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Advances in Enhanced Oil and Gas Recovery

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "A: Sustainable Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (18 December 2020) | Viewed by 15611

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
WA School of Mines: Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Perth 6000, Australia
Interests: special core analysis; multiphase flow in porous media; enhanced oil and gas recovery; relative permeabilities; CO2 geo-storage and utilisation; relative permeability modifiers

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Guest Editor
Western Australia School of Mines (WASM), Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Kensington, WA 6151, Australia
Interests: petroleum related rock mechanics; hydraulic fracturing; sanding
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Crude oil and natural gas have helped the world to cope with its ever-increasing demand for energy over the past century. Petrochemical byproducts have also been used as raw material in the manufacturing industry. With the increasing environmental awareness globally, there has been a strong urge to shift to renewables to meet the world’s energy demand. However, hydrocarbons are expected to retain their critical role in industrial development for years to come. Although the share of the renewables in energy generation would increase in the future, so will the overall demand for energy, which could lead to an even further increase in the demand for hydrocarbons. Even if the world reaches a stage where it can meet its energy needs primarily from renewable resources, it would need hydrocarbons as feedstock for the much needed and irreplaceable petrochemical byproducts. Moreover, in environmental circles, natural gas is widely considered as a low carbon transition fuel essential in the progression towards less dependence on fossil fuels, substantially boosting its demand in the coming years.

Given the recent decline in the number of new major discoveries and that many producing fields are already mature or reaching maturity, the above foreseeable increase in demand for hydrocarbons may only be met via the implementation of suitable enhanced recovery techniques. The potential for such techniques is further realized knowing that currently, only about a third of the oil present in a typical reservoir can be recovered. Although so far, a number of enhanced recovery techniques have been developed, trialed or implemented worldwide, moving forward, significant technical, operational, economic, and environmental challenges lie ahead towards their wider application. Each of these challenges would demand carefully tailored recipes for the required injectants and specially designed implementation strategies, both of which tend to be case dependent.

With the above in mind, the international journal Energies is going to have a Special Issue covering the recent advancements made in the EOR/EGR technologies towards addressing the challenges faced by the industry in the wider implementation of such techniques. The Special Issue is open to all contributions related but not limited to the following EOR/EGR related topics:

  • Technical challenges
  • Operational challenges
  • Environmental impacts/benefits
  • Economic factors
  • Unconventionals (shale oil, shale gas)
  • Extra-heavy crudes
  • Low salinity/smart water flooding
  • Carbon capture and utilization
  • EOR and reservoir characterization

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ali Saeedi
Dr. Mohammad Sarmadivaleh
Guest Editors

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)
  • Enhanced Gas Recovery (EGR)
  • Miscible/Immiscible Flooding
  • Carbon Capture and Utilization
  • Chemical Flooding
  • Thermal EOR
  • Water Flooding
  • Unconventional resources

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 7502 KiB  
Article
Insights into CO2 Foaming Behavior of Ethoxylated Amines
by Linh Le, Raja Ramanathan, Tariq Almubarak and Hisham A. Nasr-El-Din
Energies 2021, 14(2), 290; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14020290 - 7 Jan 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2953
Abstract
Switchable ethoxylated amine surfactants are readily soluble in CO2 and high-saline brines. The objective of the current work is to maximize the foamability and stability of CO2 foam at 150 °F (65 °C) through adjustments in the surfactant concentration, pH, and [...] Read more.
Switchable ethoxylated amine surfactants are readily soluble in CO2 and high-saline brines. The objective of the current work is to maximize the foamability and stability of CO2 foam at 150 °F (65 °C) through adjustments in the surfactant concentration, pH, and brine salinity. From the results, the authors recommend potential applications of Ethomeen C12 (EC12) for CO2 foam in the oil/gas industry. Foam stability tests helped determine the optimum parameters for CO2 foam stability at 77 °F (25 °C) and 150 °F (65 °C). The surface tension of EC12 as a function of concentration was evaluated using a drop-shape analyzer. Maximum foam stability was observed for a solution comprising of 1.5 wt% EC12, 25 wt% NaCl, and pH 6.5 at 150 °F (65 °C). The interactions with the salts allowed closer packing of the surfactant molecules at the lamellae and strengthening the foam. At a pH of 2.5, the absence of salt led to poor foam stability. However, at the same pH and in the presence of sodium chloride, the foam was stable for longer periods of time due to the salt influence. The surface tension gradients had a direct relationship to foam stability. There was a strong resistance to foam degradation when multivalent ions were present with the surfactant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Enhanced Oil and Gas Recovery)
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9 pages, 1217 KiB  
Article
In Situ Wettability Investigation of Aging of Sandstone Surface in Alkane via X-ray Microtomography
by Nilesh Kumar Jha, Maxim Lebedev, Stefan Iglauer, Jitendra S. Sangwai and Mohammad Sarmadivaleh
Energies 2020, 13(21), 5594; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13215594 - 26 Oct 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3073
Abstract
Wettability of surfaces remains of paramount importance for understanding various natural and artificial colloidal and interfacial phenomena at various length and time scales. One of the problems discussed in this work is the wettability alteration of a three-phase system comprising high salinity brine [...] Read more.
Wettability of surfaces remains of paramount importance for understanding various natural and artificial colloidal and interfacial phenomena at various length and time scales. One of the problems discussed in this work is the wettability alteration of a three-phase system comprising high salinity brine as the aqueous phase, Doddington sandstone as porous rock, and decane as the nonaqueous phase liquid. The study utilizes the technique of in situ contact angle measurements of the several 2D projections of the identified 3D oil phase droplets from the 3D images of the saturated sandstone miniature core plugs obtained by X-ray microcomputed tomography (micro-CT). Earlier works that utilize in situ contact angles measurements were carried out for a single plane. The saturated rock samples were scanned at initial saturation conditions and after aging for 21 days. This study at ambient conditions reveals that it is possible to change the initially intermediate water-wet conditions of the sandstone rock surface to a weakly water wetting state on aging by alkanes using induced polarization at the interface. The study adds to the understanding of initial wettability conditions as well as the oil migration process of the paraffinic oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs. Further, it complements the knowledge of the wettability alteration of the rock surface due to chemisorption, usually done by nonrepresentative technique of silanization of rock surface in experimental investigations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Enhanced Oil and Gas Recovery)
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20 pages, 2049 KiB  
Article
Pore-Scale Analysis of Condensate Blockage Mitigation by Wettability Alteration
by Paula K. P. Reis and Marcio S. Carvalho
Energies 2020, 13(18), 4673; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13184673 - 8 Sep 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2337
Abstract
Liquid banking in the near wellbore region can lessen significantly the production from gas reservoirs. As reservoir rocks commonly consist of liquid-wet porous media, they are prone to liquid trapping following well liquid invasion and/or condensate dropout in gas-condensate systems. For this reason, [...] Read more.
Liquid banking in the near wellbore region can lessen significantly the production from gas reservoirs. As reservoir rocks commonly consist of liquid-wet porous media, they are prone to liquid trapping following well liquid invasion and/or condensate dropout in gas-condensate systems. For this reason, wettability alteration from liquid to gas-wet has been investigated in the past two decades as a permanent gas flow enhancement solution. Numerous experiments suggest flow improvement for immiscible gas-liquid flow in wettability altered cores. However, due to experimental limitations, few studies evaluate the method’s performance for condensing flows, typical of gas-condensate reservoirs. In this context, we present a compositional pore-network model for gas-condensate flow under variable wetting conditions. Different condensate modes and flow patterns based on experimental observations were implemented in the model so that the effects of wettability on condensing flow were represented. Flow analyses under several thermodynamic conditions and flow rates in a sandstone based network were conducted to determine the parameters affecting condensate blockage mitigation by wettability alteration. Relative permeability curves and impacts factors were calculated for gas flowing velocities between 7.5 and 150 m/day, contact angles between 45° and 135°, and condensate saturations up to 35%. Significantly different relative permeability curves were obtained for contrasting wettability media and impact factors below one were found at low flowing velocities in preferentially gas-wet cases. Results exhibited similar trends observed in coreflooding experiments and windows of optimal flow enhancement through wettability alteration were identified. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Enhanced Oil and Gas Recovery)
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18 pages, 4514 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of CO2 Storage in a Shale Gas Reservoir Compared to a Deep Saline Aquifer in the Ordos Basin of China
by Danqing Liu, Yilian Li and Ramesh Agarwal
Energies 2020, 13(13), 3397; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13133397 - 2 Jul 2020
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3606
Abstract
As a new “sink” of CO2 permanent storage, the depleted shale reservoir is very promising compared to the deep saline aquifer. To provide a greater understanding of the benefits of CO2 storage in a shale reservoir, a comparative study is conducted [...] Read more.
As a new “sink” of CO2 permanent storage, the depleted shale reservoir is very promising compared to the deep saline aquifer. To provide a greater understanding of the benefits of CO2 storage in a shale reservoir, a comparative study is conducted by establishing the full-mechanism model, including the hydrodynamic trapping, adsorption trapping, residual trapping, solubility trapping as well as the mineral trapping corresponding to the typical shale and deep saline aquifer parameters from the Ordos basin in China. The results show that CO2 storage in the depleted shale reservoir has merits in storage safety by trapping more CO2 in stable immobile phase due to adsorption and having gentler and ephemeral pressure perturbation responding to CO2 injection. The effect of various CO2 injection schemes, namely the high-speed continuous injection, low-speed continuous injection, huff-n-puff injection and water alternative injection, on the phase transformation of CO2 in a shale reservoir and CO2-injection-induced perturbations in formation pressure are also examined. With the aim of increasing the fraction of immobile CO2 while maintaining a safe pressure-perturbation, it is shown that an intermittent injection procedure with multiple slugs of hug-n-puff injection can be employed and within the allowable range of pressure increase, and the CO2 injection rate can be maximized to increase the CO2 storage capacity and security in shale reservoir. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Enhanced Oil and Gas Recovery)
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11 pages, 1178 KiB  
Article
Study of Enhanced Oil Recovery and Adsorption Using Glycerol in Surfactant Solution
by Fabiola D. S. Curbelo, Alfredo Ismael C. Garnica, Danilo F. Q. Leite, Amanda B. Carvalho, Raphael R. Silva and Evanice M. Paiva
Energies 2020, 13(12), 3135; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13123135 - 17 Jun 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2887
Abstract
Over time, oil production in a reservoir tends to decrease, which makes it difficult to flow through the reservoir to the well, making its production increasingly difficult and costly. Due to their physical properties, such as reducing the water/oil interfacial tension, surfactants have [...] Read more.
Over time, oil production in a reservoir tends to decrease, which makes it difficult to flow through the reservoir to the well, making its production increasingly difficult and costly. Due to their physical properties, such as reducing the water/oil interfacial tension, surfactants have been used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes, however, their adsorption presents as an undesirable and inevitable factor and can decrease the efficiency of the method. This work’s main objective is to evaluate the effect of glycerol in the adsorption of surfactants in sandstones, as well as in the recovery factor during EOR. Brine solutions containing the nonionic surfactant saponified coconut oil (SCO), with and without glycerol, were used in the adsorption and oil recovery tests in sandstone. Adsorption, recovery, rheological, and thermogravimetric analysis were carried out. Regarding the surfactant/glycerol/brine solution, there was an improvement in the oil mobility, as the glycerol contributed to an increase in the viscosity of the solution, thereby increasing the sweep efficiency. The recovery factor obtained for the surfactant solution with glycerol was satisfactory, being 53% higher than without glycerol, because it simultaneously provided an increase in viscosity and a decrease in interfacial tension, both of which are beneficial for the efficiency of the process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Enhanced Oil and Gas Recovery)
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