bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Nano Method for a Big Challenge: Nanosilica-Based Sealing System for Water Shutoff
Authors: Almohsin Ayman , Hung Jin , Alabdrabalnabi Mohammed , Sherief Mohammed
Published: December 2021

Minimizing unwanted water production from oil wells is highly required in the petroleum industry. This would lead to improved economic life of mature wells that involve new and innovative technologies. Nanosilica-based sealing fluid has been developed to address problems associated with unwanted water production. The objective of this work is to evaluate a newly developed novel water shutoff system based on nanosilica over a wide range of parameters. This modified nanosilica has a smooth, spherical shape, and are present in a narrow particle size distribution. Therefore, it can be used for water management in different water production mechanisms including high permeability streak, wormhole, and fractured reservoirs. A systematic evaluation of novel nanosilica/activator for water shutoff purposes requires the examination of the chemical properties before, during, and after gelation at given reservoir conditions. These properties are solution initial viscosity, gelation time, injectivity, and strength of the formed gel against applied external forces in different flooding systems.

This paper details a promising method to control undesired water production using eco-friendly, cost-effective nanosilica. Experimental results revealed that nanosilica initially exhibited a low viscosity and hence providing a significant advantage in terms of mixing and pumping requirements. Nanosilica gelation time, which is a critical factor in placement of injected-chemical treatment, can be tailored by adjusting the activator concentration to match field requirements at the desired temperature. In addition, core flood tests were conducted in carbonate core plugs, Berea sandstone rock, and artificially fractured (metal tube) to investigate the performance of the chemical treatment. Flow tests clearly indicated that the water production significantly dropped in all tested types of rocks. The environmental scanning electron microscope (SEM) results showed the presence of SiO-rich compounds suggesting that the tested nanosilica product filled the porous media; therefore, it blocked the whole core plug. A novel cost-effective sealant that uses nanotechnology to block the near wellbore region has been developed. The performance and methods controlling its propagation rate into a porous medium will be presented. Based on the outcomes, it must be emphasized that these trivial particles have a promising application in the oil reservoir for water shutoff purposes.
Connecting Reservoir, Wells, Facilities Management, HSEE to Accelerate Data Driven Value: Digital Fields Expansion
Authors: Abu Bakar Afdzal Hizamal , Jamaluddin Muhamad Nasri , Musa Rizwan , Fuenmayor Roberto , Trivedi Rajesh , Mokhlis Mohamad Mustaqim , Hassan Muhammad Firdaus , Mohamad Azili Ammar , Harith Mikhail , Kamarulzaman Ammar
Published: December 2021

Oil & gas industry player have always been big investors in advancement of technology, especially in the direction of extracting additional petroleum to address the production decline.

In the spirit of automation, PETRONAS has various automated technical workflows that tackles different types of challenges and purposes. The operational, technical and engineering aspects of increasing production and effectiveness of execution are built upon these processes related to automation of data sources as well as systems integration.

With the recent challenge that forced the employees to work remotely, it is now more important than ever to ensure that the Digital Fields (DF) solution can cater for more information and to transform the way of working. Linking distant teams to work together on the same platform to resolve production related issues, centralized monitoring and diagnostics is key to this transformation.

Workflows can enable organizational vision since having the right type of information available in a visualization environment that provides actionable insights to the right "persona" across different domains and teams accelerates production increases and decreases the production decline at brown fields. The success of this is linked with working together with the Reservoir, Wells and Facilities Management (RWFM) team to ensure the critical information are captured.

The improved synergy between offshore and onshore staff due to the shared operations visualization supports further analysis and decision making irrespective of their location. Providing the "persona" with the relevant production and other related data in a modern analytical platform allows them to concentrate on production optimization rather than the data gathering aspect of the traditional method.

PETRONAS has considerable experience in developing automated digital oilfield workflow solutions and extending Digital Fields capabilities with greater coverage of other systems such as Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) and topside facility management is part of the current and future roadmap.

In this paper, we will describe the journey taken by PETRONAS Upstream Digital in extending the Digital Fields capability, and how the effort in digital transformation has helped in unlocking greater value in the daily operation.
Magnetically Labelled Hybrid Nanosurfactant MLHNS for Upstream Oil and Gas Operations
Authors: AlJabri Nouf , Shatteb Hussain , Saffar Mustafa , AbdelFattah Amr
Published: December 2021

Nanoencapsulation and targeted chemical delivery techniques have transformed many fields such as pharmaceutical drug delivery for medical treatment and diagnosis, and can similarly transform several upstream oil and gas operations. This paper describes the dual nanoencapsulation of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPOINs) and petroleum sulfonate surfactants to produce hybrid nanosurfactant (MLHNS) in high-salinity water (56,000 ppm) using an inexpensive, scalable, and straightforward synthesis protocol. This novel magnetically labelled nanofluid (NF) is designed to: 1) enhance the residual oil mobilization via altering the rocks wettability and reducing the interfacial tension, and 2) enable in-situ monitoring of injected fluids when combined with EM surveys.

NFs encapsulating a petroleum sulfonate surfactant and three different concentrations of 5-nm SPOINs were prepared using a two-step nanoencapsulation method. Both colloidal and chemical stability of the prepared formulations were tested at 90 °C for over a year. Results showed that all the formulations exhibited remarkable long-term colloidal and chemical stability under these close-to-reservoir conditions. Transition electron microscopy (TEM) images confirmed the encapsulation of SPIONs. The SPOINs-NFs have successfully reduced the interfacial tension (IFT) between crude oil and water by more than three orders of magnitude (from ~ 25 mN/m down to ~ 0.01 mN/m). These IFT and stability results demonstrate a strong synergy between SPIONs and the petroleum sulfonate surfactant. It is worth mentioning that this novel encapsulation platform enables the encapsulation of a wide range of nanoparticles (NPs) to generate a library of multi-function NFs to support several upstream applications.
A Machine-Learning Based Workflow for Predicting Overpressure in a Stiff Dolomitic Formation
Authors: Nivlet Philippe , Yang Yunlai , Magana-Mora Arturo , Abughaban Mahmoud , Abegunde Ayodeji
Published: December 2021

Overpressure refers to the abnormally high subsurface pressure that may exceed hydrostatic pressure at a given depth. Its characterization is an important part of subsurface characterization as it allows to complete drilling operations in a safe and optimal way. In dolomitic formations, however, the prediction of such overpressure is especially challenging because of (1) the high degree of lateral variability of the formations, (2) the limited effect of overpressure on tight rocks elastic parameters, and (3) the complexity of physical processes involved to form overpressure. In addition to these factors, existing experimental models generally used to relate elastic parameters to pressure are often not well calibrated to carbonate rocks. The alternative to existing purely physical approaches is a data-driven model that leverages data from offset wells. We show that due to the complexity of the characterization question to be solved, an end-to-end machine learning based approach is deemed to fail. Instead of a fully automated approach, we show a semi-supervised workflow that integrates seismic, geological data, and overpressure observations from previously drilled wells to map overpressure regions. Attribute maps are first extracted from a 3D seismic data set in an overpressured geological formation of interest. An auto-encoder is then used to learn a more compact representation of data, resulting in a reduced number of latent attributes. Then, a hand-tailored semi-supervised approach is applied, which is a combination of clustering method (here based on DBSCAN algorithm) and Bayesian classification to determine overpressure risk degree (no risk, mild, or high risk). The approach described in this study is compared to direct end-to-end models and significantly outperforms them with an error on a blind well prediction of around 25%. The overpressure probability maps resulting from the models can be used later for the optimization of drilling processes and to reduce drilling hazards.
An Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Changing the Rock's Wettability on the Performance of Carbonated Water Injection CWI
Authors: Castaneda Jaime Orlando , Alhashboul Almohannad , Farzaneh Amir , Sohrabi Mehran
Published: December 2021

CWI is affected by multiple factors, including the wettability of the rock. These experiments seek to determine the results that are obtained when CW is injected in a tertiary mode for systems: (1) wetted by water and (2) mixed wettability; to date, no study has used this approach. The same sandstone core was used in all trials, and each test consisted of saturating the core with live crude, followed by the injection of water as a secondary recovery and then the injection of CW as a tertiary recovery. An additional sensitivity test was conducted that consisted of varying the composition of the dissolved gas in the crude. In general, in a water wet system, the recovery associated with the injection of CW is higher (normalized) compared to a mixed wettability system. This does not mean that the results were negative in the mixed system. On the contrary, the results are positive since on the order of an additional 20% was recovered. However, the pressure differential in a mixed system is higher (14%) compared to water wet system. Although it is common knowledge that wettability of the rock affects the production and pressure results in an experiment, these are the first experiments that have been performed exclusively to determine quantitatively the response to CWI while maintaining the other parameters constant.
Novel CO2/N2 Foam Concept and Optimization Scheme for Improving CO2-foam EOR Process
Authors: Gajbhiye Rahul
Published: December 2021

Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide are the most common gases utilized in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. Most of the gas injection process suffers from the gravity override and viscous fingering resulting in lower oil recovery. Foam is introduced in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) to mitigate these problems encountered during gas flooding. When it comes to the CO2-gas injection the CO2-becomes supercritical at a typical reservoir condition giving it difficulty to form CO2-foam at reservoir condition. The CO2-foam has a common problem to become weaker above its supercritical conditions of 1100 psi and 31°C. As a result, the advantages of using CO2 foam are diminished due to the weakness of CO2-foam at supercritical conditions and results in a lower recovery.

However, CO2-foam can be generated by replacing a portion of CO2 with N2 gas. It lacks the understating of mixture properties and its effect on EOR. This study evaluates the performance of CO2/N2 foam at supercritical conditions for EOR. It aims to improve recovery under supercritical conditions by using N2/CO2 mixture foam and optimize the foam quality and CO2/N2 ratio.

The results from the experiments showed that the CO2/N2 foam flooding recovered an additional oil of Original Initial Oil in Place (OIIP) indicating that foam flooding succeeded in producing more oil than pure CO2-foam injection processes. Also, the results of foam flooding at different foam quality and CO2/N2 ratio significantly affected the performance and recovery of the process. Hence it is necessary to optimize the CO2/N2 foam parameters flooding process which is affected by the parameters such as foam quality and CO2/N2 ratio. The study also shows an experimental approach for optimizing CO2/N2 foam parameters.

The concept of adding N2 to CO2 is a novel way of generating CO2 foam at supercritical conditions. Although investigators are trying different ways to generate the strong and stable CO2- foam, adding N2 to CO2 can be considered to be the easiest way for foam generation as CO2 is always having some impurities in the form of other gases and N2 can be considered as one of such gas helps in generating the foam.
Interwell Saturation Prediction by Artificial Intelligence Analysis of Well Logs
Authors: Kovalev Dmitry , Safonov Sergey , Katterbauer Klemens , Marsala Alberto
Published: December 2021

Well log analysis, through deploying advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, is key for wellbore geological studies. By analyzing different well characteristics with modern AI tools it becomes possible to estimate interwell saturation with improved accuracy, outlining primary fluid channels and saturation propagations in the reservoirs interwell region. The development of modern deep learning and artificial intelligence methods allows analysts to predict interwell saturation as a function of observed data in the near wellbore logged geological layers. This work addresses the use of deep neural network architectures as well as tensor regression models for predicting interwell saturation from other well characteristics, such as resistivity and porosity, as well as local near-well saturation. Several algorithms are compared in terms of both accuracy and computational efficiency. Sensitivity analysis for model parameters is carried out, which is based on the wells’ geometry, radius, and multiple sampling techniques. Additionally, the impact of local saturation prior knowledge on the model accuracy is analyzed. A reservoir box model encompassing volumetric interwell porosity, resistivity and saturation data was utilized for the validating and testing of the AI algorithms. A prototype is developed with Python 3.6 programming language.
The Impacts of Increased Ductility in Organic-Rich Shale on Fracture Network Growth by Hydraulic Fracturing
Authors: Huang Chang , Chen Shengli
Published: December 2021

The difficulty of hydraulic fracturing in organic-rich shale caused by the increased ductility has not been well interpreted quantitatively, although it is well perceived that the increased shale ductility can impede the propagation of hydraulic fractures and enhance the healing of created fractures upon injection shutdown. This study aims to quantitatively study the impacts of increased ductility on the stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) using an advanced XFEM-based simulator.

To achieve this goal, a modified cohesive zone model has been integrated into an in-house fully coupled poroelastic XFEM framework. The study continues by extending the functionality of the numerical framework to simulating multiple interacting fractures. The utilization of the object-oriented programming paradigm in the development of the framework makes it an easy extension to include the multi-fracture network by creating more instances of crack segments. A main hydraulic fracture with an arbitrary number of intersected branches can thus be modeled. A series of parametric studies will be conducted to investigate the impacts of increased ductility on the induced SRV by varying four involved material parameters individually.

The modified cohesive zone model, which is essentially a traction-separation law (TSL), is characterized by four parameters: the initial tensile strength Tini, ultimate tensile strength Tkrg, the critical separation Dc, and the final crack separation Dmax. It can flexibly model different crack opening scenarios and simulate more realistically the increased shale ductility. The fully coupled poroelastic XFEM framework has been comprehensively verified against the latest semi-analytical solutions on the four well-known propagation regimes. The numerical results show that the shape of TSL does affect the main hydraulic fracture growth as well as the evolvement of the fracture network, given the same cohesive crack energy and tensile strength. It infers that ductility is not only controlled by cohesive crack energy and tensile strength, which further indicates the necessity of the newly proposed cohesive zone model. The magnitude of the initial tensile strength, controlling when the cohesive crack starts propagating, is found to have the greatest impacts on the fracture length, and SRV, among all four TSL parameters.

The novelty of this study is two-fold. First, the newly modified cohesive zone model can more realistically represent the increased shale ductility. Second, the advanced XFEM framework that enables the simulation of a fracture network can study the impacts of increased ductility on the whole SRV but not a single crack.
Wellbore Stability Beyond Mud Weight
Authors: Khan Khaqan , Altwaijri Mohammad , Ahmed Sajjad
Published: December 2021

Drilling oil and gas wells with stable and good quality wellbores is essential to minimize drilling difficulties, acquire reliable openhole logs data, run completions and ensure well integrity during stimulation. Stress-induced compressive rock failure leading to enlarged wellbore is a common form of wellbore instability especially in tectonic stress regime. For a particular well trajectory, wellbore stability is generally considered a result of an interplay between drilling mud density (i.e., mud weight) and subsurface geomechanical parameters including in-situ earth stresses, formation pore pressure and rock strength properties. While role of mud system and chemistry can also be important for water sensitive formations, mud weight is always a fundamental component of wellbore stability analysis. Hence, when a wellbore is unstable (over-gauge), it is believed that effective mud support was insufficient to counter stress concentration around wellbore wall. Therefore, increasing mud weight based on model validation and calibration using offset wells data is a common approach to keep wellbore stable.

However, a limited number of research articles show that wellbore stability is a more complex phenomenon affected not only by geomechanics but also strongly influenced by downhole forces exerted by drillstring vibrations and high mud flow rates. Authors of this paper also observed that some wells drilled with higher mud weight exhibit more unstable wellbore in comparison with offset wells which contradicts the conventional approach of linking wellbore stability to stresses and rock strength properties alone. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyze wellbore stability considering both geomechanical and drilling parameters to explain observed anomalous wellbore enlargements in two vertical wells drilled in the same field and reservoir.

The analysis showed that the well drilled with 18% higher mud weight compared with its offset well and yet showing more unstable wellbore was, in fact, drilled with more aggressive drilling parameters. The aggressive drilling parameters induce additional mechanical disturbance to the wellbore wall causing more severe wellbore enlargements. We devised a new approach of wellbore stability management using two-pronged strategy. It focuses on designing an optimum weight design using geomechanics to address stress-induced wellbore failure together with specifying safe limits of drilling parameters to minimize wellbore damage due to excessive downhole drillstring vibrations. The findings helped achieve more stable wellbore in subsequent wells with hole condition meeting logging and completion requirements as well as avoiding drilling problems.
Unique 15kpsi Multistage Fracturing Liner System Delivers Solution to Overcome Tight Formation Challenges
Authors: Wright Beau R , Khan Parvez
Published: December 2021

Open hole Multistage Fracturing (MSF) systems have been deployed for treating open hole formations with multiple, high rate hydraulic fracturing stages while gaining efficiency during pumping operations unlike traditional plug-and-perf operations. One important challenge within the industry was availability of an open hole packer system that can overcome tough wellbore conditions during deployment and function as designed during the high rate high pressure stimulation operations. This paper will discuss the successful planning and deployment of one such system.

For successful deployment of any open hole fracturing completion, one must first consider the environment that the system will be deployed into. Lateral length, open hole size, parent casing size and tubing stresses during fracturing and production all inclusively influence the need for a robust and reliable system. Other several important considerations to be deployed as a liner is the compatibility of the completion tools with the Liner deployment system, the robustness of being deployed into challenging open hole conditions where capability of high circulating rates and rotation become mandatory to get the bottom hole assembly (BHA) to its final setting depth. Last but not least, in order to achieve successful stimulation, each component of the system after overcoming all the deployment obstacles should function as designed withstanding treating differentials as high as 15kpsi, while simultaneously accommodating induced axial loads caused by these high-pressure treatments.

The development and testing of individual components of the system was done keeping in mind wellbore instability and obstacles the completion will have to overcome during deployment. The field execution was planned with close collaboration with the operator and other key services that were involved for drilling the well. Real-time monitoring of the well allowed for simultaneous swift implementation of changes required on tool activation pressures, identification of hazards and mitigation plan to overcome challenges in order to execute the job successfully.

It is worth mentioning that the successful deployment of this system represents the first use of additive manufacturing in high pressure, hydraulic set open hole packers. This technology allowed overcoming the barriers of challenges associated with deploying open hole completion in tight challenging formations that would otherwise have limited deployment capabilities.
Remote Activated Completion Technology Enhances Operational Efficiency of Offshore Wells in Middle East
Authors: Keerthivasan Vijay Kumar , Young Dustin , Mehus Cathrine , Gjedrem Bjornar , Abdelghany Moetaz , Khov Henry
Published: December 2021

To access a larger amount of pay zone, well trajectories are becoming longer and more complex, creating greater challenges for running completion liners. A liner shoe is a casing accessory tool that aids in the running of completion liners in long wells by allowing auto-filling of the liner and enabling pumping through the bottom of the liner. Upon reaching planned liner depth, the liner shoe is closed to allow for pressure testing and subsequent completion operations. Conventional methods used to close a liner shoe involve well intervention to set plugs or by dropping a ball, and there are inherent costs and risks associated with these operations. This paper presents the development and deployment of a remotely activated electronic liner shoe (ELS) for offshore applications that enables interventionless closing of the liner shoe, thereby improving operational efficiency, and reducing potential operational issues that could occur while closing the liner shoe conventionally. The ELS allows the operator to precisely control when the liner shoe closes – either based on pre-programmed pressure signals, a timer, or a combination of the two. A major operator in the Middle East required an ELS to be developed and qualified specifically for their offshore well conditions. A new technology qualification program was devised in collaboration with the operator to qualify both the electronic and mechanical functionalities of the tool.

This paper documents the methods and results of the extensive qualification test program. The development and qualification process were successfully completed within 10 months at research and development facilities in Norway. Following qualification testing, the ELS was first deployed for the operator in an offshore well in Q4 of 2019. Operational considerations in programming the remote functionality of the tool is presented in this paper. After a successful field trial, the ELS has been run in more than 15 offshore wells and has become the standard option in the operator's completion program.
New Steering Technology Using Pulsed Arc Plasma Shockwave: Plasma Pulse Steering Technology
Authors: Liu Kerou , Zhang Hui , Xie Renjun , Wu Yi , Jiao Jingang , Cai Zhixiang , Fu Hao
Published: December 2021

Steering drilling technology can achieve precise control of wellbore trajectory, and related technologies have been widely used in the field of petroleum drilling. This paper proposed a new steering drilling technology based on the Pulsed Arc Plasma Shockwave Technology (PAPST),Plasma Pulse Steering Technology (PPST).

PAPST transforms electric energy into mechanical energy by discharging electrodes, which can break rock. On the basis of PAPST, PPST can precisely control the discharge time and break the rock in the specified direction at the bottom of the well, so as to realize guided drilling. First, the discharge mechanism and guiding mechanism of the PPST were studied separately. Then, the discharge control model of PPST was established to explain the feasibility of using this technology to achieve drilling guidance. Finally, to verify the actual effect of this technology on rock breaking, an experiment was carried out with self-developed experimental equipment.

Through the study of the mechanism and discharge control model of PPST, it is considered that it is feasible to use this technology to achieve guidance in theory. The experimental results show that the sandstone samples were damaged and a large area of pits appeared after the shockwave, and the ultrasonic penetration test results showed that there was damage inside the rock. As the number of impacts increased, the rock damage became more severe and fracture occurred. Therefore, it is feasible to apply PPST to the directional fracture of bottom hole rock. In summary, this technology has very good application prospects.

For the first time, this paper proposed the idea of applying PAPST to steering drilling. Through the research on the steering mechanism and the experiment, the feasibility of this technology was proved and the theoretical basis was provided for the application of this technology in the field of oil drilling.
Case Study- Real Time Downhole Telemetry CCL and Tension Compression, a Differentiator for Successful Manipulation of ICD's in Horizontal Wells
Authors: Ahmed Usman , Zhang Zhiheng , Ortega Alfonzo Ruben
Published: December 2021

Horizontal well completions are often equipped with Inflow Control Devices (ICDs) to optimize flow rates across the completion for the whole length of the interval and to increase the oil recovery. The ICD technology has become useful method of optimizing production from horizontal wells in a wide range of applications. It has proved to be beneficial in horizontal water injectors and steam assisted gravity drainage wells.

Traditionally the challenges related to early gas or water breakthrough were dealt with complex and costly workover/intervention operations. ICD manipulation used to be done with down-hole tractor conveyed using an electric line (e-line) cable or by utilization of a conventional coiled tubing (CT) string. Wellbore profile, high doglegs, tubular ID, drag and buoyancy forces added limitations to the e-line interventions even with the use of tractor. Utilization of conventional CT string supplement the uncertainties during shifting operations by not having the assurance of accurate depth and forces applied downhole.

A field in Saudi Arabia is completed with open-hole packer with ICD completion system. The excessive production from the wells resulted in increase of water cut, hence ICD's shifting was required. As operations become more complex due to fact that there was no mean to assure that ICD is shifted as needed, it was imperative to find ways to maximize both assurance and quality performance. In this particular case, several ICD manipulating jobs were conducted in the horizontal wells. A 2-7/8-in intelligent coiled tubing (ICT) system was used to optimize the well intervention performance by providing downhole real-time feedback. The indication for the correct ICD shifting was confirmed by Casing Collar Locator (CCL) and Tension & Compression signatures.

This paper will present the ICT system consists of a customized bottom-hole assembly (BHA) that transmits Tension, compression, differential pressure, temperature and casing collar locator data instantaneously to the surface via a nonintrusive tube wire installed inside the coiled tubing. The main advantages of the ICT system in this operation were: monitoring the downhole force on the shifting tool while performing ICD manipulation, differential pressure, and accurately determining depth from the casing collar locator. Based on the known estimated optimum working ranges for ICD shifting and having access to real-time downhole data, the operator could decide that required force was transmitted to BHA. This bring about saving job time while finding sleeves, efficient open and close of ICD via applying required Weight on Bit (WOB) and even providing a mean to identify ICD that had debris accumulation. The experience acquired using this method in the successful operation in Saudi Arabia yielded recommendations for future similar operations.
An Innovative Acid Diversion Using In-Situ Foam Generation: Experimental and Successful Field Application
Authors: Al-Nakhli Ayman , Gizani Mohannad , Baiz Abdualilah , Yami Mohammed
Published: December 2021

In carbonate reservoirs, effective acid stimulation is essential to overcome reservoir damage and mainline high oil production. Recently, most of oil wells are being drilled horizontally to maximize production. Acid stimulation of horizontal wells with long intervals require very effective acid diversion system. If the diversion system is not efficient enough, most of the acid will be leaking-off near the casing shoe, in openhole well, which will result in a fast water breakthrough and diminish production.

This study describes a breakthrough treatment for acidizing long horizontal wells in carbonate formations. The novel technology is based on in-situ foam generation to divert the acid. Gas diversion, as a foam, is a perfect diversion mechanism as gas creates pressure resistance which forces the acid stages to be diverted to new ones?. The diversion will not require the acid to be spent, compared to viscoelastic diverting system. Moreover, no gel is left behind post treatment, which will eliminate any damage potential. The system is not impacted with the presence of corrosion products, where diverting system will not function without effective pickling and tubular cleanup.

Lab results showed that the new in-situ foam generation system was very effective on both dolomite and calcite cores. The system creates high back pressure when foam is generated, which significantly diverts the acid stages to stimulate other intervals. Moreover, the new system minimizes acid leak-off and penetration. Open completing the job, the foam collapse leaving no left behind any damaging material. Field application of the in-situ foam generating system showed high success rate and outperformed other diversion mechanisms. The well gain was up to 18 folds of the original well injectivity.
Primary Energy System Chain Security Under the Energy Transition
Authors: Alsayegh Osamah
Published: December 2021

This paper examines the energy transition consequences on the oil and gas energy system chain as it propagates from net importing through the transit to the net exporting countries (or regions). The fundamental energy system security concerns of importing, transit, and exporting regions are analyzed under the low carbon energy transition dynamics. The analysis is evidence-based on diversification of energy sources, energy supply and demand evolution, and energy demand management development. The analysis results imply that the energy system is going through technological and logistical reallocation of primary energy. The manifestation of such reallocation includes an increase in electrification, the rise of energy carrier options, and clean technologies. Under healthy and normal global economic growth, the reallocation mentioned above would have a mild effect on curbing the oil and gas primary energy demands growth. A case study concerning electric vehicles, which is part of the energy transition aspect, is presented to assess its impact on the energy system, precisely on the fossil fuel demand. Results show that electric vehicles are indirectly fueled, mainly from fossil-fired power stations through electric grids. Moreover, oil byproducts use in the electric vehicle industry confirms the reallocation of the energy system components' roles.

The paper's contribution to the literature is the portrayal of the energy system security state under the low carbon energy transition. The significance of this representation is to shed light on the concerns of the net exporting, transit, and net importing regions under such evolution. Subsequently, it facilitates the development of measures toward mitigating world tensions and conflicts, enhancing the global socio-economic wellbeing, and preventing corruption.
Smart and Innovative Methods Throughout Well Kick-Off Operation
Authors: Wael Ziadat , Ahmed Arnous , Abdullah Aldabil
Published: December 2021

This paper is focused on the daily processes in the well kick-off operations, which are still a significant source of risk from occupational safety and health prospect. Several studies show that the number of severe injuries and fatalities still remains high despite substantial efforts the industry has put in recent years in decreasing those numbers. This paper argues that the next level of safety performance will have to consider a transition from coping solely with workplace dangers, to a more innovative paradigm. Taking operations & transportation risks into consideration leads to embracing a smart way to eliminating risk factors to a minimum and, in many cases eliminating such risk.
Characterization of Critically Stressed Fractures Using Fluid-Flow Models for Naturally Fractured Reservoirs
Authors: Hamid Osman H. , Sanee Reza , Folorunso Oluyemi Gbenga
Published: December 2021

Fracture characterization, including permeability and deformation due to fluid flow, plays an essential role in hydrocarbon production during the development of naturally fractured reservoirs. The conventional way of characterization of the fracture is experimental, and modeling approaches. In this study, a conceptual model will be developed based on the structural style to study the fracture distributions, the influence of the fluid flow and geomechanics in the fracture conductivity, investigate the stress regime in the study area.

Understanding the fracture properties will be conducted by studying the fracture properties from the core sample, image log interpretation. 3D geomechanical models will be constructed to evaluate the fluid flow properties; the models consider the crossflow coefficient and the compression coefficient. According to the model results, the fracture permeability decreases with increasing effective stress. The degree of decline is related to the crossflow coefficient and the compression coefficient. Most of these reservoirs are mainly composed of two porosity systems for fluid flow: the matrix component and fractures. Therefore, fluid flow path distribution within a naturally fractured reservoir depends on several features related to the rock matrix and fracture systems' properties.

The main element that could help us identify the fluid flow paths is the critical stress analysis, which considers the in-situ stress regime model (in terms of magnitude and direction) and the spatial distributions of natural fractures fluid flow path. The critical stress requires calculating the normal and shear stress in each fracture plane to evaluate the conditions for critical and non-critical fractures. Based on this classification, some fractures can dominate the fluid-flow paths.

To perform the critical stress analysis, fracture characterization and stress analysis were described using a 3D stress tensor model capturing the in-situ stress direction and magnitude applied to a discrete fracture model, identifying the fluid flow paths along the fractured reservoir.

The results show that in-situ stress rotation observed in the breakouts or drilling induce tensile fractures (DITFs) interpreted from borehole images.

The stress regime changes are probably attributed to some influence of deeply seated faults under the studied sequence. the flow of water-oil ratio through intact rock and fractures with/without imbibition was modeled based on the material balance based on preset conceptual reservoir parameters to investigate the water-oil ratio flow gradients
A Fast ANN Trained Solver Enables Real-Time Radial Inversion of Dielectric Dispersion Data & Accurate Estimate of Reserves in Challenging Environments
Authors: Hanif Amer , Frost Elton , Le Fei , Nikitenko Marina , Blinov Mikhail , Velker Nikolay
Published: December 2021

Dielectric dispersion measurements are increasingly used by petrophysicists to reduce uncertainty in their hydrocarbon saturation analysis, and subsequent reserves estimation, especially when encountered with challenging environments. Some of these challenges are related to variable or unknown formation water salinity and/or a changing rock texture which is a common attribute of carbonate reservoirs found in the Middle East. A new multi-frequency, multi-spacing dielectric logging service, utilizes a sensor array scheme which provides wave attenuation and phase difference measurements at multiple depths of investigation up to 8 inches inside the formation. The improvement in depth of investigation provides a better measurement of true formation properties, however, also provides a higher likelihood of measuring radial heterogeneity due to spatially variable shallow mud-filtrate invasion. Meaningful petrophysical interpretation requires an accurate electromagnetic (EM) inversion, which accommodates this heterogeneity, while converting raw tool measurements to true formation dielectric properties.

Forward modeling solvers are typically beset with a slow processing speed precluding use of complex, albeit representative, formation petrophysical models. An artificial neural network (ANN) has been trained to significantly speed up the forward solver, thus leading to implementation and real-time execution of a complex multi-layer radial inversion algorithm. The paper describes, in detail, the development, training and validation of both the ANN network and the inversion algorithm.

The presented algorithm and ANN inversion has shown ability to accurately resolve mud filtrate invasion profile as well as the true formation properties of individual layers. Examples are presented which demonstrate that comprehensive, multi-frequency, multi-array, EM data sets are inverted efficiently for dis-similar dielectric properties of both invaded and non-invaded formation layers around the wellbore. The results are further utilized for accurate hydrocarbon quantification otherwise not achieved by conventional resistivity based saturation techniques.

This paper presents the development of a new EM inversion algorithm and an artificial neural network (ANN) trained to significantly speed up the solution of this algorithm. This approach leads to a fast turnaround for an accurate petrophysical analysis, reserves estimate and completion decisions.
An Accurate Cubic Law for the Upscaling of Discrete Natural Fractures
Authors: He Xupeng , Alsinan Marwa , Kwak Hyung , Hoteit Hussein
Published: December 2021

Modeling fluid flow in fractured reservoirs requires an accurate evaluation of the hydraulic properties of discrete fractures. Full Navier-Stokes simulations provide an accurate approximation of the flow within fractures, including fracture upscaling. However, its excessive computational cost makes it impractical. The traditionally used cubic law (CL) is known to overshoot the fracture hydraulic properties significantly. In this work, we propose an alternative method based on the cubic law. We first develop geometric rules based on the fracture topography data, by which we subdivide the fracture into segments and local cells. We then modify the aperture field by incorporating the effects of flow direction, flow tortuosity, normal aperture, and local roughness. The approach is applicable for fractures in 2D and 3D spaces. This paper presented almost all existing CL-based models in the literature, which include more than twenty models. We benchmarked all these models, including our proposed model, for thousands of fracture cases. High-resolution simulations solving the full-physics Navier-Stokes (NS) equations were used to compute the reference solutions. We highlight the behavior of accuracy and limitations of all tested models as a function of fracture geometric characteristics, such as roughness. The obtained accuracy of the proposed model showed the highest for more than 2000 fracture cases with a wide range of tortuosity, roughness, and mechanical aperture variations. None of the existing methods in the literature provide this level of accuracy and applicability. The proposed model retains the simplicity and efficiency of the cubic law and can be easily implemented in workflows for reservoir characterization and modeling.
Engineering Charts for Predicting Breakdown Pressure for Finite-Length Wellbore Intervals
Authors: Han Yanhui , Chen Shengli , Abousleiman Younane
Published: December 2021

In wellbore drilling, the drilling mud density needs to be carefully selected such that the mud pressure inside the wellbore will not exceed formation breakdown pressure to avoid wellbore fracturing and extensive mud losses. However, in the hydraulic fracturing treatment, the lesser the value of the formation breakdown pressure the more optimal is the operation. We found out in this study that the pumping schedule (e.g., pumping duration and pumping rate) are factors in optimizing the breakdown pressure. In addition, this work investigates the effects of the finite length between packers on the magnitude of the breakdown pressure in various geological formations. The time-dependent evolving stresses around the wellbore are solved in the framework of time-dependent poroelasticity theory. The breakdown pressure is predicted from the evolution of the circumferential effective stresses. The effects of injection rate, formation properties, borehole diameter and length, and pumping duration on the breakdown pressure are presented in the form of engineering charts, for representative in-situ stress.
Optimization of Exploration Prospects Based on Ant Colony Algorithm and XGBoost Combined Optimization Model
Authors: Song Mengxin , Xu Bingxin , Feng Mei , Fu Xinxi
Published: December 2021

Traditional exploration prospect optimization is uncertain due to human factor, the primary reason of that problem is the complex nonlinear relationship between trap quality and related geological factors. Some researchers proposed use artificial neural network (ANN) to solve the problem of the comprehensive geological evaluation of traps, because ANN can describe the nonlinear relationship of multiple geological factors. Considering ANN has some drawbacks, such as it is need lots of parameters for training, and the learning process can not be observed. In this paper we proposed a combined optimization model to accomplish optimization of exploration prospects, and express the affinity order between the prospects and its related geological factors, also can provide the data support for exploration.

Based on trap data of an oilfield in Africa, there are 12 geological factors related to trap quality, including trap coefficient, trap depth, trap scale, trap area, Reservoir coefficient, Preservation coefficient, hydrocarbon source coefficient, resources etc.. The ant colony algorithm is used for feature selection, and irrelevant and redundant features are eliminated through multiple iterations, making it suitable for model processing and improving training speed. Based on ant colony algorithm, we get the key parameters for XGBoost model training, namely trap area, reservoir coefficient, preservation coefficient, resource, and the key features are used in XGBoost model for training and prediction. Finally, we compared our prediction results with expert prediction, the error is 0.

In this paper, we proposed a combined optimization model based on ant colony algorithm and XGBoost for exploration prospect optimization. We recognized the key geological factors and different characteristic rules for exploration prospect optimization, in the process of optimization, ant colony discards the bad features that interfere with classification and recognition, and retains the features that contribute greatly to classification. In comprehensive geological evaluate of trap, the proposed combined optimization model is suitable for complicated nonlinear geological relationship, and express the affinity order between the prospects, the proposed method can work as an auxiliary way in petroleum exploration, also the proposed method can provide decision support for exploration prospect optimization, and finally can fulfill cost decreasing and benefit increasing.