Petroleum sand production

By far the most widespread use of NMR in an on-line production environment is the utilization of downhole exploration tools by petroleum service companies such as Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes. Articles on these unilateral NMR systems are found in the patent databases, " academic literature, and on-line resources provided by the exploration companies. The references provided here are just a few examples in a very prolific field. The technique is applied in high-temperature and pressure situations and currently is used down to a depth of about 10 km (6 miles) to produce a picture of water/oil content in the adjacent rock formations as well as to derive permeability, diffusivity, and hydrocarbon chemistry information. Mobile unilateral NMR systems such as the NMR-MOUSE are also being developed in order to take benchtop NMR systems into the field to perform analysis of geological core samples at the drill site. NMR analyzers are also being developed to determine the bitumen content and properties in tar sand production and processing. " " ... 

Addition of D-D across double bonds to obtain the number of double bonds, aromatic rings, and alicyclic rings in each olefin by GC-MS. In addition we are applying the method to tar sands products, coal liquids, and cycle oils and coker distillates from the petroleum industry. The results of these studies will be published when they are completed. 

Bitumen from tar sand deposits. Products of petroleum processing. Products of coal processing. 

Figure 8. Plot of drawdown vs. sonic transit time used to define a sand production Risk region. (Reproduced with permission from reference 24. Copyright 1991 Society of Petroleum Engineers.)...

Figure 17. Schematic of radial and channel development of yielded zone in heavy oil unconsolidated reservoirs as a result of massive sand production. (Reproduced with permission from reference 102. Copyright 1993 Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum.)...

Porteous, W. R. Sand Production Management Petroleum Society of CIM Short Course W.R. Porteous Engineering Ltd. Calgary, Canada, 1989. 

Petroleum refining, also called petroleum processing, is the recovery and/or generation of usable or salable fractions and products from cmde oil, either by distillation or by chemical reaction of the cmde oil constituents under the effects of heat and pressure. Synthetic cmde oil, produced from tar sand (oil sand) bitumen, and heavier oils are also used as feedstocks in some refineries. Heavy oil conversion (1), as practiced in many refineries, does not fall into the category of synthetic fuels (syncmde) production. In terms of Hquid fuels from coal and other carbonaceous feedstocks, such as oil shale (qv), the concept of a synthetic fuels industry has diminished over the past several years as being uneconomical in light of current petroleum prices. 

Perhaps the biggest contribution that technological advancement in petroleum production will make is bringing large volumes of unconventional petroleum resources, eg, heavy oil and tar sands, into a viable economic realm by lowering the unit cost of production. Compared to the inventory of conventional petroleum reserves and undiscovered resources, the physical inventories of such unconventional petroleum resources are extremely large for example, the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, Canada, are estimated to contain 360 x 10 m (2250 x 10 bbl) of in-place petroleum (19). This volume is equivalent to the total inventory, ie, the combined cumulative production, reserves, and undiscovered resources, of world conventional cmde petroleum. In... 

Another consideration of petroleum assessment analysts is whether, and to what degree, the vast resources of unconventional petroleum in the world can be captured by advances in petroleum production technologies, thereby converting them into conventional sources of petroleum. It is a simple fact that the ia-place resources of petroleum in tar sands, heavy oils, and oil shale can guarantee the future supply of petroleum for hundreds of years at the current rate of consumption, provided they can be produced at competitive costs. 

Petroleum Recovery. Steam is iajected iato oil wells for tertiary petroleum recovery. Steam pumped iato the partly depleted oil reservoirs through iaput wells decreases the viscosity of cmde oil trapped ia the porous rock of a reservoir, displaces the cmde, and maintains the pressure needed to push the oil toward the production well (see Petroleum, enhanced recovery). Steam is also used ia hot-water extractioa of oil from tar sands (qv) ia the caustic conditioning before the separatioa ia a flotatioa tank (35). 

In addition to conventional petroleum (qv) and heavy cmde oil, there remains another subclass of petroleum, one that offers to provide some rehef to potential shortfalls in the future supply of Hquid fuels and other products. This subclass is the bitumen found in tar sand deposits (1,2). Tar sands, also known as oil sands and bituminous sands, are sand deposits impregnated with dense, viscous petroleum. Tar sands are found throughout the world, often in the same geographical areas as conventional petroleum. 

Many of the reserves of bitumen in tar sand formations are available only with some difficulty, and optional refinery methods are necessary for future conversion of these materials to Hquid products, because of the substantial differences in character between conventional petroleum (qv) and bitumen (Table 1). 

In principle, the nonmining recovery of bitumen from tar sand deposits is an enhanced oil recovery technique and requires the injection of a fluid into the formation through an injection weU. This leads to the in situ displacement of the bitumen from the reservoir and bitumen production at the surface through an egress (production) weU. There are, however, several serious constraints that are particularly important and relate to the bulk properties of the tar sand and the bitumen. In fact, both recovery by fluid injection and the serious constraints on it must be considered in toto in the context of bitumen recovery by nonmining techniques (see PETROLEUM, ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY). 

The term tar sands is a misnomer tar is a product of coal processing. Oil sands is also a misnomer but equivalent to usage of "oil shale." Bituminous sands is more correct bitumen is a naturally occurring asphalt. Asphalt is a product of a refinery operation, usually made from a residuum. Residuum is the nonvolatile portion of petroleum and often further defined as atmospheric (bp > 350° C) or vacuum (bp > 565° C). For convenience, the terms "asphalt" and "bitumen" will be used interchangeably in this article. 

Machinery (except electrical) Manufacture of equipment for construction, elevators, moving stairways, conveyors, industrial trucks, trailers, stackers, machine tools, etc. Slag, sand, cores, metal scrap, wood, plastics, resins, rubber, cloth, paints, solvents, petroleum products... 

Storage tanks are used throughout the refining process to store crude oil and intermediate process feeds for cooling and further processing. Finished petroleum products are also kept in storage tanks before transport off site. Storage tank bottoms are mixtures of iron rust from corrosion, sand, water, and... 

All fossil fuels are considered unsustainable because someday they will reach a point of depletion when it becomes uneconomic to produce. Petroleum is the least sustainable because it is the most finite fossil fuel. Although levels of production are expected to begin declining no later than 2030 (U.S. production peaked in 1970), the U.S. and world resei ves could be further expanded by technological advances that continue to improve discoveiy rates and individual well productivity. The extraction of oils found in shales (exceeds three trillion barrels of oil equivalent worldwide) and sands (resei ves of at least two trillion barrels worldwide) could also significantly increase reserves. The reserves of natural gas are comparable to that of oil, but natural gas is considered a more sustainable resource since consumption rates are lower and it burns cleaner than petroleum products (more environmentally sustainable). 

Several studies have been undertaken to test the suitability of aqueous surfactant solutions for washing petroleum products from sands such as those by the... 

These are found in crude petroleum including bitumen in the Athabasca tar sands of Northern Alberta. They contain a complex mixture of saturated polycyclic live- and six-membered cycloalkanes with alkane and alkanoic acid substituents. Attention has been directed to the degradation of both commercially available products, and those that are produced during bitumen extraction. Although the former were degradable (Clemente et al. 2004), the higher molecular mass components of the latter were much more recalcitrant (Scott et al. 2005). 

In contrast to infrared spectrometry there is no decrease in relative sensitivity in the lower energy region of the spectrum, and since no solvent is required, no part of the spectrum contains solvent absorptions. Oil samples contaminated with sand, sediment, and other solid substances have been analysed directly, after being placed between 0.5 mm 23-reflection crystals. Crude oils, which were relatively uncontaminated and needed less sensitivity, were smeared on a 2 mm 5-reflection crystal. The technique has been used to differentiate between crude oils from natural marine seepage, and accidental leaks from a drilling platform. The technique overcomes some of the faults of infrared spectroscopy, but is still affected by weathering and contamination of samples by other organic matter. The absorption bands shown in Table 9.1 are important in petroleum product identification. 

Hampton, D. R., 1989, Laboratory Investigation of the Relationship between Actual and Apparent Product Thickness in Sands In Proceedings of Symposium Conference on Environmental Concerns in the Petroleum Industry (edited by S. M. Testa), Pacific Section American Association of Petroleum Geologists, pp. 31-55. 

Residual products (No. 6 fuel oil, bunker C oil) these products have little (usually, no) ability to evaporate. When spilled, persistent surface and intertidal area contamination is likely with long-term contamination of the sediment. The products are very viscous to semisolid and often become less viscous when warmed. They weather (oxidize) slowly and may form tar balls that can sink in waterways (depending on product density and water density). They are highly adhesive to soil. Heavy oil, a viscous petroleum, and bitumen from tar sand deposits also come into this category of contaminant. 

Fig. 8.9 Effect of porosity on composition of kerosene during 14 days of volatilization from fine, medium and coarse sand, as seen from gas chromatograph analyses. Reprinted from Galin Ts, Gerstl Z, Yaron B (1990) Soil pollution by petroleum products. IB Kerosene stability in soil columns as affected by volatilization. J Contam Hydrol 5 375-385. Copyright 1990 with permission of Elsevier...

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