Masters Theses

Abstract

"Achieving higher recovery of oil from proven carbonate reserves around the world is not an easy task. One promising new method, especially for carbonate reservoirs, is the use of "Smart Water" technology, which is an injection water with carefully determined, optimal ionic composition and salinity. Recent experiments have shown good recovery results, but the mechanism of wettability alteration by this fluid are still not well understood. The goal of this study is to review the high and optimal salinity and ionic composition literature plus perform dimensional analysis of key variables in order to shed light on the physical and chemical factors of improved recovery in carbonates. This work will discuss physical and thermal principles and relationships of flow and heat distributions in the presence of the rock-fluid reaction. A series of logical connection among plenty of physical and chemical principles using Buckingham Pi theorem in the dimensionless analysis has proposed to model and find a general formula that can best fit to describe the nature of the resulting changes accompanied with heat and flow transport through a porous medium in the presence of an abundance of sulfate concentrations. The primary purpose of this work is to show the factors that can control the wettability alteration using the chalk-sulfate system using the proposed general formula and predict the likely phenomenon such as undesirable mineral deposition, diagnosing the diffusion reduction, and fingering possibility. This work will show the numerical estimation of the contact angles of wettability alteration for two crude oils, oil A and B using smart brine contains four times sulfate concentration at different temperatures 70 C⁰, 90 C⁰, 100 C⁰, and 120 C⁰ reinforced by Buckingham Pi theorem and series of proven empirical correlations used to derive the general formula of wettability alteration mechanism in carbonates"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Flori, Ralph E.

Committee Member(s)

Dunn-Norman, Shari
Wei, Mingzhen

Department(s)

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering

Degree Name

M.S. in Petroleum Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Fall 2016

Pagination

x, 91 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 87-90).

Rights

© 2016 Ahmed Abdulkareem Hussein Albahrani

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Enhanced oil recoveryOil fields -- Production methodsSurface active agentsCarbonate rocks

Thesis Number

T 11008

Electronic OCLC #

974715232

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