Flooding water

After having recovered no more than 20% of the OOIP by pressure drive due to the original reservoir pressure, the simplest and cheapest way of increasing the yield is to inj ect an aqueous phase, as it is abundant and easy to handle. Safety requirements are not excessive and material compatibility is not an issue. The disadvantage is the relatively low effectiveness since the rock surfaces being prewetted by the oil phase 

Water flooding has been practiced in Venezuela since the early nineties [2 7], but here combustion techniques were developed in ordertohandleoil-wateremulsions directly. 

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The data gathered from the logs and cores of the development wells are used to refine the correlation, and better understand areal and vertical changes in the reservoir quality. Core material may also be used to support log data in determining the residual hydrocarbon saturation left behind in a swept zone (e.g. the residual oil saturation to water flooding). 

A considerable percentage (40% - 85%) of hydrocarbons are typically not recovered through primary drive mechanisms, or by common supplementary recovery methods such as water flood and gas injection. This is particularly true of oil fields. Part of the oil that remains after primary development is recoverable through enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods and can potentially slow down the decline period. Unfortunately the cost per barrel of most EOR methods is considerably higher than the cost of conventional recovery techniques, so the application of EOR is generally much more sensitive to oil price. 

Domestic petroleum, natural gas, and natural gas Hquids production has declined at a rate commensurate with the decrease in reserves (see Table 2). Consequently, the reserves/production ratio, expressed in years, remained relatively constant from about 1970 through 1992, at 9—11 years (16). Much of the production in the early 1990s is the result of enhanced oil recovery techniques water flooding, steam flooding, CO2 injection, and natural gas reinjection. 

Petroleum. Apart from its use ia petrochemicals manufacture, there are a number of small, scattered uses of lime ia petroleum (qv) production. These are ia making red lime (drilling) muds, calcium-based lubricating grease, neutralization of organic sulfur compounds and waste acid effluents, water treatment ia water flooding (secondary oil recovery), and use of lime and pozzolans for cementing very deep oil wells. 

Other Specialty Chemicals. In fuel-ceU technology, nickel oxide cathodes have been demonstrated for the conversion of synthesis gas and the generation of electricity (199) (see Fuel cells). Nickel salts have been proposed as additions to water-flood tertiary cmde-oil recovery systems (see Petroleum, ENHANCED oil recovery). The salt forms nickel sulfide, which is an oxidation catalyst for H2S, and provides corrosion protection for downweU equipment. Sulfur-containing nickel complexes have been used to limit the oxidative deterioration of solvent-refined mineral oils (200). 

High temperature steam (qv) is also used for recovery of viscous cmde oils (28). Heat from the steam thins the oil, reducing viscosity and increasing mobihty. The mobilized oil is produced at offset production wells. In heavy oil fields, water flooding is often omitted and steam injection begun immediately after primary production. Steam injection temperature is typically 175—230°C in California oil fields. Injection temperature can reach 300°C in Canadian and Venezuelan EOR projects. 

Using combustion to stimulate bitumen production is attractive for deep reservoirs and in contrast to steam injection usually involves no loss of heat. The duration of the combustion may be short (days) depending on requirements. In addition, backflow of oil through the hot 2one must be prevented or excessive coking occurs (15,16). Another variation of the combustion process involves use of a heat-up phase, then a blow-down (production) phase, followed by a displacement phase using a fire-water flood (COFCAW process). 

In secondary operations, where chemicals are injected into hydrocarbon formations in conjunction with a chemical flooding process, polyamines are used to reduce the loss of injected chemicals to the formation by adsorption and precipitation (312). TEPA and other ethyleneamines are used with water-soluble polymeric thickeners in water—flood petroleum recovery operations to stabilize viscosity, mobiUty, and pH while imparting resistance to hydrolysis (313). 

Infill drilling is another possible way to extend production. For a variety of reasons, some oil may not be available to the original wells in the resei voir. Some wells may be spaced too far apart to capture the oil between them. Gas or water flooding may have bypassed some oil, or fractures or faults may block off certain parts of the reservoir from the rest so that they cannot be drained from existing wells. In these cases drilling new wells between existing ones call be an effective way to capture more of the resource. 

A tower is packed with 1-in. ceramic Raschig rings. It presently floods while drying water from a product at a production feed rate of 1,800,000 Ibs/month with 0.25 mol% being water. Flooding does not start at the bottom, but at some intermediate point up the tower. What can be done to eliminate the flooding Is it possible to increase production rate to 2,000,000 Ibs/month ... 

There are some descriptions of water-borne outbreaks, or even small epidemics of acute gastroenteritis (diarrhoea), cholera and hepatitis E associated with catastrophic floods that occurred in developing countries, such as Sudan [34, 35], Nicaragua [36], Mozambique [37] and West Bengal [37]. On the contrary, no changes in the base-line outbreak incidence have been reported in developed countries after major floods [37, 38]. When infrastructures and water management are adequate, outbreaks of faecal-oral water-borne infectious diseases do not follow flood events, even in the case where water flooding has compromised the security of water facilities [37]. 

Microbid-enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) was first proposed in 1926 by A. Beckman [1780], Between 1943 and 1953, C. E. Zobell [1903,1904] laid the foundations of MEOR techniques. The results were largely dismissed in the United States because there was little interest in finding methods to enhance the recovery of oil at this time. However, in some European countries, the interest for MEOR increased and several field trials were conducted. The first MEOR water flood field project in the United States was initiated in 1986. The site selected was in the Mink Unit of Delaware-Childers Field in Nowata County, Oklahoma [268]. 

Formation damage caused by clay migration may be observed when the injected brine replaces the connate water during operations such as water-flooding, chemical flooding including alkaline, and surfactant and polymer processes. These effects can be predicted by a physicochemical flow model based on cationic exchange reactions when the salinity decreases [1665]. Other models have also been presented [345,1245]. 

Other enhanced DNAPL recovery techniques have been implemented utilizing both water flooding and well bore vacuum. Essentially, this minimizes drawdown, allowing a maximum pumping rate of the DNAPL/water mixture. 

The oil price rises in the 1970s stimulated interest in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), and fairly rapidly the biopolymer xanthan, the extracellular polysaccharide from the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris. an organism which normally resides on cabbage leaves, was identified as a leading contender as a viscosifier for polymer enhanced water flooding. 

In the next run, a core pack was saturated with 8.6 cp (at 50° C) Ranger-zone crude oil and water flooded to residual oil saturation. Polymer flood was then initiated and about 1.2% of the original oil in place (OOIP) was recovered. The results are shown in Figure 4. The pressure profiles show behavior essentially similar to the previous run except that the pressure drop across the core increased to 100 psi within 4 PV of injection of polymer. The steady state values of pH and viscosity were 7.0 and 0.7 cp. respectively. The oil ganglia retained in larger pores resisting displacement probably reduced the amount of polymer adsorbed and reduced the number of pores that the polymer molecules needed to seal off in order to block the core. This could explain the more rapid plugging of the core. Effluent pH and viscosities remained much lower than influent values. 

Phase Inversion Temperature The carboxymethylate surfactant sample available for test purposes exhibited excellent salinity tolerance, in fact too high for practical sea water flooding... 

Melrose, J.C. Brandner, C.F. Role of Capillary Forces in Determining Microscopic Displacement Efficiency for Oil-Recovery by Water Flooding, /. Canadian Petrol. Tech. 1974, 13(1), 13. 

PILOT DESCRIPTION. The site of the TFSA-water flood pilot was chosen on the basis of four criteria the site was representative of reservoir conditions and production operations in the Main Zone, extensive historical production data was available for each of the production wells in the pattern, production wells completely surrounded the injection well, and the pattern appeared to be well isolated from adjacent patterns and injection wells. 

The discounted cash flow rate of return for the pilot TFSA-water flood project was 54 %. 

Ely, J.U. "Water Flooding and Fracturing Using Clean, Nondamaging Fracturing Fluids," US Patent 4,265,311(1981). 

The Cardium Formation of the Pembina Field is located approximately 115 kilometres southwest of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The Pembina Field was discovered in 1953 and put on primary production in 1955. It was converted to a water flood starting in 1958. In March, 2005, a C02 monitoring pilot was initiated by Penn West Energy Trust at their C02-EOR operations within the field. C02 was injected into two wells and water into several wells around the immediate pilot area. Early in 2007, the pilot was converted to a WAG (Water Alternating Gas) EOR scheme, where on an approximately monthly basis, the injection of water and C02 are switched to the other well. 

Newhall AG (1955) Soil disinfestations of soil by heat, hot water, flooding and fumigation. Bot Rev 21 189-233... 

Cooling (water spray, water injection, water flooding, etc.)... 

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