Investigation of the effect of nano-particles activated carbon on heating heavy oil reservoirs

The world growing demand for energy is un-doubtful. Even with the increasing development of renewable energy, hydrocarbons still supply the world with the major portion of this demand. This supply is expected to grow in the future. However, a challenge facing the world and the oil industry is the depletion of the conventional oil reservoirs of which most hydrocarbons were produced from in the past. More oil now is being produced from unconventional sources than any time before in history. With the shift of focus toward unconventional reservoirs, the reservoirs that were once classified as “unconventional” are slowly turning to “conventional” reservoirs. Of these reservoirs are the heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs, which according to the U.S. geological survey estimate, possess more than 50% of the world total recoverable oil reserves. This estimate is expected to grow with the increase in research and recoverable methods. A major challenge in recovering oil from these reservoirs is the high viscosity of the oil which makes it impossible for oil to flow under natural conditions. Techniques have been developed have developed over the years to tackle this problem by heating the oil thus decreasing its viscosity for it to flow. At the current oil prices, the optimization of this heating process is a necessity. Activated carbon is a substance that reaches very high temperature upon heating than any other naturally occurring substances in the reservoirs, specifically rock and water. Heat energy produced by microwave cost the least in comparison with other sources of heat energy targeting heavy oil reservoirs. The focus of this thesis is to use these two facts to our advantage. Injecting Nano-Particles activated carbon into sandstone cores and then heating them using a microwave performed this. A major challenge faced, was the suspension fluid used to transport the Nano-particles into the cores. After the unsatisfactory results from using water and a lab- prepared guar fluid to transport the Nano-particles into the core, a commercial Frac- Fluid was used and it showed satisfactory results. In comparison to empty cores, the cores injected with activated carbon reached significantly higher temperatures. The experiment was further developed to identify the optimum activated carbon concentration. In other words, the maximum activated carbon concentration we can inject before the blockage of the pore throats. Brine, when mixed with Nano-particles, is known to adverse their positive effects to increase oil recovery. In the case of activated carbon, the effect of saline solutions on the activated carbon permittivity was tested and it showed no negative effect on the activated carbon permittivity.