Concerned with production decline, shortages of new oil reserves, and increasing world energy demand, the oil sector continues to search for economic and efficient techniques to enhance their oil recovery from the existing oil field using several enhanced oil recovery techniques (EOR)methods. Despite its highefficiency, widely acclaimed potentials, and limitations, the Low Salinity Water Flooding (LSWF), hybrid, and nanotechnology applications have gained vast interest with promising future to increase ultimate oil recovery, tackle operational challenges, reduce environmental damage, and allow the highest feasible recoveries with lower production costs. This synergistic combination has opened new routes for novel materials with fascinating properties. This book aims to provide an overview of EOR technology such as LSWF, hybrid, and nanotechnology applications in EOR processes.

Written by foremost experts in the field, and formulated with attention to classroom use for advanced studies in reservoir characterization and processes, this book reviews and summarises state-of-the-art progress in the field of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). All of the available techniques: alkaline flooding; surfactant flooding; carbon dioxide flooding; steam flooding; in-situ combustion; gas injection; miscible flooding; microbial recovery; and polymer flooding are discussed and compared. Together with Volume I, it presents a complete text on enhanced recovery technology and, hence, is an almost indispensible reference text.This second volume compliments the first by presenting as complete an analysis as possible of current oilfield theory and technology, for accomplishment of maximum production of oil. Many different processes have been developed and field tested for enhancement of oil recovery. The emerging philosophy is that no single process is applicable to all petroleum reservoirs. Each must be treated as unique, and carefully evaluated for characteristics that are amenable to one or two of the proven technologies of EOR. This book will aid the engineer in field evaluation and selection of the best EOR technology for a given oilfield. Even the emerging technology of microbial applications to enhance oil recovery are reviewed and explained in terms that are easily understood by field engineers.The book is presented in a manner suitable for graduate studies. The only addition required of teachers is to supply example problems for class work. An appendix includes a reservoir mathematic model and program for general application that can also be used for teaching.

Hybrid Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes for Heavy Oil Reservoirs, Volume 73 systematically introduces these technologies. As the development of heavy oil reservoirs is emphasized, the petroleum industry is faced with the challenges of selecting cost-effective and environmentally friendly recovery processes. This book tackles these challenges with the introduction and investigation of a variety of hybrid EOR processes. In addition, it addresses the application of these hybrid EOR processes in onshore and offshore heavy oil reservoirs, including theoretical, experimental and simulation approaches. This book will be very useful for petroleum engineers, technicians, academics and students who need to study the hybrid EOR processes, In addition, it will provide an excellent reference for field operations by the petroleum industry. Introduces emerging hybrid EOR processes and their technical details Includes case studies to help readers understand the application potential of hybrid EOR processes from different points-of-view Features theoretical, experimental and simulation studies to help readers understand the advantages and challenges of each process

Simulating thermal processes is usually computationally expensive because of the complexity of the problem and strong nonlinearities encountered. In this work, we explore novel and efficient simulation techniques to solve thermal enhanced oil recovery problems. We focus on two major topics: the extension of streamline simulation for thermal enhanced oil recovery and the efficient simulation of chemical reaction kinetics as applied to the in-situ combustion process. For thermal streamline simulation, we first study the extension to hot water flood processes, in which we have temperature induced viscosity changes and thermal volume changes. We first compute the pressure field on an Eulerian grid. We then solve for the advective parts of the mass balance and energy equations along the individual streamlines, accounting for the compressibility effects. At the end of each global time step, we account for the nonadvective terms on the Eulerian grid along with gravity using operator splitting. We test our streamline simulator and compare the results with a commercial thermal simulator. Sensitivity studies for compressibility, gravity and thermal conduction effects are presented. We further extended our thermal streamline simulation to steam flooding. Steam flooding exhibits large volume changes and compressibility associated with the phase behavior of steam, strong gravity segregation and override, and highly coupled energy and mass transport. To overcome these challenges we implement a novel pressure update along the streamlines, a Glowinski scheme operator splitting and a preliminary streamline/finite volume hybrid approach. We tested our streamline simulator on a series of test cases. We compared our thermal streamline results with those computed by a commercial thermal simulator for both accuracy and efficiency. For the cases investigated, we are able to retain solution accuracy, while reducing computational cost and gaining connectivity information from the streamlines. These aspects are useful for reservoir engineering purposes. In traditional thermal reactive reservoir simulation, mass and energy balance equations are solved numerically on discretized reservoir grid blocks. The reaction terms are calculated through Arrhenius kinetics using cell-averaged properties, such as averaged temperature and reactant concentrations. For the in-situ combustion process, the chemical reaction front is physically very narrow, typically a few inches thick. To capture accurately this front, centimeter-sized grids are required that are orders of magnitude smaller than the affordable grid block sizes for full field reservoir models. To solve this grid size effect problem, we propose a new method based on a non-Arrhenius reaction upscaling approach. We do not resolve the combustion front on the grid, but instead use a subgrid-scale model that captures the overall effects of the combustion reactions on flow and transport, i.e. the amount of heat released, the amount of oil burned and the reaction products generated. The subgrid-scale model is calibrated using fine-scale highly accurate numerical simulation and laboratory experiments. This approach significantly improves the computational speed of in-situ combustion simulation as compared to traditional methods. We propose the detailed procedures to implement this methodology in a field-scale simulator. Test cases illustrate the solution consistency when scaling up the grid sizes in multidimensional heterogeneous problems. The methodology is also applicable to other subsurface reactive flow modeling problems with fast chemical reactions and sharp fronts. Displacement front stability is a major concern in the design of all the enhanced oil recovery processes. Historically, premature combustion front break through has been an issue for field operations of in-situ combustion. In this work, we perform detailed analysis based on both analytical methods and numerical simulation. We identify the different flow regimes and several driving fronts in a typical 1D ISC process. For the ISC process in a conventional mobile heavy oil reservoir, we identify the most critical front as the front of steam plateau driving the cold oil bank. We discuss the five main contributors for this front stability/instability: viscous force, condensation, heat conduction, coke plugging and gravity. Detailed numerical tests are performed to test and rank the relative importance of all these different effects.

This book offers practical concepts of EOR processes and summarizes the fundamentals of bioremediation of oil-contaminated sites. The first section presents a simplified description of EOR processes to boost the recovery of oil or to displace and produce the significant amounts of oil left behind in the reservoir during or after the course of any primary and secondary recovery process; it highlights the emerging EOR technological trends and the areas that need research and development; while the second section focuses on the use of biotechnology to remediate the inevitable environmental footprint of crude oil production; such is the case of accidental oil spills in marine, river, and land environments. The readers will gain useful and practical insights in these fields.

Fundamentals of Enhanced Oil Recovery Methods for Unconventional Oil Reservoirs, Volume 67 provides important guidance on which EOR methods work in shale and tight oil reservoirs. This book helps readers learn the main fluid and rock properties of shale and tight reservoirs—which are the main target for EOR techniques—and understand the physical and chemical mechanisms for the injected EOR fluids to enhance oil recovery in shale and tight oil reservoirs. The book explains the effects of complex hydraulic fractures and natural fractures on the performance of each EOR technique. The book describes the parameters affecting obtained oil recovery by injecting different EOR methods in both the microscopic and macroscopic levels of ULR. This book also provides proxy models to associate the functionality of the improved oil recovery by injecting different EOR methods with different operating parameters, rock, and fluid properties. The book provides profesasionals working in the petroleum industry the know-how to conduct a successful project for different EOR methods in shale plays, while it also helps academics and students in understanding the basics and principles that make the performance of EOR methods so different in conventional reservoirs and unconventional formations. - Provides a general workflow for how to conduct a successful project for different EOR methods in these shale plays - Provides general guidelines for how to select the best EOR method according to the reservoir characteristics and wells stimulation criteria - Explains the basics and principles that make the performance of EOR methods so different in conventional reservoirs versus unconventional formations

Commercial application of chemical enhanced oil recovery (cEOR) processes is expected to grow significantly over the next decade. Thus, Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (cEOR): A Practical Overview offers key knowledge and understanding of cEOR processes using an evidence-based approach intended for a broad audience ranging from field operators, researchers, to reservoir engineers dealing with the development and planning of cEOR field applications. This book is structured into three sections; the first section surveys overall EOR processes. The second section focuses on cEOR processes, while the final section describes the electrorheology technology. These sections are presented using a practical and realistic approach tailored for readers looking to improve their knowledge and understanding of cEOR processes in a nutshell.

This volume provides a comprehensive review that consolidates all of the pertinent information available. Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) involves many scientific disciplines, many different approaches, and many different countries. This book supplies the information needed for continued development of MEO methods and points out areas where information is lacking and where more research is needed. This easy-to-use resource focuses on the three types of MEOR processes which can be utilized to recover oil from reservoirs. Successful MEOR involves contributions from petroleum, chemical, genetic, environmental, geotechnical, and bioengineering. Also, geology, chemistry, and microbiology play a major role as well. This critical review book includes a comprehensive reference list and opens the lines of communication among the various fields of study. This work will also encourage the exchange of ideas and interaction necessary for success in this quickly developing technology. Scientists, researchers, and practitioners will find this text to be interesting, informative, and indispensable.consolidatesR