Mechanical and Petrophysical Analysis of Synthetic Sandstone for Enhanced Oil Recovery Applications

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

Neto

et al. 2019

Self Cite

In this study, the biosurfactant produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa was evaluated in view of its ability to be used in Microbial-Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR). This microorganism was isolated from a soil artificially contaminated with crude oil and used to produce rhamnolipid using glycerol as the carbon source. The biosurfactant efficiently reduced water surface tension from 72 to 35.26 mN/m at its critical micelle concentration of 127 mg/L and emulsification rate (E 24) of 69% for the crude oil. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the rhamnolipid can recover oil, even 2 months after its production, which shows that its biodegradability is not a disadvantage to the application in MEOR. The best result, for a biosurfactant concentration of 100% above the Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC) and petroleum with API gravity of 21.90, showed that the total recovery factor was 50.45 ± 0.79%, of which 11.91 ± 0.39% corresponds to MEOR.

Section: Preparation Of the Sandstone Synthetic Plugsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Preparation Of the Sandstone Synthetic Plugmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Application of rhamnolipid biosurfactant produced by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in microbial-enhanced oil recovery (MEOR)

Câmara

J Petrol Explor Prod Technol

Neto

et al. 2019

Self Cite

“…The highest total recovery factor of previous studies can be attributed to the experimental methodology applied, since the study carried out with P. aeruginosa SP4 used a compacted sand column system and the one performed with the Enterobacter cloacae used a glass microstructure system. By using synthetic sandstone plugs, this study approached the conditions in studied oil reservoirs (Costa et al, 2017), both referring to the rock (Bryant et al, 1994) and to permeability (Safdel et al, 2017).…”

Section: Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (Meor)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of the Purification Process in Rhamnolipid Biosurfactant for Application in Microbial-Enhanced Oil Recovery (Meor)

Câmara

Neto

et al. 2019

BJPG

Self Cite

Biosurfactants are employed in several industrial applications which require a high purity level. However, the downstream purification processes are responsible for a large portion of the expenses incurred by biosurfactant production plants. The high costs associated with these processes turn their application on a large scale a challenge for companies. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of the purification step on the capacity of the rhamnolipid produced by a Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain to recover oil. Both purified and non-purified biosurfactants were efficient in their ability to recover oil. The best result, for the API gravity oil of 27.67, presented a total Recovery Factor of 47.45±1.78%, in which 10.2±0.85% corresponds to the MEOR. However, the results show that non-purified biosurfactant was more efficient in terms of amount of oil recovered during the MEOR stage. This demonstrates that the purification step may not be necessary, reducing the production costs of the rhamnolipid.

“…This process is used typically in wells containing oil with high viscosity or presenting high interfacial tensions between the injected fluid and the oil. There are three main methods of EOR: miscible, chemical, and thermal (Costa et al, 2017;Rellegadla et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Simulation of Cyclical Steam Injection and Pneumatic Artificial Lift System With Water Seal for Oil Recovery

Cruz

Andrade³

et al. 2019

BJPG

Cyclic steam injection is an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process which is characterized by oil viscosity reduction after the injection of steam into the well. However, like any thermal method, there is great concern regarding the excess of heat coming into the oil well casing, which is susceptible to thermal stress and may damage the reservoir. In order to solve this problem, the company ENGEPET developed the Cyclical Steam Injection and Pneumatic Artificial Lift with water seal (CSI/PAL/WS) system for temperature control in oil well casings. This work proposes a model for predicting the thermal exchange between the water and steam inside the CSI/PAL/WS system using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). A simplified model was proposed and results show that it has great potential to contribute to the study of the CSI/PAL/WS system, as well as to predict operating conditions that may prevent the temperature of well casings to exceed safety limits.