Further, to clarify its recovery mechanism, a visualization technique and a quantitative method were developed for regulating phase behaviors and upgrading reactions between heavy oil and supercritical water. Results showed that supercritical water has good miscibility with heavy oil, and it is the key to both enhanced oil recovery and in situ upgrading. High miscibility means formation of supercritical water clusters around organic macromolecules, which makes asphaltene difficult to aggregate and polymerize to form coke but easy to decompose to form maltene and recover. Overall, supercritical water injection has made great advances in enhanced oil recovery, energy saving, and in situ upgrading for heavy oil recovery. The work provides a sound basis for its application in oilfields.

Zhao, S., Sun, Y., Lü, X., Li, Q., 2020. Energy consumption and product release characteristics evaluation of oil shale non-isothermal pyrolysis based on TG-DSC. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 187, 106812.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920410519312318 Thermogravimetric-Differential Scanning Calorimetry Analysis (TG-DSC) was applied to study non-isothermal pyrolysis characteristics of oil shales, such as the starting point, stability, pyrolysis interval and product release using Fuyu and Huadian oil shale samples. Results show that with the increase of heating rate, oil shale pyrolysis moves to higher temperature zone. This trend is more noticeable at higher oil content. The pyrolysis stability of the oil shale is related to oil content and pyrolysis atmosphere. The higher the oil content, the more stable the pyrolysis of the oil shale. Under nitrogen atmosphere, the pyrolysis interval of oil shale is more concentrated, air prolongs the pyrolysis interval, and the pyrolysis stability index decreases. In addition, the increase of heating rate favours the release characteristic index of the product, which is not practically affected by oil content. The release characteristic indices of pyrolysis products from oil shale under nitrogen atmosphere are higher than those under air atmosphere. The optimum heating rate that produces the highest oil product yield for pyrolysis progress of Huadian oil shale is 20 °C/min, and Fuyu oil shale is 40 °C/min.

Zheng, M., Liu, T., Jiang, G., Wei, M., Huo, Y., Liu, L., 2020. Large-scale and high-similarity experimental study of the effect of drilling fluid penetration on physical properties of gas hydrate-bearing sediments in the Gulf of Mexico. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 187, 106832.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920410519312513 In this study, the process of drilling fluid penetrating into gas hydrate-bearing sediments in the Gulf of Mexico Hydrate Joint Industry Project was simulated with conditions similar to in situ drilling process parameters and reservoir temperatures and pressures. Natural sediments were replaced by artificial sediments columns with approximately similar physical properties. The temperature, pressure, and resistivity were measured in real time, and the effects of drilling fluid penetration on the physical properties were analyzed. The hydrate saturation, penetration depth, and influence mechanism of temperature and pressure difference were obtained. By orthogonal analysis, the porosity and resistivity of the artificial sediments columns were found to be optimized closely to natural conditions, with a difference of 1.29% and 4.0%, respectively. During penetration, a positive pressure difference was useful for maintaining hydrate stability, while the temperature difference had an opposite influence. High density, low temperature, and low filtration loss drilling fluid were found to be beneficial for field drilling. Hydrate decomposition gradually occurred with increasing depth, accompanied by reformation. The front edge of resistivity lagged behind the pressure and temperature, with a depth of ~0.65 m. Therefore, for resistivity logging after drilling, logging methods with a coordinated detection depth should be considered; thus, a dual laterolog with deep focused resistivity measurements would be a better choice.

Zhou, A., Weber, Y., Chiu, B.K., Elling, F.J., Cobban, A.B., Pearson, A., Leavitt, W.D., 2020. Energy flux controls Sulfolobus acidocaldarius tetraether lipid cyclization in . Environmental Microbiology 22, 343-353.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.14851 Microorganisms regulate the composition of their membranes in response to environmental cues. Many Archaea maintain the fluidity and permeability of their membranes by adjusting the number of cyclic moieties within the