• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.75-90
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• 2019

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are rising rapidly despite efforts to curb release of such gases. One long term potential solution to offset these destructive emissions is the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. Partially depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs are attractive targets for permanent carbon dioxide disposal due to proven storage capacity and seal integrity, existing infrastructure. Optimum well completion design in depleted reservoirs requires understanding of prominent geomechanics issues with regard to rock-fluid interaction effects. Geomechanics plays a crucial role in the selection, design and operation of a storage facility and can improve the engineering performance, maintain safety and minimize environmental impact. In this paper, an integrated geomechanics workflow to evaluate reservoir caprock integrity is presented. This method integrates a reservoir simulation that typically computes variation in the reservoir pressure and temperature with geomechanical simulation which calculates variation in stresses. Coupling between these simulation modules is performed iteratively which in each simulation cycle, time dependent reservoir pressure and temperature obtained from three dimensional compositional reservoir models in ECLIPSE were transferred into finite element reservoir geomechanical models in ABAQUS and new porosity and permeability are obtained using volumetric strains for the next analysis step. Finally, efficiency of this approach is demonstrated through a case study of oil production and subsequent carbon storage in an oil reservoir. The methodology and overall workflow presented in this paper are expected to assist engineers with geomechanical assessments for reservoir optimum production and gas injection design for both natural gas and carbon dioxide storage in depleted reservoirs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.66-75
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• 2024

This paper presents development of a CO₂ injectivity analysis model using nodal analysis for the depleted oil reservoirs in Malaysia. Based on the final well report of an appraisal well, a basic model was established, and sensitivity analysis was performed on injection pressure, tubing size, reservoir pressure, reservoir permeability, and thickness. Utilizing the well testing report of A appraisal well, permeability of 10md was determined through production nodal analysis. Using the basic input data from the A appraisal well, an injection well model was set. Nodal analysis of the basic model, at the bottomhole pressure of 3000.74psia, estimated the CO₂ injection rate to be 13.29MMscfd. As the results of sensitivity analysis, the injection pressure, reservoir thickness, and permeability tend to exhibit a roughly linear increase in injection rate when they were higher, while a decrease in reservoir pressure at injection also resulted in an approximate linear increase in injection rate. Analyzing the injection rate per inch of tubing size, the optimal tubing size of 2.548inch was determined. It is recommended that if the formation parting pressure is known, performing nodal analysis can predict the maximum reservoir pressure and injection pressure by comparing with bottomhole pressure.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1010-1019
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• 2021

Petroleum oil in reservoir has been acquired by primary, secondary and tertiary oil recoveries. Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) classified to tertiary oil recovery has been evaluated in two ways of in-situ and ex-situ options. In-situ MEOR injects microbes into a depleted oil reservoir and stimulates those to generate metabolites. Among metabolites, biosurfactants play an important role to make heavy residues flow. Ex-situ MEOR injects microbial metabolites instead of microbes into a reservoir to recover oil. Even though both in-situ MEOR and ex-situ MEOR are eco-friend processes, in-situ MEOR can be preferred because it is more economic. Even though MEOR have been evaluated for a long time, it is still in the state of evaluating in a pilot-scale. Among microbes, bacteria have been widely evaluated in MEOR purpose. In this paper, bacteria for MEOR were summarized and their metabolites were qualitatively evaluated.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.515-522
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• 2007

In this study we have attempted to evaluate the technical feasibility of "BB-HY", which is depleted gas reservoir as a gas storage field, using the commercial compositional simulator "ECLIPSE 300". The "BB-HY" reservoir has an initial gas in place of 143 BCF which is relatively small, and its porosity and permeability are 19.5% and 50 md, respectively. For "BB-HY" gas reservoir, we have performed a feasibility analysis by investigating the cushion gas (or working gas), converting time to gas storage field, operation cycle, number of wells and the possible application of horizontal borehole as well. From the simulation results, it was found that the amount of cushion gas in "BB-HY" reservoir is required at least 50% of IGIP in order to operate stably as gas storage field. When one produces gas for longer time and hence the remaining gas in reservoir is less than optimal cushion gas, no technical problem was occurred as long as additional cushion gas is injected up to the optimal cushion gas. In the case of changing the operation cycle into producing gas for three months during winter season from producing five months, the result shows that either the cushion gas should be greater than 60% or the more number of wells should be drilled. Meanwhile, from the results of sensitivity analysis for the number of wells, in cases of operating six or eight vertical wells, the stable reproduction of the injected gas can not be possible in "BB-HY" gas reservoir since the remaining gas in reservoir is increased. Therefore, in "BB-HY" reservoir, at least ten vertical wells should be drilled for the stable operation of gas. This time, when three horizontal wells are additionally drilled including the existing two vertical wells, it was found that the operation of injection and reproduction of gas is relatively stable in "BB-HY" gas reservoir.

• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

As conventional oil and gas reservoirs become depleted, interests for oil sands has rapidly increased in the last decade. Oil sands are mixture of bitumen, water, and host sediments of sand and clay. Most oil sand is unconsolidated sand that is held together by bitumen. Bitumen has hydrocarbon in situ viscosity of >10,000 centipoises (cP) at reservoir condition and has API gravity between $8-14^{\circ}$. The largest oil sand deposits are in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. The reverves are approximated at 1.7 trillion barrels of initial oil-in-place and 173 billion barrels of remaining established reserves. Alberta has a number of oil sands deposits which are grouped into three oil sand development areas - the Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River, with the largest current bitumen production from Athabasca. Principal oil sands deposits consist of the McMurray Fm and Wabiskaw Mbr in Athabasca area, the Gething and Bluesky formations in Peace River area, and relatively thin multi-reservoir deposits of McMurray, Clearwater, and Grand Rapid formations in Cold Lake area. The reservoir sediments were deposited in the foreland basin (Western Canada Sedimentary Basin) formed by collision between the Pacific and North America plates and the subsequent thrusting movements in the Mesozoic. The deposits are underlain by basement rocks of Paleozoic carbonates with highly variable topography. The oil sands deposits were formed during the Early Cretaceous transgression which occurred along the Cretaceous Interior Seaway in North America. The oil-sands-hosting McMurray and Wabiskaw deposits in the Athabasca area consist of the lower fluvial and the upper estuarine-offshore sediments, reflecting the broad and overall transgression. The deposits are characterized by facies heterogeneity of channelized reservoir sands and non-reservoir muds. Main reservoir bodies of the McMurray Formation are fluvial and estuarine channel-point bar complexes which are interbedded with fine-grained deposits formed in floodplain, tidal flat, and estuarine bay. The Wabiskaw deposits (basal member of the Clearwater Formation) commonly comprise sheet-shaped offshore muds and sands, but occasionally show deep-incision into the McMurray deposits, forming channelized reservoir sand bodies of oil sands. In Canada, bitumen of oil sands deposits is produced by surface mining or in-situ thermal recovery processes. Bitumen sands recovered by surface mining are changed into synthetic crude oil through extraction and upgrading processes. On the other hand, bitumen produced by in-situ thermal recovery is transported to refinery only through bitumen blending process. The in-situ thermal recovery technology is represented by Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage and Cyclic Steam Stimulation. These technologies are based on steam injection into bitumen sand reservoirs for increase in reservoir in-situ temperature and in bitumen mobility. In oil sands reservoirs, efficiency for steam propagation is controlled mainly by reservoir geology. Accordingly, understanding of geological factors and characteristics of oil sands reservoir deposits is prerequisite for well-designed development planning and effective bitumen production. As significant geological factors and characteristics in oil sands reservoir deposits, this study suggests (1) pay of bitumen sands and connectivity, (2) bitumen content and saturation, (3) geologic structure, (4) distribution of mud baffles and plugs, (5) thickness and lateral continuity of mud interbeds, (6) distribution of water-saturated sands, (7) distribution of gas-saturated sands, (8) direction of lateral accretion of point bar, (9) distribution of diagenetic layers and nodules, and (10) texture and fabric change within reservoir sand body.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.27-35
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• 2024

It was known that crude oil can be mainly divided into saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes. If microbial biodegradation of asphaltenes is effectively viable, additional oil production will be expected from depleted oil reservoir. Meanwhile, biodegradation can be applied to other aspects, such as the bioremediation of spilled oil. In this case, the biodegradation of asphaltenes also plays an important role. It has been already reported that asphaltenes are decomposed by bacterial consortia. However, the biodegradation mechanism of asphaltenes has not been clearly presented. The major reason is that the molecular structure of asphaltenes is complicated and is mainly in a aggregated form. In this paper, it was presumed that the biodegradation process of asphaltenes may follow the microbial oxidation mechanism of saturates and aromatics which are easier biodegradable than asphaltenes among the crude oil components. In other words, the biodegradation process was explained by serial stages; the contact between asphaltenes and bacteria in the presence of biosurfactants, and the decomposition of alkyl groups and fused-rings within the asphaltene structure.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.286-296
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• 2016

Offshore CCS technology is to transport and inject $CO_2$ which is captured from the power plant into the saline aquifer or depleted oil-gas fields. The more accumulated injected $CO_2$, the higher reservoir pressure increases. The increment of reservoir pressure make a dramatic change of the operating conditions of transport and injection systems. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully analyze the effect of operating condition variations over the injection period in early design phase. The objective of this study is to simulate and analyze the $CO_2$ behavior in the transport and injection systems over the injection period. The storage reservoir is assumed to be gas field in the East Sea continental shelf. The whole systems were consisted of subsea pipeline, riser, topside and wellbore. Modeling and numerical analysis were carried out using OLGA 2014.1. During the 10 years injection period, the change of temperature, pressure and phase of $CO_2$ in subsea pipelines, riser, topside and wellbore were carefully analyzed. Finally, some design guidelines about compressor at inlet of subsea pipeline, heat exchanger on topside and wellhead control were proposed.