Doctoral Dissertations

Keywords and Phrases

Comprehensive Evaluation; Enhance Oil Recovery; Fractured Reservoirs; Low Salinity Water Flooding; Novel EOR Method; Preformed Particle Gel

Abstract

"Excess water production in oil fields is becoming a challenging economic and environmental problem as more reservoirs are maturing. Water channeling, one of the primary reservoir conformance problems, is caused by reservoir heterogeneities that lead to the development of high-permeability streaks. The recovery of oil from carbonate reservoirs is usually low due to their extreme heterogeneity caused by natural fractures and the nature of oil-wet matrix. Also, oil recovery from fractured sandstone reservoirs is often low due to areal heterogeneity. Gel treatments have proven to be a successful and inexpensive fluid diversion method when used to plug the thief zones and thereby improve sweep efficiency in reservoirs. However, particle gel treatment can only be used to plug fractures or high permeable channels to improve sweep efficiency and has little effect on displacement efficiency.

Oil recovery is the product of displacement efficiency (ED) and sweep efficiency (ES). Particle gels can plug fractures and improve sweep efficiency, but they have little effect on displacement efficiency. Low salinity water flooding (LSWF) can only increase displacement efficiency but has little or no effect on sweep efficiency. The main objective of this research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the combined LSWF-PPG technology and to show how the coupling method can improve oil recovery.

We developed a cost-effective, novel, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology for fractured reservoirs by coupling the two technologies into one process. The coupled method bypasses the limitations of each method when used individually and improves both displacement and sweep efficiency"--Abstract, page iv.

Advisor(s)

Bai, Baojun
Wei, Mingzhen

Committee Member(s)

Flori, Ralph E.
Hendrix, Rickey
Neogi, P. (Partho), 1951-

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Degree Name

Ph. D. in Petroleum Engineering

Sponsor(s)

Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA)
United States Department of Energy
Missan Oil Company
Missouri Research Board
Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq (HCED)

Comments

US Department of Energy subcontract #11123-3 and for contract DE-FE0024558.

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Spring 2018

Journal article titles appearing in thesis/dissertation

  • Experimental study of combining low salinity water flooding and preformed particle gel to enhance oil recovery for fractured carbonate reservoirs
  • Evaluation of combined low-salinity water and microgel treatments to improve oil recovery using partial fractured carbonate models
  • Combined ionically modified seawater and microgels to improve oil recovery in fractured carbonate reservoirs
  • Areal sweep efficiency improvement by integrating preformed particle gel and low salinity water flooding in fractured reservoirs
  • Preformed particle gel injection chased by low salinity waterflooding in fractured carbonate cores

Pagination

xxi, 195 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographic references.

Rights

© 2018 Ali Khayoon Khalaf Alhuraishawy, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Thesis Number

T 11257

Electronic OCLC #

1041856919

Download

Share

 
COinS