Sharif Digital Repository

Gas injection into reservoirs can be used to increase oil recovery. However, reservoir heterogeneity and high gas mobility reduce sweep efficiency and decrease recovery. Using foam can reduce gas mobility and therefore increase sweep efficiency. Foam is thermodynamically unstable, so it is important to predict the foam stability. In order to understand the influence of oil presence on foam stability, static experiments performed on foam by varying the type and amount of added oil and molecular weight of added alkane. Also static foam properties have been investigated by varying the surfactant concentration, ionic strength, composition of different salts in the sample, and addition of polymer... 

When the reservoir energy is too low for the well to flow, or the production rate desired is greater than the reservoir energy can deliver, using some kind of artificial lift method to provide the energy to bring the fluid to the surface, seems to be necessary. Continuous flow gas lift is one of the most common artificial lift methods widely used in the oil industry during which, at appropriate pressure, gas is injected in a suitable depth into the tubing to gasify the oil column, and thus assist the production. Each well has an optimal point at which it will produce the most oil. In ideal conditions, at which there is no limitation in the total amount of available gas, a sufficient amount... 

A hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) was introduced to allocate optimum amount of gas. This method was applied to a group of wells in gas lift in the case of availability limited amount of gas. For testing the ability of the proposed HGA, the results of this work with those of previous works in a field with six wells were compared. Then for an Iranian southern west oil field with nine wells, gas allocation is performed using different amount of available gas. The results show that the introduced method (HGA) is very efficient tool in gas allocation issue  

Ultrafine particles of paracetamol were produced by Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solution (RESS). The experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of extraction temperature (313353K), extraction pressure (1018MPa), preexpansion temperature (363403K), and postexpansion temperature (273323 K) on particles size and morphology of paracetamol particles. The characterization of the particles was determined by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis. The average particle size of the original paracetamol was 20.8m, while the average particle size of paracetamol after nanonization via the... 

Toe to heel air injection has been studied on non-fractured sandstone models and is found to be a promising enhanced oil recovery method for certain heavy oil reservoirs, such as those in Canada, but its applicability on fractured reservoirs, such as those in the Middle East, is not investigated yet. The objective of this article is to evaluate the effect of fractures geometrical parameters, such as fracture density, orientation, and location, on the performance of the process in laboratory scale. Simulation results showed that toe-to-heel air injection is more applicable on highly networked fractured reservoirs, such as those that occur in Persian Gulf coast compared to lower density... 

The aim of the present work is to evaluate the effect of fractures geometrical properties such as orientation, density, location, and networking on the conventional fire flooding (CFF) process performance through simulation analysis. Combustion parameters of a fractured low-permeable carbonate heavy oil reservoir in Iran called Kuh-E-Mond (KEM); applied for simulation study and simulator has been validated with KEM combustion tube experimental data. The validated model was modified to study CFF in 3D semi-scaled combustion cells. Simulation results confirmed that CFF is more feasible in the case of densely fractured reservoirs such as those in the Middle East  

Equations of state based on the statistical associating fluid theory for potentials of variable range (SAFT-VR) and the perturbed chain statistical associating fluid theory (PC-SAFT) have been used to model the PVT behavior of ionic liquids and the solubility of H2S in six imidazolium-based ionic liquids. The studied systems included [bmim][PF6], [hmim][PF6], [bmim][BF4], [hmim][BF4], [bmim][NTF2] and [hmim][NTF2] at various temperatures and pressures.For pure components, parameters of the models have been obtained by fitting the models to experimental data on liquid densities; the average relative deviation between the calculated and experimental densities for ionic liquids is less than... 

Experimental Investigation of the Asphaltene Deposition Process during Different Production Schemes - This paper presents the results of asphaltene precipitation and deposition during lean gas injection, CO2 injection and natural depletion in reservoir conditions. In addition, the effect of variations in operating pressure, injection gas concentration and production rate on asphaltene precipitation and deposition were investigated. The severity of asphaltene deposition was found to be more pronounced in lean gas injection in comparison with CO2 injection and natural depletion. Increasing the flow rate in natural depletion xperiments showed a considerable increase in asphaltene deposition,... 

In this study, the values of the surface tension for a number of single aqueous electrolyte solutions were measured at various temperatures and electrolyte concentrations using the well-known and computer-aided pendant-drop method. In order to conduct the experimental measurements, a high-pressure IFT-700 apparatus, equipped with a view cell and a data acquisition system, was used. The systems studied in this study were aqueous solutions of KCl, NaCl, CaCl 2, and Na 2SO 4. The pooled standard deviation and the confidence limit of the surface-tension data for a 95 % confidence level were determined to be 0.17mN · m -1 and σ̄ ± 0.19, respectively. It should be noted that while the surface... 

In this work, PC-SAFT, an equation of state based on perturbation theory, is applied to predict the reservoir fluids phase behavior. PC-SAFT parameters for pure components have previously been assessed, but they cannot be determined for petroleum fractions with unspecified components and composition. In order to remove this difficulty and making use of PC-SAFT model in the reservoir fluids simulations, a new approach is studied which leads to appearing generalized correlations for the estimation of PC-SAFT parameters for petroleum cuts and plus fractions using only their molecular weight and specific gravity, without the essential need for the characterization of petroleum fractions in... 

The results of the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) determination for miscible injection of CO2 and an associated gas of one of Iranian gas reservoirs into two different oil samples using a slim tube device are presented. For an effective determination of the MMP cell-to-cell slim tube simulation was performed for each case before performing the slim tube experiment and the results were used to determine the pressure intervals in the slim tube experiment. A comparison between the measured MMP values from the slim tube experiments and those calculated by cell-to-cell simulation revealed that the cell-to-cell simulation can be a substitute to slim tube test in cases where time is a primary... 

The Conventional Fire Flooding (CFF) process application feasibility on fractured carbonated reservoirs remained questionable. In this paper first combustion parameters and reaction kinetics of a naturally fractured low permeability carbonated heavy oil reservoir in Iran called Kuh-E-Mond applied to simulation study. After that, simulator has been validated with Kuh-E-Mond combustion tube experiment. Recovery mechanism in single block matrix is different from one in conventional model since oxygen first flows into the fractures and then diffuses from all sides into the matrix. Combustion of the oil in the fractures produces some water ahead of fracture combustion front which prohibits oxygen... 

Experimental values for surface tension of single and mixed electrolyte solutions were correlated using the models based on the perturbation theory. The Mean Spherical Approximation (MSA) model, coupled with the Ghotbi-Vera (GV) and the Mansoori et al. (BMCSL) equations of state, were used to correlate the experimental values of the surface tension. The results showed that the models can favourably correlate the experimental values for single electrolyte solutions. However, it was observed that the GV-MSA model can more accurately predict the surface tension for single electrolytes, especially at higher concentrations. Two different expressions for concentration dependency of cation hydrated... 

Acidizing is one of the most effective techniques to remove the formation damage and restore (or even increase) the permeability of the near wellbore region. Although this technique is widely used to resolve the skin problem, it could initiate new damages itself that hinder the fluid flow and decrease the well production, consequently. Acid-oil emulsion and sludge formation are known as two major induced formation damage and the main reasons for the oil well acid treatment failures. Despite its critical effects, no comprehensive study has been addressed this specific type of formation damages in details. In this study, the acid-oil emulsion and asphaltic sludge formation were evaluated... 

In this work, the Ion Pair Modified Ghotbi-Vera Mean Spherical Approximation (IP-MGV-MSA) model was proposed to correlate the mean ionic activity coefficients (MIAC) for a number of symmetric and asymmetric aqueous electrolyte solutions at 25 °C. The new model is based on the recently proposed MGV-MSA model by Mortazavi-Manesh et al. In the IP-MGV-MSA model, the effects arising from the ion pair formation in the electrolyte solution was taken into account. Also, in the proposed model, while the cation diameter as well as the relative permittivity of water was considered to be dependent on electrolyte concentration, the anion diameter was independent of electrolyte concentration. The results... 

The solubility of CO2 in the systems of CO2 + benzene, CO2 + n-hexane, and CO2 + toluene was meticulously measured at (293.15, 298.15, and 308.15) K and different pressures using a pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) apparatus. Also the effect of pressure on the solubility of CO2 in the organic solvents used in this work was investigated. The Peng-Robinson equation of state (PR EOS) with only one temperature-independent binary interaction parameter was used in correlating the experimental data. The results showed that the PR EOS can accurately correlate the experimental data for the solubility of CO2 in the organic solvents at high pressure. In case of the systems CO2 + benzene and CO2 +... 

In this work a modified form of the Ghotbi-Vera Mean Spherical Approximation model (MGV-MSA) has been used to correlate the mean ionic activity coefficients (MIAC) for a number of symmetric and asymmetric aqueous electrolyte solutions at 25 °C. In the proposed model the hard sphere as well as the electrostatic contributions to the MIAC and the osmotic coefficient of the previously GV-MSA model has been modified. The results of the proposed model for the MIAC of the electrolyte solutions studied in this work are used to directly calculate the values of the osmotic coefficients without introducing any new adjustable parameter. In the MGV-MSA model the cation diameter as well as the relative... 

In this work the Ghotbi-Vera mean spherical approximation (GV-MSA) model, coupled with two different expressions for the cation-hydrated diameters, was used in predicting the mean ionic activity coefficients (MIAC) of electrolytes for a number of the mixed-solvent and mixed-salt electrolyte solutions at 25 °C. In all cases the cation diameters in solutions changed with concentration of electrolyte while the anion diameters were considered to be constant and equal to the corresponding Pauling diameters. In application of the GV-MSA model to the electrolyte systems, two different expressions were used for concentration dependency of cation-hydrated diameters, i.e., the GV-MSA1 and GV-MSA2... 

The GV-MSA, the BMCSL-MSA and the Pitzer models were used to correlate the individual, the mean ionic activity coefficients and the osmotic coefficients of symmetric and asymmetric electrolyte solutions. In order to compare the results obtained from the GV-MSA with those obtained from the Pitzer and the BMCSL-MSA models, the same experimental data and the same minimization procedure were used and the new sets of parameters for the BMCSL-MSA and the Pitzer models were also reported. The values for the osmotic coefficients of electrolyte solutions were calculated directly using the values of the mean ionic activity coefficients obtained from the models studied in this work. The results for the...