Petroleum Fields Research Articles

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEDAGOGICAL SKILLS OF TEACHERS OF AN OIL TECHNICAL SCHOOL

The article provides a brief analysis of research on the problems of developing the pedagogical skills of Russian teachers. This problem was paid attention to by many coryphaeus of Russian pedagogy of the ХХ century, whose works continue to be relevant to this day. Number of foreign researchers pay attention to the teachers’ profes­ sional qualities. Based on the comprehension of these works, the author presents the concept of the development of teachers’ pedagogical skills who work in vocational education organization of a technical profile. In the Petroleum College, which the author manages, in addition to professional teachers with pedagogical education, there are also teachers without pedagogical education, also industry workers from the petroleum field. Thus, the teaching staff is a multi­layered conglomerate that requires specific work to develop the components of pedagogical skills among all members of the team. The characteristics of these components are presented in this article.

Mixed integer linear programming approaches to optimising oil production in offshore petroleum fields

Mixed integer linear programming approaches to optimising oil production in offshore petroleum fields

Optical Detection for the Adsorption Kinetics of Surfactant Solutions on the Surface/Interface: Oblique-Incidence Reflectivity Difference Investigation

The interaction of interfacial molecules was a hot issue in many fields, such as petroleum: the adsorption kinetics process of surfactant molecules on the interface was the key to reduce the dynamic interfacial tension and enhance oil recovery. Since the aggregation behavior of surfactant molecules on the water surface would lead to changes in the dielectric properties of the surface layer, we applied a dielectric detection technology with a vertical resolution of nanometer precision, oblique-incidence reflectivity difference (OIRD) technology, to study the adsorption kinetics of surfactant molecules on the water surface in this article. According to the test results, we established a model of molecular dynamic adsorption and explained its mechanism. This dynamic process could be divided into three stages: micelles dissociated in bulk water, molecules diffused to the subsurface layer, and molecules broke through the adsorption barrier and adsorbed on the water surface. Among them, the diffusion process was in accordance with Fick’s second law, and the process of surfactant molecules being adsorbed from the subsurface to the surface can be described by the Arrhenius formula. This work was not only applicable to the petroleum field to understand the essence of surfactant reducing surface tension but also to help investigate the subject of molecular behavior at the liquid–liquid or gas–liquid interface in other fields.

Gas Holdup Measurement of Horizontal Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flows by Using a Novel Combined Ultrasonic-Conductance Sensor

Horizontal gas-liquid two-phase flows widely exist in petroleum, chemical, and other important industrial fields. The flow structures forming during gas-liquid flows can be complex. The transition between flow patterns greatly depends on many factors, such as the fluid properties and the flow rate. Notably, there are multi-scale flow structures even in the same flow pattern. Therefore, it is a great challenge to accurately measure the gas holdup in the horizontal gas-liquid flows by single-mode sensor technology. In this study, we designed a novel combined ultrasonic-conductance sensor (CUCS) consisting of a multi-electrode conductance sensor (MCS) and a transmission ultrasonic sensor (TUS). A flow pattern map of the horizontal gas-liquid flow was obtained in the experiment, and the responses of the CUCS under different flow patterns were collected. The stratified smooth (ST) flow, stratified wavy (SW) flow, and Taylor bubbles in intermittent flow were visualized by the MCS, and the corresponding measurement model of the gas holdup was presented. For the slug region (SR) in intermittent flow, a physical model for measuring the gas holdup was established based on the attenuation characteristics of the transmitted ultrasonic wave. The result indicates that the CUCS has a higher measurement accuracy for the gas holdup of the horizontal gas-liquid flows with different flow patterns.

Numerical and Experimental Evaluation of Mechanical and Ring Stiffness Properties of Preconditioning Underground Glass Fiber Composite Pipes

The mechanical and ring stiffness of glass fiber pipes are the most determining factors for their ability to perform their function, especially in a work environment with difficult and harmful conditions. Usually, these pipes serve in rough underground environments of desert and petroleum fields; therefore, they are subjected to multi-type deterioration and damage agents. In polymers and composite materials, corrosion is identified as the degradation in their properties. In this study, tension and compression tests were carried out before and after preconditioning in a corrosive agent for 60 full days to reveal corrosion influences. Moreover, the fracture toughness is measured using a standard single edge notch bending. Ring stiffness of such pipes which, are considered characteristic properties, is numerically evaluated using the extended finite element method before and after preconditioning. The results reported that both tensile and compressive strengths degraded nearly more than 20%. Besides the fracture toughness decrease, the stiffness ring strength is reduced, and the finite element results are in good agreement with the experimental findings.

Recent studies of Pickering emulsion system in petroleum treatment: The role of particles

Pickering emulsions stabilized by solid particles have gained much attention, which afford high stability, low toxicity, controllable rheological properties and stimuli-responsive behavior compared to the traditional emulsions emulsified by surfactants. Those particles, as the core parts of the emulsion systems, play an important role in the fabrication and application of Pickering emulsion systems, making them attractive in petroleum fields. In this review, the influence of various particles on the stability and properties of Pickering emulsion systems as well as recent researches associated with the stimuli-responsibility of Pickering emulsion systems are introduced. Specifically, the design of functional particles and Pickering emulsion systems with super stabilities and controllable rheological properties are listed. Furthermore, some petroleum application of Pickering emulsion systems for enhanced oil recovery and spilled oil collection as well as the application as soft templates to fabricate oil-absorbing material and as three-phase microreactors that most likely for petroleum application are discussed, and the issues hindering the actual application of Pickering emulsion systems are also evaluated. This review charts a way for Pickering emulsion studies that could lead to a valid petroleum application through design of the particles served as the enhancers of Pickering emulsion stability for purpose of tailoring chemical flooding.

Petroleum Research Fund grants available

The American Chemical Society will accept proposals for Petroleum Research Fund grants to support fundamental research in the petroleum field from Sept. 20 at noon (EDT) to Oct. 15 at 5:00 p.m. Proposals must be directed to fundamental petroleum research, including fundamental research related to petroleum-derived materials, in one of ten specified subject matter areas. Grant programs are available for new professors beginning their first tenure-track position and for established tenured or tenure-track professors pursuing a new research direction. Separate grant programs are available for qualified professors in nondoctoral departments. The eligibility period for Undergraduate New Investigator Grants in nondoctoral institutions is 5 years from the beginning date of first tenure-track appointment. PRF has moved to a new data system that will allow applicants to enter the proposal information directly to the web-based portal. Additional information may be found at acsprf.org .

Investigation on Hydrate Formation and Growth Characteristics in Dissolved Asphaltene-Containing Water-In-Oil Emulsion.

Clarifying the effect of asphaltene on hydrate formation and growth is of great significance to the operation safety in deepwater petroleum fields. To investigate the influence of low-concentration dissolved asphaltenes on the formation kinetics and growth process of hydrates in water-in-oil emulsions, experiments with asphaltene concentrations ranging from 50 to 1000 ppm were carried out using a high-pressure visual reactor. At a low concentration, the adsorption of asphaltene monomers on the oil-water interface or nanoaggregates in the bulk barely affected the nucleation of hydrate and the induction time of hydrate formation. However, it would hinder the microscopic mass transfer process and heat transfer process between gas molecules and then mitigate the initial rate of hydrate formation. Therefore, the dissolved asphaltenes could not be used as antiagglomerants (AAs) to efficiently inhibit the aggregation of hydrate particles at low concentrations under our experimental conditions, causing extensive hydrate agglomeration and deposition in the reactor.

Applications of Noncontact Atomic Force Microscopy in Petroleum Characterization: Opportunities and Challenges

Despite a tremendous amount of research, molecular characterization of petroleum remains a significant scientific challenge because petroleum is an exceptionally complex molecular mixture. This paper reviews recent advances in the application of noncontact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) to the petroleum field. The complexity of petroleum presents a number of experimental and computational challenges to achieve the full potential of this new technique. Initial results on categorizing structures as either alternant or nonalternant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), recognizing empirical structural patterns, quantifying the local aromaticity and bond orders, and computing the electronic structures will be presented. The effect of sample preparation in AFM and the influence of petroleum structural parameters on imaging results, such as molecular weight, thermal cracking of weak linkages, nonplanar geometries or conformations, the presence of heteroatoms, and trace amounts of free radicals will be discussed. This review also highlights the application of the AFM imaging technique, including recent results from characterizing molecules in petroleum pitch M-50. The observed predominant methyl substituents on M-50 pitch led to the design of dimethylpyrene, confirming the role of methyls in promoting molecular weight growth of aromatic hydrocarbons and revealing new insights into the polymerization mechanism. The knowledge of definitive petroleum structures may enable new reaction pathways and sustainable uses for petroleum molecules in applications such as carbon materials and infrastructures.

Optimization techniques for petroleum engineering: A brief review

ABSTRACT Optimization in the production of oil comprises various processes to measure, analyze, model, prioritize, and implementation to enhance productivity of a field, reservoir, well, or surface. It is a practice to ensure recovery of developed reserves while maximizing returns. With the advancement of technologies associated with the field of petroleum engineering, there has always been an advent of an optimization technique. Albeit not abruptly but still with considerable consistency, conventional as well as nature inspired optimization techniques extend their roots in almost all complex problems of the world including petroleum engineering. In this article, we have reviewed the extensive use of optimization-based procedures and approaches in petroleum engineering that are being used to expand, develop, and generate petroleum fields with the appropriate designs and operations; reservoir development, planning and management.

August Tobler, the Swiss Pioneer of South Sumatra Geological Mapping, 1900-1912

Dr. August Tobler was a well-known Swiss geologist, who, as one of the very first petroleum field geologists in the Netherlands Indies, did more than ten years of geological mapping in the tiger-infested jungles of South Sumatra. He first worked for the Koninklijke/Royal Dutch and Moeara Enim oil companies in South Sumatra from 1900 to 1904. This was followed by six more years of geological mapping in the Jambi basin, as the first non-Dutch geoscientist at the Dienst van het Mijnwezen (Geological Survey). His thoroughly documented monographs and geologic maps of his geological fieldwork in the Palembang and Jambi basins of South Sumatra, as well as the adjacent Barisan Mountains, set new standards for quality and detail.Much of the personal information on Dr. Tobler is from papers by Kugler (1930, 1963), Oppenoorth (1930), Stehlin (1931) and Hottinger (2013). This paper is one of the chapters from a new book that is being prepared by the first author, entitled Pioneers and Milestones of Indonesian Geology (~1820-1960).

Exploiting Microbes in the Petroleum Field: Analyzing the Credibility of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR)

Crude oil is a major energy source that is exploited globally to achieve economic growth. To meet the growing demands for oil, in an environment of stringent environmental regulations and economic and technical pressure, industries have been required to develop novel oil salvaging techniques. The remaining ~70% of the world’s conventional oil (one-third of the available total petroleum) is trapped in depleted and marginal reservoirs, and could thus be potentially recovered and used. The only means of extracting this oil is via microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR). This tertiary oil recovery method employs indigenous microorganisms and their metabolic products to enhance oil mobilization. Although a significant amount of research has been undertaken on MEOR, the absence of convincing evidence has contributed to the petroleum industry’s low interest, as evidenced by the issuance of 400+ patents on MEOR that have not been accepted by this sector. The majority of the world’s MEOR field trials are briefly described in this review. However, the presented research fails to provide valid verification that the microbial system has the potential to address the identified constraints. Rather than promising certainty, MEOR will persist as an unverified concept unless further research and investigations are carried out.

Technical research on realizing remote intelligent diagnosis of petroleum drilling loss circulation under smart city strategy

In recent years, smart energy has become an important part of smart city construction. For the oil industry, exploring how to apply enabling technologies such as data transmission, internet of things, big data analysis in the energy field can fill the gap of applying intelligent technologies to energy facilities system. For the petroleum field, one of the biggest threats to safe drilling operations during oil and gas exploration is loss circulation. In the study, based on a new assessment framework that integrates intelligent energy into smart cities, an improved fuzzy evaluation method of drilling risk based on cloud method is proposed to realize the transformation of drilling risk from quantitative to qualitative. The theory proposed in this paper considers the subjective engineering experience of experts and the information contained in objective data, which make the judgment results more objective. The cloud theory proposed can clearly show the result of risk assessment, which fully reflects the fuzziness and randomness of the drilling system. The model is embedded in the evaluation framework of smart cities, which realizes the online remote online assessment of risks by city office workers.

Seasonal Variation of Methane Microseepage in the Dawanqi Oilfield (China): A Possible Climatic Control

AbstractNatural gas microseepage in petroleum‐bearing sedimentary basins is an important complement to geophysical methods in oil‐gas exploration and a natural source of methane (CH4) for the atmosphere. Microseepage, typically occurring in correspondence with petroleum fields throughout the world, is generally lower in summer, due to temperature‐driven methanotrophic consumption, and higher in winter. The global estimates of microseepage methane emission have, however, relatively high uncertainties because of limited amounts of flux data, leading to poor knowledge of the spatial distribution and temporal variability of the gas emission factors. We studied the seasonal variation of microseepage flux to the atmosphere from a petroleum field in China (the Dawanqi oilfield), through methane flux measurements performed in summer 2014, winter 2015, and summer 2019. Winter data refer to frozen soil conditions, with snow cover and ice thickness in the soil exceeding 60 cm. Gas concentration (CH4, CO2, C2+ alkanes) and stable C isotopic composition of CH4 and CO2 in shallow (4 m deep) boreholes confirmed the existence of thermogenic gas seepage. Methane microseepage is higher in summer and lower or nil in winter. This seasonal trend is opposite to what was observed in areas where winter soil is not or poorly frozen. Our data suggest that seasonal microseepage variation may not be univocal worldwide, being strongly dependent on the presence of ice and snow cover in winter. The regional increase of temperature due to climate change, already demonstrated for the Tarim Basin over the last 50 years, could, in the future, reduce winter ice and enhance annual methane emission to the atmosphere.

Self-Learning Controllers in the Oil and Gas Industry

Recently, solving the optimization-control problems by using artificial intelligence has widelyappeared in the petroleum fields in exploration and production. This paper presents the stateof-the-art reinforcement-learning algorithm applying in the petroleum optimization-controlproblems, which is called a direct heuristic dynamic programming (DHDP). DHDP has twointeractive artificial neural networks, which are the critic network (provider acritique/evaluated signal) and the actor network (provider a control signal). This paper focuseson a generic on-line learning control system in Markov decision process principles.Furthermore, DHDP is a model-free learning design that does not require prior knowledgeabout a dynamic model; therefore, DHDP can be appllied with any petroleum equipment ordevise directly without needed to drive a mathematical model. Moreover, DHDP learns byitself (self-learning) without human intervention via repeating the interaction between anequipment and environment/process. The equipment receives the states of theenvironment/process via sensors, and the algorithm maximizes the reward by selecting thecorrect optimal action (control signal). A quadruple tank system (QTS) is taken as a benchmarktest problem, that the nonlinear model responses close to the real model, for three reasons:First, QTS is widely used in the most petroleum exploration/production fields (entire system orparts), which consists of four tanks and two electrical-pumps with two pressure control valves.Second, QTS is a difficult model to control, which has a limited zone of operating parametersto be stable; therefore, if DHDP controls on QTS by itself, DHDP can control on otherequipment in a fast and optimal manner. Third, QTS is designed with a multi-input-multioutput (MIMO) model for analysis in the real-time nonlinear dynamic system; therefore, theQTS model has a similar model with most MIMO devises in oil and gas field. The overalllearning control system performance is tested and compared with a proportional integralderivative (PID) via MATLAB programming. DHDP provides enhanced performancecomparing with the PID approach with 99.2466% improvement.

Lignin-Based Phenolic Foam Reinforced by Poplar Fiber and Isocyanate-Terminated Polyurethane Prepolymer.

Phenolic foams (PFs) are lightweight (<200 kg/m3), high-quality, and inexpensive thermal insulation materials whose heat and fire resistance are much better than those of foam plastics such as polyurethane and polystyrene. They are especially suitable for use as insulation in chemical, petroleum, construction, and other fields that are prone to fires. However, PFs have poor mechanical properties, poor abrasion resistance, and easy pulverization. In this paper, a polyurethane prepolymer was treated with an isocyanate, and then the isocyanate-terminated polyurethane prepolymer and poplar powder were used to prepare modified lignin-based phenolic foams (PUPFs), which improved the abrasion resistance and decreased the pulverization of the foam. The foam composites were comprehensively evaluated by characterizing their chemical structures, surface morphologies, mechanical properties, thermal conductivities, and flame-retardant properties. The pulverization ratio was reduced by 43.5%, and the thermal insulation performance and flame-retardancy (LOI) were improved. Compared with other methods to obtain lignin-based phenolic foam composites with anti-pulverization and flame-retardant properties, the hybrid reinforcement of foam composites with an isocyanate-terminated polyurethane prepolymer and poplar powder offers a novel strategy for an environmentally friendly alternative to the use of woody fibers.

Automatic identification of rock formation interface based on borehole imaging

ABSTRACT Borehole imaging, one of the main methods of rock formation detection, is widely used in mining, tunnels, petroleum, and other fields of engineering. However, the method of manually identifying the characteristic of rock formation based on borehole imaging is greatly affected by subjective factors. For example, it should be noted that when the rock layer color is similar, the position of the rock interface may be different. In this paper, a method of quantitatively describing the characteristics of the rock formation is proposed, and the automatic recognition of the rock interface is realized. Firstly, the calculation method of rock dip angle and position based on borehole image with 360° wall surface development is proposed. Secondly, the three-dimensional distribution characteristics of the gray values of the rock layer are used to quantitatively describe the characteristics of the rock layer. Finally, an automatic recognition method of rock formation interface based on change-point detection algorithm is proposed. In addition, the recognition effect of the rock formation interface is analyzed by experiments and applied in the field. Research shows that, compared with method two, method one can determine the rock inclination. But its anti-interference ability is poor. Method two can better determine the position of the rock interface. The method is of great significance to the intelligent development of the borehole imaging system and promotes safe, efficient, and sustainable mining in coal mines.

Applications of digital signal processing methods in TOF calculation of ultrasonic gas flowmeter

Ultrasonic gas flowmeters (UGFM) are extensively used in petroleum, chemical, natural gas and other fields because of their distinctive measurement advantages. As the core technology of the UGFM, digital signal processing technology determines its measurement accuracy and stability. This paper systematically reviews the signal processing methods for measuring the TOF (time of flight) based on the principle of time difference method. According to the stability of the feature information extracted by different digital signal processing methods, the advantages and disadvantages of each method are analyzed. Aiming at the problems of serious energy attenuation, weak echo signal amplitude, and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) when ultrasonic signal propagate in the gas, different signal processing methods are evaluated and compared from the aspects of calculation accuracy, response speed, anti-interference ability and sensitivity to parameter changes. Finally, some improvement ideas and directions for further research are proposed according to the analysis results.

The Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership petroleum fields database: Compilation, utilization, and support for CCUS activities

The Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership petroleum fields database: Compilation, utilization, and support for CCUS activities

Introduction on Research and Application of Nickel Base Superalloy GH4169

In this paper, the research and application of nickel base superalloy GH4169 in recent years was introduced. GH4169 alloy is a precipitation strengthened nickel base superalloy, which has been widely used in aeroengine, petroleum, nuclear industry and other fields. The phase composition, three common heat treatments as well as the application prospect were elaborated. At last, the service temperature range and application area of GH4169 alloy was believed to be further expanded with the adjusted alloy composition and the corresponding hot working process.