Development of a screening tool to assess the feasibility of solar-to-steam application for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery

Download
2020-9
Abukubu, Alfred Ejiro
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) involves the implementation of various techniques for increasing oil recovery, which typically involves injection of an agent that help to increase the oil flow. Steam injection is a common method to increase the recovery from heavy-oil reservoirs, which contain oil that has very high viscosity that may not be produced at economic rates due to inability to flow by viscous forces. Using concentrating solar power (CSP) as a renewable-energy system is one means to attain this objective, with a reduction in CO2 emissions and fuel usage in generating steam, and could be at a lower cost than burning natural gas. The objective of this study to develop a coupled solar-energy/steam-injection forecasting tool to understand the impact of certain designs and natural parameters on the process. The study would use an existing data driven screening tool (artificial neural network), trained with numerical-simulation results, to optimize the steam-injection efficiency. Then solar-energy and steam-injection models, are going to be integrated so that both models can communicate. In the entirety of the project, economic indicators such as steam cost, capital investments for solar system would be reflected amongst other operational parameters to present a more realistic analysis. Finally, integrated models will be organized in a graphical-user-interface (GUI) input/output type application to convert the coupled models into a user-friendly screening tool, easy to use and understand by an investor or an engineer.

Suggestions

An experimental study on single well steam assisted gravity drainage
Akın, Serhat (2000-01-01)
Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is one of the more popular enhanced oil recovery method of producing heavy oil and bitumen. In conventional SAGD approach, steam is injected into a horizontal well located above a horizontal producer. A steam chamber grows around the injection well and displaces heated oil toward the production well. There are several variations of this process: vertical injector-horizontal producer and singlewell (SW) SAGD where only one horizontal well is used by injecting steam from...
Development of a screening model for the cyclic steam injection (CSI) process
Yalgın, Gamze; Kök, Mustafa Verşan; Artun, Emre; Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering (2017)
Cyclic steam injection (CSI), a single-well enhanced oil recovery method for heavy oil reservoirs, is characterized with three stages: injection, soaking, and production which altogether constitute a cycle. In this study, it is aimed to develop a screening model that can be used to accept or reject a given CSI proposal from a representative performance indicator. This indicator is estimated from a large set of reservoir & CSI design characteristics, using the screening model developed. The model has been tr...
Random walk particle modelling of polymer injection using matlab reservoir simulation toolbox
Mamak, Gökhan; Durgut, İsmail; Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering (2017)
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is essential to increase the maximum recoverable oil by natural means of production. Having chosen an EOR method, the effectiveness of the method should be analyzed before applying to a reservoir since the methods are generally costly. Polymer injection is a chemical EOR process, where the injected polymer with water increases the water viscosity, and help increasing the sweep efficiency in the reservoir. In order to model the effects of polymer injection, the random-walk particl...
Development of a screening model for polymer flooding in multi-layer reservoirs
ZarePakzad, Negar; Durgut, İsmail; Artun, Emre; Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering (2018)
Polymer flooding is a chemical enhanced oil recovery method which aims to increase oil production from a water flooded oil reservoir by increase in water viscosity and reduction in water-oil mobility ratio. These changes result in significant increase in sweep efficiency of water comparing with water-only flooding technique. The objective of this study is to analyze the behavior of multilayer reservoirs under polymer flooding process, considering effects of reservoir characteristics, polymer properties and ...
Bacteria for improvement of oil recovery: A laboratory study
Behlulgil, K; Mehmetoğlu, Mustafa Tanju (2002-05-01)
In microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technique, microorganisms and/or their products (gases, chemicals) are used in the enhancement of oil recovery. In the present study, MEOR is tested for Garzan (26degrees API) crude oil, produced from Southeast Turkey. This work consists of shut-in pressure tests and microbial water flooding experiments. In shut-in pressure tests, the oil is placed in a stainless steel cell and a certain amount of microbial solution (Clostridium acetobutylicum) is introduced. During...
Citation Formats
A. E. Abukubu, “Development of a screening tool to assess the feasibility of solar-to-steam application for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2020.