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ISSN- 2348-5191 (Print version); 2348-8980 (Online)

Water Saving by using Nanoparticles in Heavy Oil Reservoir through Thermal EOR Method: Special Pertaining t0 ZnO & CuO



Masoumeh Tajmiri, Mohammad Reza Ehsani

Abstract

Freshwater plays an integral part in many operating processes from production, manufacturing to steam and power supply. There are often conflicting demands on water resources in areas where oil companies operate the available supplies of water may be over-stretched. In oil fields, the ratio-of-water-to-oil (WCUT%) is mostly 95% or higher. When water availability is in scarce, the oil industry uses its practical expertise to help unearth and tap new sources of water. Nanotechnology is an essentially modern scientific field which is constantly evolving with commercial and academic interest. In this work, we seek to compare the unique potential of ZnO and CuO nanoparticles on reducing the residual oil saturation (SOR) and WCUT% consumption which has been one of the major issues in the oil industry. In the first step, laboratory tests were fulfilled in three phases, one phase without nanoparticles and two phases with two types of nanoparticles conditions, through scaled SAGD cell. Results show that the ultimate oil recoveries increase from 52.43% to 87.93 while without nanoparticles condition and 80.027% of OOIP whereas water consumption was alleviated to 20.3 and 12.5% by adding ZnO and CuO nanoparticles respectively. In the second step by using CMG software the proposed experimental model was simulated. From the results, we have been able to corroborate this fact that both nanoparticles cause to decrease water consuming whereas heavy oil recovery definitely raised.


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    • DOI:10.21276/ambi.2017.04.1.ga02

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    Published by: National Cave Research and Protection Organization, India

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