Vibrational And Acoustic Enhanced Oil Recovery

Oil and gas is still a major energy source all over the world, and techniques like these, which are more environmentally friendly and inexpensive than many previous development and production technologies, are important for making fossil fuels more sustainable and less hazardous to the environment.

Based on research they did in the 1970s in Russia and the United States, the authors discovered that oil rate production increased noticeably several days after the occurrence of an earthquake when the epicenter of the earthquake was located in the vicinity of the oil producing field. The increase in oil flow remained higher for a considerable period of time, and it led to a decade-long study both in the Russia and the US, which gradually focused on the use of acoustic/vibrational energy for enhanced oil recovery after reservoirs waterflooded. In the 1980s, they noticed in soil remediation studies that sonic energy applied to soil increases the rate of hydrocarbon removal and decreases the percentage of residual hydrocarbons. In the past several decades, the use of various seismic vibration techniques have been used in various countries and have resulted in incremental oil production.

This outstanding new volume validates results of vibro-stimulation tests for enhanced oil recovery, using powerful surface-based vibro-seismic sources. It proves that the rate of displacement of oil by water increases and the percentage of nonrecoverable residual oil decreases if vibro-energy is applied to the porous medium containing oil.

Audience:

Petroleum Engineers, Chemical Engineers, Earthquake and Energy engineers, Environmental Engineers, Geotechnical Engineers, Mining and Geological Engineers, Sustainability Engineers, Physicists, Chemists, Geologists, and other professionals working in this field

List of Contributors xiii

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Origin and Migration of Oil 5

1.1.1 Seismicity 6

1.1.2 Electrokinetics 7

1.1.3 Earth Tides 9

1.1.4 Compaction 9

1.1.5 Migration in a Gaseous Form 10

1.2 Seismic Vibration Techniques 11

1.2.1 Producing Well Experiments 11

1.2.2 Mechanisms of Interaction of Fluid Flow With the Vibro-Energy in Porous Media 12

References and Bibliography 13

2 Wave Spreading Patterns in the Porous Media 19

2.1 Spread of Vibration in Reservoir 19

2.2 Effect on the Wave Spread in the Oil Accumulations by the Geologic-Geophysical Conditions 26

2.3 Wave Spreading From the Vibrating Surface of the Reservoir Matrix Into the Saturated Medium 30

2.4 Excitation of Vibration in Oil Reservoirs 42

References and Bibliography 51

3 Directional Displacement of a Dispersed Phase 55

3.1 Simplest Models of the Vibrational Directional Displacement 55

3.2 Physical Mechanisms and Major Types of Asymmetry Causing Vibratory Displacement 61

3.3 Directed Motion of the Dispersed Phase in Vibrating Pore Channels 69

3.4 Directional Motion of the Vibrating Dispersed Phase in Pore Channels 82

References 87

4 Formation Damage Control and Cement Sheath Stability 89

4.1 Status of the Reservoir 89

4.2 Vibration Effect on the Reservoir’s Heat Properties 95

4.3 Decolmatation of the Near-Bottomhole Zone in the Vibration Field 104

4.4 Cement Sheath Stability Around a Well in the Vibration Field 113

References and Bibliography 118

5 Effect of Vibration on Improving Oil Yield and Various Tertiary Recovery Technologies 123

5.1 Major Causes of Incomplete Oil Recovery From the Subsurface 123

5.1.1 Oil Displacement by Miscible Hydrocarbons 128

5.1.2 Oil Displacement by a High-Pressure Dry Gas 129

5.1.3 Oil Displ