Heavy oil processing in steam and hydrogen plasmas

Minimising hydrogen sulphide generation during steam assisted production of heavy oil

The majority of global petroleum is in the form of highly viscous heavy oil. Traditionally heavy oil in sands at shallow depths is accessed by large scale mining activities. Recently steam has been used to allow heavy oil extraction with greatly reduced surface disturbance. However, in situ thermal recovery processes can generate hydrogen sulphide, high levels of which are toxic to humans and c...

Superheated steam injection in North Кенкияк shallow heavy oil reservoir

This paper presents an integrated study on the superheated steam injection in the North Кенкияк Field, Kazakhstan. The methodologies cover investigation of mechanisms of superheated steam in recovery, lab experiment, and numerical simulation. The study indicates that the injection of superheated steam can cause rock wettability conversion which is favorable to recovery. The higher the heat enth...

A Study on the Mechanism of Urea-assisted Steam Flooding in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

The Biqian-10 block, located in Henan Oilfield of Sinopic, contains many thin and interbedded reservoirs, which have been operated by cyclic steam stimulation for 20 years or more. Therefore, it is a challenge to implement the conventional steam flooding. In order to improve the recovery of steam flooding, urea was used to assist steam flooding. Urea can decompose into CO2 and NH3, which are be...

Application of particle swarm optimization for enhanced cyclic steam stimulation in a offshore heavy oil reservoir

Three different variations of PSO algorithms, i.e. Canonical, Gaussian Bare-bone and Lévy Bare-bone PSO, are tested to optimize the ultimate oil recovery of a large heavy oil reservoir. The performance of these algorithms was compared in terms of convergence behaviour and the final optimization results. It is found that, in general, all three types of PSO methods are able to improve the objecti...

Hydrogen Fuel in Fusion Plasmas