhance its wettability alteration features and hence to improve water imbibition rate and ultimate oil recovery upon spontaneous imbibition in dolomite rocks.First,the contact angle and interfacial tension(IFT)of brine/crude oil systems were measured for several synthetic brine samples with different compositions.Thereafter,two solutions with a significant difference in WAI(wettability alteration index)but approximately equal brine/oil IFT were chosen for spontaneous imbibition experiments.In the next step,spontaneous imbibition experiments at ambient and high pressures were conducted to evaluate the ability of carbonated smart water in enhancing the spontaneous imbibition rate and ultimate oil recovery in dolomite rocks.Experimental results showed that an appropriate adjustment of the imbibition brine(i.e.,carbonated smart water)chemistry improves imbibition rate of carbonated water in oil-wet dolomite rocks as well as the ultimate oil recovery.

The impact of connate water saturation and salinity on oil recovery and CO2 storage capacity during carbonated water injection in carbonate rock

Carbonated water injection(CWI)is known as an efficient technique for both CO2 storage and enhanced oil recovery(EOR).During CWI process,CO2 moves from the water phase into the oil phase and results in oil swelling.This mechanism is considered as a reason for EOR.Viscous fingering leading to early breakthrough and leaving a large proportion of reservoir un-swept is known as an unfavorable phenomenon during flooding trials.Generally,instability at the interface due to disturbances in porous medium promotes viscous fingering phenomenon.Connate water makes viscous fingers longer and more irregular consisting of large number of tributaries leading to the ultimate oil recovery reduction.Therefore,higher in-situ water content can worsen this condition.Besides,this water can play as a barrier between oil and gas phases and adversely affect the gas diffusion,which results in EOR reduction.On the other hand,from gas storage point of view,it should be noted that CO2 solubility is not the same in the water and oil phases.In this study for a specified water salinity,the effects of different connate water saturations(Swc)on the ultimate oil recovery and CO2 storage capacity during secondary CWI are being presented using carbonate rock samples from one of Iranian carbonate oil reservoir.The results showed higher oil recovery and CO2 storage in the case of lower connate water saturation,as 14%reduction of Swc resulted in 20%and 16%higher oil recovery and CO2 storage capacity,respectively.

Activating solution gas drive as an extra oil production mechanism after carbonated water injection

Enhanced oil recovery(EOR)methods are mostly based on different phenomena taking place at the interfaces between fluid–fluid and rock–fluid phases.Over the last decade,carbonated water injection(CWI)has been considered as one of the multi-objective EOR techniques to store CO2 in the hydrocarbon bearing formations as well as improving oil recovery efficiency.During CWI process,as the reservoir pressure declines,the dissolved CO2 in the oil phase evolves and gas nucleation phenomenon would occur.As a result,it can lead to oil saturation restoration and subsequently,oil displacement due to the hysteresis effect.At this condition,CO2 would act as insitu dissolved gas into the oil phase,and play the role of an artificial solution gas drive(SGD).In this study,the effect of SGD as an extra oil recovery mechanism after secondary and tertiary CWI(SCWI-TCWI)modes has been experimentally investigated in carbonate rocks using coreflood tests.The depressurization tests resulted in more than 25%and 18%of original oil in place(OOIP)because of the SGD after SCWI and TCWI tests,respectively.From the ultimate enhanced oil recovery point of view,the efficiency of SGD was observed to be more than one-third of that of CWI itself.Furthermore,the pressure drop data revealed that the system pressure depends more on the oil production pattern than water production.

Experimental investigation of different brines imbibition influences on co-and counter-current oil flows in carbonate reservoirs

Imbibition of water,as wetting phase in oil-wet fractured carbonate reservoirs,plays a key role in fluid flow between matrix and fracture system.The type of injected seawater and its chemistry would profoundly influence the imbibition process.In this study,the impact of smart water(a brine that its ions have been adjusted to facilitate oil recovery)and low salinity water on co-and counter-current imbibition processes for oil-wet carbonate cores has been experimentally investigated.The results show an increase of about 10% in oil recovery for co-and counter-currents for smart seawater imbibition compared to that of low salinity seawater.In addition,as a result of the influence of co-and counter-current on each other,by co-current removal from one core face,the countercurrent in the other face would be intensified by as much as about 75%.A close examination of different lengths(5,7 and 9 cm)of carbonate cores with the same permeability revealed that by decreasing porous medium length,the amount of counter-current producing oil would be decreased so that in the 5 cm core,counter current oil production will not happen.For similar core lengths by increasing permeability,the share of counter current flow would be decreased approximately 18% since the capillary pressure could not overcome non-wetting phase viscous forces.Considering the role of matrix length along with a modified brine(which is designed according to the matrix mixture)strengthen the relevant mechanisms to have more oil production so that the higher thickness of matrix causes the higher amount of co-current oil producing and consequently more total recovery.

Review on chemical enhanced oil recovery using polymer flooding: Fundamentals, experimental and numerical simulation

The EOR techniques are employed to recover more oil from mature reservoirs after the primary and secondary oil production stages.Polymer flooding as a chemical EOR method involves adding polymer molecules in order to increase water viscosity.Increasing water viscosity will improve the mobility ratio of injected fluid to reservoir fluid toward a more favorable value.Therefore,vertical and areal sweep efficiencies are increased compared to typical water flooding.Polymer flooding will be most effective if applied in the early stages of a water flood while the mobile oil saturation is still high.Polymer is also a critical component when considering other chemical EOR technologies such as alkaline-polymer or alkaline-surfactant-polymer.The present study covers two main parts.In the first part,fundamental of polymer flooding as it related to experimental work and simulation are discussed.The challenge of polymer flooding applications in high temperature and high salinity(HTHS)environment is also discussed in this part.In the second part,the synergy of polymer with surfactant and alkaline as chemical enhancing oil recovery(CEOR)methods is discussed.

Effects of initial wettability and different surfactant-silica nanoparticles flooding scenarios on oil-recovery from carbonate rocks

Initial wettability of rock surfaces plays a crucial role in displacement efficiency during core flooding experiments.In this study,linear alkylbenzene sulfonic acid(LABSA)and silica nanoparticles(NPs)were utilized as enhanced oil recovery(EOR)agents to improve oil recovery from carbonate rock samples.Prior to the core flooding experiments,effects of the presence of LABSA and SiO_(2)NPs on oil-water interfacial tension(IFT),wettability alteration,and surfactant adsorption on the rock surfaces were evaluated.The results of IFT/contact angle measurements showed that by adding 0.03 wt%LABSA,the IFT,and contact angle reduced from the initial values of 36.9 mN/m and 115.6°±0.2°to 8.3 mN/m and 100.3°±0.4°,respectively.Furthermore,incorporating SiO_(2)NPs(0.1 wt%)into the system causes a further decrease in IFT value(dropped to 2.2 mN/m),along with a substantial reduction in contact angle(final contact angle after 6 h soaking into the solution was measured as 64.8°±0.3°).In addition,surfactant loss due to the adsorption on the rock surfaces decreased up to 35%in the presence of SiO_(2)NPs(0.1 wt%).Moreover,various core flooding scenarios in carbonate plugs with different initial wettability conditions were conducted,and the performance of the EOR agents in enhancing oil recovery from oilwet and water-wet core samples in the secondary and tertiary mode of flooding was evaluated.The outcomes revealed that the injection of a combination of chemicals,containing LABSA(0.03 wt%)and SiO_(2)(0.1 wt%)in the secondary mode leads to the highest ultimate oil recovery from sister carbonate core samples.