bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Two-Dimensional Visualization of Heavy Oil Displacement Mechanism During Chemical Flooding
Authors: Voroniak A. , Bryan J. L. , Hejazi H. , Kantzas A. 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
There have been numerous laboratory tests conducted in recent years, studying the potential for heavy oil recovery through chemical addition (polymers and surfactants). In these tests, recovery is often understood in terms of pre-water breakthrough and post-water breakthrough improved oil recovery. Pre-breakthrough tests focus on viscous fingering and sweep efficiency from water vs. polymer additives. Post breakthrough tests study the potential for oil recovery after a waterflood has already been run: in these systems surfactants and polymers are added and there is conclusive evidence that chemical additives can be very effective at improving heavy oil recovery at the scale of these core flood systems.
The observation made in laboratory core floods is that chemical recovery of oil is achieved under very high pressure gradients. The mechanism proposed in these tests is that chemicals plug water pathways and lead to improved sweep within the core. In reservoir applications of this technology, these same conditions may not be met and it is unclear whether these chemicals will still be as effective in non-linear systems. This study shows tests run in a 2D Hele-Shaw cell, which displaces oil with no pore scale trapping and with many open flow pathways like what is expected in the field. The objective of running tests in this system is to understand the mechanisms of heavy oil recovery and to observe whether chemical additives can still be successful for producing heavy oil in non-linear core systems with no capillary trapping.
Environment-Friendly Colloidal Nanoparticles for Stabilizing Clays Within Subterranean Formations
Authors: Agrawal D. K. , Kuznetsov O. V. , Suresh R. , Welch J. , Khabashesku V. N. 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Most producing formations contain clay minerals that can impair permeability due to clay migration and swelling because of their sensitivity to aqueous fluids. Unfortunately, conventional clay stabilizers are inadequate because of their inability in reaching smaller pores, difficulty in handling and disposal, effect on environment and high cost. We show that nanoparticles can stabilize clay particles and prevent clay-related flow impairment. Moreover, these nanoparticles are inexpensive and environmentally friendly, when compared to conventional clay stabilizers.
Sandstone core samples were treated by cationic and anionic colloidal nanoparticle dispersion inside the core holder. A core flooding test apparatus was used to inject nanoparticles in the cores. Differential pressures with and without the nanoparticles treatment were measured across the core samples and compared to determine the effectiveness of the treatment process. Effluents samples were collected at regular intervals and analyzed for the presence of migrated clay particles. In addition, other laboratory measurements such as particles size and zeta-potential were used to understand the interactions of the nanoparticles with the clay particles. Laboratory tests confirmed significant improvements in the stability of clay particles' with the addition of nanoparticles colloids to the aqueous fluid system. We believe this is due to nanoparticle adsorption on the clay particle active sites. On the core flood test apparatus, colloidal nanoparticles stabilized clays in the various sandstone core samples. Significant reduction in permeability impairment was observed after treating the sandstone core samples with negatively or positively charged nanoparticles. A possible mechanism for the reduction in permeability impairment is the attachment of positively charged nanoparticles to the negatively charged clay surfaces, thus pinning clay particles in the pore surfaces. Moreover, negatively charged nanoparticles attach to the positively charged edges of the clay particles, preventing water molecules and ions from intercalation into the clay laminated structures. The combined formulation of cationic and anionic nanoparticles is expected to provide the required durability and performance.
This paper provides a detailed study of nanoparticle and clay interactions in core samples and indicates the nanoparticle utility in mitigating permeability impairment due to clay migration and swelling. The proposed nanoparticles have possible use as formation damage control agents in drilling, acidizing, completion and hydraulic fracturing fluids and in scale inhibitors during squeeze treatment. Another very important application of clay stabilization is low-salinity water flooding.
Using a Problem-Based Learning Approach in Technical Professional Training
Authors: Nelson Jon S. , Musa Ismaeel E. 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is an approach to training that has been used in various industries for more than 40 years though with limited application in the oil and gas industry. PBL has two fundamental goals: 1) to support participants as they learn the required domain skills and knowledge; 2) to support the participants through the process of learning to be self-directed, self-regulating problem-solvers. The first goal should be the minimum expectation of any technical training program. The second goal has more varied utility, since becoming self-directed learners and problem-solvers are not always learning outcomes required of technical training. But when these are required, PBL is the tool of choice.
In this paper we will identify the critical attributes that define PBL; we will briefly discuss when PBL is ideal and when it is not; we will also report on a problem-based, instructional development project conducted at the Upstream Professional Development Center (UPDC) at Saudi Aramco. We will describe the analysis, design, development, and delivery phases of the project with a focus on key processes and products that resulted because of the PBL approach. Lastly, evaluation data will be analyzed and conclusions will be drawn.
A Novel Method of Knowledge Transfer in Challenging Times
Authors: Nunno Nii , Kumar Aniket , Samuel Robello 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
In the current challenging downturn market scenario, many companies have turned their attention towards enhancing the existing training and knowledge transfer programs for their engineers to reduce costs and improve efficiencies. Keeping in mind the increased spending cuts that the industry is facing, the SPE Gulf Coast Section Continuing Education Committee collaborated with leading technical experts in the drilling domain, and came up with a novel development model to transfer knowledge at reduced costs, while simultaneously raising funds for student scholarships.
In order to provide exposure to advance technologies that focus on improving the drilling performance, a ‘Drilling Workshop' was planned for both the young professionals and the experienced engineers. With the objective of maximizing knowledge transfer and learning, the workshop was scheduled as a one-day event having two separate 3-hour sessions, and focused on current interest areas associated with emerging technologies in drilling. The registration fees for the workshop per attendee ranged from $150 to $250 depending on other organizational costs. Overall overheads were low as compared to some of the existing industry training sessions as no expenses were incurred on instructors' fees or venue costs. As an additional incentive for the companies to allow their employees to attend the workshop, free copies of a textbook related to this topic and valued equal to the registration fees, were provided to all the attendees for further enhancing their engineering fundamentals.
This paper will present detailed features of this knowledge transfer model and will highlight ways in which this model can be effectively incorporated and used by other SPE sections to benefit young engineers and experienced professionals in this current downturn market. Over the course of the last 24 months, 10 such workshops were conducted in various SPE sections in the United States to successfully raise about $60,000 in student scholarships for SPE. In addition, a team of five students was financially supported to attend the SPE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition in Amsterdam in 2014 using the funds raised from the workshop.
This training and development model has the potential of being a great means of knowledge dissemination across the board in the oil and gas industry. These workshops successfully provided a cost-effective means to revisit the technical fundamentals, along with an avenue for continuous learning for engineers, keeping them updated about the latest available technologies in the industry. This paper will be very useful for all the SPE sections globally, helping them adopt this model for knowledge transfer in challenging times.
Using an Innovative Tool System to Estimate In-Situ Permeability and Pressure at Multiple Targets in a Monitoring Well in Permian Basin
Authors: Zhan Lang , Fair Phil , Dombrowski Robert , Quint Edwin , Cao Richard , Cui Qi 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Permeability in tight sands and shale formations is a critical property that determines well performance, completion methods and field development strategies. Obtaining reliable permeability values in these reservoirs is challenging. Ultra low permeability and very strong stratification or heterogeneity in the formations require conducting long duration tests at multiple locations in a well to obtain a complete reservoir characterization. Because of these characteristics, existing tools or methods that work well for conventional reservoirs may not deliver reliable results. The objective of this work is to develop a technique that can provide permeability and pressure estimations as well as long term reservoir monitoring in multi-layer, tight formations.
An innovative reservoir monitoring and testing tool system was developed and successfully applied to a dedicated reservoir observation well in Permian basin, Texas, USA. The tool system integrates the transient pressure tests for zonal formation property estimation and the long term reservoir performance monitoring in multi-layer, tight reservoirs. The tool string consists of 11 packers that isolated 10 major producing targets in tight sands and shale formations. Volume chambers and pressure sensors were installed in the string to create pressure pulses and record their corresponding responses from the isolated wellbore intervals for estimations of zonal in-situ permeability values and formation pressures. A fit-for-purpose transient pressure solution was also developed to analyze the data whenever the existing commercial software could not handle. Permeability and formation pressures in eight out of ten zones were obtained. The estimated permeability values have a range from tens of nano-Darcy in shale formations to hundreds of Micro-Darcy in tight sand layers, demonstrating the excellent flexibility and suitability of this technology to dynamic reservoir evaluation in tight and shale formations. After the impulse test, hydraulic fracturing operations in a near-by well induced a variety of pressure responses in different isolated intervals at the monitoring well. Strong correlations were obtained among the hydraulic fracturing induced pressure jumps, the zonal permeability values and depletions that were estimated from the earlier test. The results enable us to verify the estimated zonal permeability and formation pressures, pinpoint the height of fracture growth, calibrate fracture design models, improve well/fracture placement and construct a more representative reservoir model for field development optimization.
Thru Tubing Deployed Electrical Submersible Pump with Downhole Wet Connector
Authors: Malone David , Nutter Greg , Algeroy John 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Electrical submersible pumps (ESPs) are frequently the optimal artificial lift option to cost-effectively maximize reservoir recovery and production. However, the full potential of ESPs in offshore and remote locations has historically been limited by two key challenges: rig deployment and the inability to access the reservoir without pulling the production tubing.
In order to reduce the burden operators face when utilizing ESPs, the company has developed a system that makes installation and retrieval of an ESP as simple as running a production logging tool; radically reducing the cost and downtime associated with ESP workovers by utilizing a lightweight slickline unit instead of a rig or workover unit to replace the ESP.
Completion Design Production Case Study in the Duvernay Shale Formation
Authors: Thomson Jim , Zaslavsky Greg , Leshchyshyn Tim 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
In the last five years the Duvernay formation has become one of the most sought after plays in Canada. This case study takes a closer look at the completion methods and corresponding production of the Duvernay wells near Fox Creek, Alberta, Canada. With the Duvernay being a highly over-pressured reservoir, the completion system is a major component in the success of conducting hydraulic fracturing. In the first two years, different completion tools were applied and after 2012 the vast majority of the completion methods became either the plug and perf cemented liner or the open-hole packer ball-drop systems.
Through the production case study that has been completed, it was found that the open-hole completion method had better cumulative production and rate compared to the plug and perf method by ~23% at 3.5 years, although early time production has similar results. A big component that affects the production and completion method is the lateral length, the total stages and as a combined result, the stage spacing. The lateral reach ranged from 900 m to 3000 m with stage spacing ranging from 25 m to 800 m and production results varying by 253%. The most common number of frac stages per well was 16 stages but the 20 stage wells had 78% more production after 1 year. Interestingly the higher number of stages, (up to 59 per well) had results that deviated substantially below the average, as well as above as expected.
Based on the five-year learning curve, some of the initial wells that were deemed underperformers were re-fractured with new perforation clusters throughout the well placed between the old perforation clusters. A particularly interesting example well re-stimulated with proppant and near wellbore diverter added 254% incremental recoverable gas reserves and 295% more condensate reserves. The results of this re-fracture will be examined as part of this study of current and past completions design.
Phase Behavior of Fluid Mixtures in a Partially Confined Space
Authors: Liu Yueliang , Li Huazhou Andy , Okuno Ryosuke 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Phase behavior of reservoir fluids in nano-pores of shale can be quite different from that in a bulk space. Its accurate description can lead to more accurate estimation of hydrocarbons in place in shale, as well as better understanding of the mechanisms governing hydrocarbon recovery from shale. This paper presents both experimental and modeling studies of the coupled effects of competitive adsorption, capillary pressure and pore size distribution on the phase behavior of fluid mixtures in partially confined spaces.
Experimentally, we measured the pressure/volume (PV) relationships along isothermal temperatures for fluid mixtures (N2/n-C4H10 and CH4/n-C4H10 binaries) that were contained in bulk spaces (PVT cell) and in partially confined spaces, respectively. To make the so-called partially confined space, the PVT cell was connected to a container holding a shale core sample. The partially confined space consists of the pore space in the shale core and the bulk space in the PVT cell. Theoretically, we developed a phase-behavior model for partially confined fluids by considering competitive adsorption, capillary pressure and pore size distribution of the shale core. In this model, the bulk PVT space is considered to be a capillary tube with an infinite diameter, while the shale sample is deemed to comprise of a series of capillary tubes with various diameters.
Test results show that, at the same temperature, the bubble point pressure of N2/n-C4H10 mixture in the partially confined space is higher than that in the bulk space, while the bubble point pressure of CH4/n-C4H10 mixture in the partially confined space is smaller than that in the bulk space. When a fluid mixture comes into contact with a shale sample, the individual components in the mixture may be preferentially adsorbed onto the shale sample, leading to the competitive adsorption phenomenon. The competitive adsorption of gas mixture onto shale can change the initial mixture composition, and thus affect the phase behavior of the mixture. The theoretical model can be properly tuned to yield bubble point pressures that are well matching the measured ones.
Experimental Study and Modeling of Sand Erosion in the Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone GLCC Separators
Authors: Arabnejad H. , Sajeev S. , Guimmarra A. , Vieira R. , Shirazi S. A. 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC) separators have been widely accepted as an alternative to conventional vessel-type separator during recent years. The operators are using GLCCs at flow rates higher than the normal recommended operational envelope in applications where the increased liquid carry-over and gas carry-under can be tolerated. Experience gained from production of hydrocarbons with entrained sand has shown that severe degradation of production equipment may occur due to solid particle erosion at high productions rates. However, there are no data and no field feedback on erosion in the inlet region of a GLCC. Thus, the goal of this work is to evaluate the erosion condition in the Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC) separator under gas production and low-liquid loading flow condition.
Erosion experiments are conducted with gas-sand and gas-liquid-sand flow conditions in a laboratory scale GLCC with two particle sizes and gas velocities. An ultrasonic thickness measurement system is employed to monitor the erosion rates at the inlet region of the GLCC. Several cases are simulated with commercially available Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. Based on the experimental data and CFD simulations, a mechanistic one-dimensional model is proposed to calculate maximum thickness loss inside the GLCC.
It is observed that the location of maximum erosion is not varying significantly with the flow condition with or without the presence of liquid and particle size, while the liquid entrainment can reduce the value of maximum erosion (in mm/kg) by one order of magnitude. The erosion increases with the flow velocity as expected but not with particle size for the particles used in current experiments. CFD simulation results that are obtained by utilizing the mechanistic erosion equations provided fair agreement with experimental measurements for gas-sand condition, and the simplified model showed consistency with the data in both gas-sand and gas-liquid-sand flow conditions.
Improved Optimization Through Procedures as Pseudo Objective Functions in Nonlinear Optimization of Oil Recovery With Next-Generation Reservoir Simulators
Authors: Temizel Cenk , Tiwari Aditya , Kirmaci Harun , Aktas Sinem , Ranjith Rahul , Zhu Ying , Tahir Sofiane , Aminzadeh Fred , Yegin Cengiz 
Published: September 2016

Abstract
Optimization has become a practical component in decision-making processes in field development and reservoir management. Although optimization simplifies decision-making, it harnesses complex equations and formulations that may be computationally expensive to solve. Numerical reservoir simulation adds another dimension to this phenomenon when combined with optimization software to find the optimum defined by an objective function. Considering the fact that current reservoir simulation models are constructed with vast amount of data and if it is coupled with optimization software, computational limits of regular computers can cause not being able to reach the aimed result although the recent technological development allows running huge reservoir models with parallel computing systems. Consequently, it is inevitable to achieve robust and faster results in optimization problems.
Predefined objective functions in optimization software when combined with numerical reservoir simulators attempt to maximize the net present value or cumulative oil recovery defined with an objective function, where the objective function can be defined to be multi-objective leading to Pareto sets consisting of trade-offs between objectives. Using an optimization algorithm with predefined objective functions does not provide the flexibility to the physical reservoir fluid flow phenomenon to "maneuver" throughout the iterations of an optimization process. It is necessary to use a more flexible objective function by introducing conditional statements through procedures.
In this study an optimization software is combined with a commercial reservoir simulator. Conditional statements implemented in the simulator as procedures help the software/simulator combination operate under pseudo-dynamic objective functions that lead to speed and robustness through trying sets of combinations of parameters, and thus achieving conditions that lead to highest recovery within the given time frame as defined by the conditional statement for the condition for which the simulation run is performed. The procedures feature enables implementation of codes by using conditional statements that act as piecewise objective functions, maximizing the recovery and taking into account the timeframe or condition they belong.
A commercial reservoir simulator is used in this study with conditional statements enhancing production in a given timeframe featuring certain conditions. The optimized recoveries with pseudodynamic objective functions provide an enhanced recovery, as compared to that of an optimization case with predefined constant objective function in the optimization software throughout the iterations of the optimization and simulation process.