In this paper, the potentials of using particles, especially nanoparticles, in enhanced oil recovery is investigated. The effect of different nanoparticles on wettability alteration, which is an important method to increase oil recovery from oil-wet reservoirs, is reviewed. The effect of different kinds of particles, namely solid inorganic particles, hydrophilic or hydrophobic nanoparticles, an...

Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) is potentially useful to increment oil recovery from a reservoir beyond primary and secondary recovery operations using microorganisms and their metabolites. Stimulation of bacterial growth for biosurfactant production and degradation of heavy oil fractions by indigenous microorganisms can enhance the fluidity and reduce the capillary forces that retain th...

This study used an exogenous lipopeptide-producing Bacillus subtilis to strengthen the indigenous microbial enhanced oil recovery (IMEOR) process in a water-flooded reservoir in the laboratory. The microbial processes and driving mechanisms were investigated in terms of the changes in oil properties and the interplay between the exogenous B. subtilis and indigenous microbial populations. The ex...

Efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change have led research and industry groups to explore ways of applying existing technologies and practices to the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions. The storage of CO2 in underground geologic reservoirs is one such idea that employs techniques developed for oil and gas production and transmission. For example, CO2 has been injected into petroleum r...

A number of experiments on fluid flow at the micro/nano-scale have demonstrated that flow velocity obviously deviates from the classical Poiseuille’s law due to the micro forces between the wall and the fluid. Based on an oil–water two-phase network simulation model, a three-dimensional pore-scale micro network model with solid–liquid interfacial effects was established. The influences of solid...

Our understanding of the processes underlying the formation of heavy oil has been transformed in the last decade. The process was once thought to be driven by oxygen delivered to deep petroleum reservoirs by meteoric water. This paradigm has been replaced by a view that the process is anaerobic and frequently associated with methanogenic hydrocarbon degradation. The thermal history of a reservo...

The drilling time data of gas logging are used to calculate drilling time ratio of the reservoir, and the total hydrocarbon data are used to calculate hydrocarbon contrast coefficient and to establish the drilling time ratio--hydrocarbon contrast coefficient crossplot. The standards of distinguishing the boundaries of hydrocarbon zones, hydrocarbonaceous water layers and dry layers are determin...

Field sampling and mathematical modeling are used to study the long-distance transport and attenuation of petroleum-derived benzene in the Uinta Basin, Utah. Benzene concentration was measured from oil and oil field formation waters of the Altamont-Bluebell and Pariette Bench oil fields in the basin. It was also measured from springs located in the regional groundwater discharge areas, hydrauli...