Iranian Journal of Oil & Gas Science and Technology
Volume:4 Issue: 4, Autumn 2015

Seismic waves are non-stationary due to its propagation through the earth. Time frequency transforms are suitable tools for analyzing non-stationary seismic signals. Spectral decomposition can reveal the non-stationary characteristics which cannot be easily observed in the time or frequency representation alone. Various types of spectral decomposition methods have been introduced by some researchers. Conventional spectral decompositions have some restrictions such as Heisenberg uncertainty principle and cross-terms which limit their applications in signal analysis. In this paper, synchrosqueezingbasedtransforms were used to overcome the mentioned restrictions; also, as an application of this new high resolution time-frequency analysis method, it was applied to random noise removal and the detection of low-frequency shadows in seismic data. The efficiency of this method is evaluated by applying it to both synthetic and real seismic data. The results show that the mentioned transform is a proper tool for seismic data processing and interpretation.

Fluid invasion from water-based drilling mud (WBDM) into the shale formations causes swelling, high pressure zone near the wellbore wall, and eventually wellbore instability problems during drilling operations. For the stability of the wellbore, physical plugging of nanoscale pore throats could be considered as a logical approach toward avoiding the fluid invasion into the shale formation. This paper reports the effect of silica nanoparticles (NPs) as a physical sealing agent on the water invasion into Kazhdumi shale. To this end, pressure penetration apparatus was implemented. Typical WBDM in contact with Kazhdumi shale at different concentrations of NPs with different sizes was studied. The results indicated that the addition of NPs to the WBDM decreased water invasion into Kazhdumi shale. WBDM having 10 wt.% of 25 nm NPs reduced fluid invasion up to 72.76%.

Sulfate scale deposition (BaSO4, CaSO4, and SrSO4) is a common problem in oilfield operations around the world, which causes significant formation damage during production and injection activities. This paper presents the results of an experimental study on the permeability reduction of porous media due to sulfate scale deposition. A set of experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of cation (Ba2, Ca2, and Sr2 ions) concentration and the number of cation species on the permeability reduction resulting from single sulfate scales (single BaSO4, CaSO4, and SrSO scales) and mixed BaSO4, CaSO4, and SrSO4 scale deposition in porous media during water injection. The experiments were performed at a constant temperature of 70 °C and a constant anion (SO4 2- ion) concentration of 3968 ppm in the pack of glass beads as the porous media. The results show that the intensity of permeability reduction increases with increasing cation concentration. These results also declare that the permeability reduction of porous media due to mixed BaSO4, CaSO4, and SrSO4 is clearly severer than single scales.

Efforts to enhance oil recovery through wettability alteration by nanoparticles have been attracted in recent years. However, many basic questions have been ambiguous up until now. Nanoparticles penetrate into pore volume of porous media, stick on the core surface, and by creating homogeneous water-wet area, cause to alter wettability. This work introduces the new concept of adding ZnO nanoparticles by an experimental work on wettability alteration and oil recovery through spontaneous imbibition mechanism. Laboratory tests were conducted in two experimental steps on four cylindrical core samples (three sandstones and one carbonate) taken from a real Iranian heavy oil reservoir in Amott cell. In the first step, the core samples were saturated by crude oil. Next, the core samples were flooded with nanoparticles and saturated by crude oil for about two weeks. Then, the core samples were immersed in distilled water and the amount of recovery was monitored during 30 days for both steps. The experimental results showed that oil recovery for three sandstone cores changed from 20.74, 4.3, and 3.5% of original oil in place (OOIP) in the absence of nanoparticles to 3 . , 17.57, and 20.68% of OOIP when nanoparticles were added respectively. Moreover, for the carbonate core, the recovery changed from zero to 8.89% of OOIP by adding nanoparticles. By the investigation of relative permeability curves, it was found that by adding ZnO nanoparticles, the crossover point of curves shifted to the right for both sandstone and carbonate cores, which meant wettability was altered to water- wet. This study, for the first time, illustrated the remarkable role of ZnO nanoparticles in wettability alteration toward more water-wet for both sandstone and carbonate cores and enhancing oil recovery.

In the past 30 years, electroless nickel (EN) plating has grown to such proportions that these coatings and their applications are now found underground, in outer space, and in a myriad of areas in between. Moreover, in order to further improve the mechanical and tribological properties of the nickel-phosphorous (Ni-P) coatings, Ni-P/PTFE composite coatings can be obtained, which provides even greater friction behavior and lubricity than the one naturally occurring in the nickel phosphorous alloy deposit. In this paper, The Ni-P-PTFE coating was deposited on mild carbon steel surface via electroless deposition process. The friction behavior and wear mechanisms of Ni-P-PTFE nanocomposite coating were studied at different concentrations of PTFE. Frictional behavior was examined using a pin on disk wear test method. Surface morphology and worn surface was evaluated using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis. The results showed that the incorporation of PTFE nanoparticles can reduce the wear rate of Ni-P coating from 33.07×10-6 mm3/Nm to 12.46×10-6 mm3/Nm for the Ni-P PTFE containing 10 g/l PTFE and decrease the friction coefficient from 0.64 to 0.2. Thus the tribological behavior of Ni-P coating is much improved in the presence of PTFE nanoparticles and 10 g/l is the optimized concentration of PTFE in the electroless bath.

Pentachlorophenol (PCP) is a very hazardous compound which enters into the environment by industries such as refineries and petrochemicals. As its biological degradation is very slow, this use may cause the pollution of soils and groundwater; with the recent emergence of pentachlorophenol contamination as an important drinking water quality issue, finding an easy, economical, and useful method to remove it has been attracted interest. In this study, the performance of an electro-Fenton process (EFP) for the elimination of PCP from an aquatic environment was evaluated. The effects of important operational variables such as reaction time, pH, the applied voltage, and the distance between the electrodes on the degradation of solution were investigated. The maximum PCP removal was obtained at a distance of 3 cm, a pH of 3, a voltage of 24 volt, and the treatment time of 40 min. This study demonstrated that the distance between the electrodes, pH, the applied voltage, and the treatment time have significant effects on the electron-Fenton process and this process is suitable for the treatment of PCP-polluted waste waters.