Tag Archives: Carol B. Eckmann

Norwegians hoping to recover leftover oil with nanotechnology-enabled solutions

Sabina Griffith’s Jan. 21, 2013 article for Dailyfusion.net profiles two petroleum-themed research projects funded by the Research Council of Norway,

Two new research projects are receiving funding from the Research Council of Norway to develop nanoparticles that can dislodge leftover oil that remains trapped in reservoirs after conventional recovery has been completed.

Every percentage point of enhanced oil recovery rate represents billions in revenues.

“Nanotechnology is a generic technology with the potential for a wide variety of industrial applications,” says Aase Marie Hundere, Special Adviser at the Research Council and part of the NANO2021 program secretariat. “The petroleum industry is Norway’s largest, with vast international potential. Collaboration with the PETROMAKS 2 program provides an excellent opportunity to attract projects that involve specific users from industry.”

A Jan. 17, 2014 Research Council of Norway news release by Claude R. Olsen/Else Lie. Translation: Darren McKellep/Carol B. Eckmann describes first one project and its proponents,

Plugging errant water paths with gel

One of the problems with reservoirs that have been producing petroleum for an extended period is that the water injected flushes less and less oil out. Eventually the injected water is wasted, flowing through the same water-saturated zones rather than being diverted through new areas still containing mobile oil.

SINTEF [Scandinavia’s largest independent research organization] Petroleum Research is heading a project to develop chemical systems that can seal off these zones by sending a solution of nanoparticles and polymers down into the reservoir to the areas where the operator wants to prevent water from flowing. Once they are in position the particles, together with the polymers, will form a gelatinous structure (a gel) that prevents water from flowing through.
It may take the particles weeks or months to make their way through the reservoir, so the project researchers will have to figure out how to keep the gel from forming before the particles have reached their intended destination.

Another critical point will be to discover how the particles are transported through the porous rock: Will they slip through easily to their destination or get caught up in the pore walls along the way?

Together with NTNU, the University of Kansas and a number of petroleum companies, SINTEF will investigate two alternative solutions. Both are based on silica nanoparticles whose surface has been engineered to bind polymers together and form a gel. Developed by SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, the nanoparticles are similar to those used in certain products by Norwegian paint producer Jotun and in other products.

In the first alternative, chemicals will be used to deactivate the surface of the nanoparticles – keeping them passive for weeks or even months – before being activated to bind the polymers together at their destination point.

In the second alternative, active nanoparticles will be packaged into larger nanoparticles that transport them to the point where they are to be released in order to form the gel. The smaller particles will be produced by SINTEF. The University of Kansas has developed the transport particles and is already testing them in field experiments at North American oil reservoirs.

Project manager Torleif Holt of SINTEF Petroleum Research sees great potential for the technology, if successful.

“In the course of our three-and-a-half-year project period, we hope to have learned enough to know whether this method is viable,” he explains. “We would then able to estimate the quantities of nanoparticles needed and have some idea about when this is a financially feasible option.”

Here’s an image of trapped oil, gas, and water,

Functionalised particles to speed up oil flow While the SINTEF project focuses on plugging holes, the NTNU-led project is looking to speed up the flow of oil. Much of a reservoir’s oil remains trapped in small rock pores. NTNU researchers will be customising nanoparticles that can help to dislodge this oil and dramatically increase the amount of oil that can be recovered.  One method will utilise “Janus particles”, which feature a special surface of two different hemispheres: one is hydrophilic (attracted to water), the other hydrophobic (attracted to oil). Down in the reservoir, where both oil and water are found, the nanoparticles will spin like wheels and push the oil forward. “This is an early-stage project,” says project manager Jianying He, an associate professor at the NTNU Nanomechanical Lab. “But the idea is very exciting and has major potential for raising the recovery rate of Norwegian oil.” The petroleum companies Det norske and Wintershall are signed on as partners, and project researchers will be communicating with Statoil as well. The University of Houston is the research partner. The second method involves changing the surface charge of nanoparticles to make them capable of slipping between a reservoir’s oil and rock. If development proceeds as planned, Professor He estimates that the nanoparticles will be on the market in roughly seven years. She sees two challenges to using nanoparticles for enhanced recovery: HSE and production capacity. HSE should not be problematic in this case, as studies show that silica-based particles are not hazardous to the environment. Production capacity, however, may prove to be an obstacle to large-scale utilisation of nanoparticles. Petroleum companies would need millions of tonnes of nanoparticles daily. Currently there is no facility that can produce such quantities.  [downloaded from http://www.forskningsradet.no/en/Newsarticle/Nanotechnology_to_recover_stubborn_oil/1253992231414/p117731575391]

Microscope image of reservoir rock. The rock pores (shown in blue) may contain trapped oil, gas and water. Nanoparticles can be used to recover more of the residual oil. (Photo: Ingrid Anne Munz) [downloaded from http://www.forskningsradet.no/en/Newsarticle/Nanotechnology_to_recover_stubborn_oil/1253992231414/p117731575391]

The news release then describes the other project and its proponents,

Functionalised particles to speed up oil flow

While the SINTEF project focuses on plugging holes, the NTNU [Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet; Norwegian University of Science and Technology]-led project is looking to speed up the flow of oil. Much of a reservoir’s oil remains trapped in small rock pores. NTNU researchers will be customising nanoparticles that can help to dislodge this oil and dramatically increase the amount of oil that can be recovered.

One method will utilise “Janus particles”, which feature a special surface of two different hemispheres: one is hydrophilic (attracted to water), the other hydrophobic (attracted to oil). Down in the reservoir, where both oil and water are found, the nanoparticles will spin like wheels and push the oil forward.

“This is an early-stage project,” says project manager Jianying He, an associate professor at the NTNU Nanomechanical Lab. “But the idea is very exciting and has major potential for raising the recovery rate of Norwegian oil.”

The petroleum companies Det norske and Wintershall are signed on as partners, and project researchers will be communicating with Statoil as well. The University of Houston is the research partner.

The second method involves changing the surface charge of nanoparticles to make them capable of slipping between a reservoir’s oil and rock.

If development proceeds as planned, Professor He estimates that the nanoparticles will be on the market in roughly seven years. She sees two challenges to using nanoparticles for enhanced recovery: HSE  [health, safety, and environment?] and production capacity. HSE should not be problematic in this case, as studies show that silica-based particles are not hazardous to the environment.

Production capacity, however, may prove to be an obstacle to large-scale utilisation of nanoparticles. Petroleum companies would need millions of tonnes of nanoparticles daily. Currently there is no facility that can produce such quantities.

I had no idea Norway was so dependent on the petroleum industry. As for the nanoparticles referred to throughout the descriptions for both projects, I’d love to know more about them.

“Sensational” 15% can become up to 50% oil recovery rate from dead oil wells with nanoparticle-enhanced water

Texas, the Middle East, and/or Alberta leap to mind before Norway and China when one thinks of research into oil extraction, which makes this June 14, 2013 news item on Nanwerk about a Norway-China collaboration particularly intriguing,

When petroleum companies abandon an oil well, more than half the reservoir’s oil is usually left behind as too difficult to recover. Now, however, much of the residual oil can be recovered with the help of nanoparticles and a simple law of physics.

Oil to be recovered is confined in tiny pores within rock, often sandstone. Often the natural pressure in a reservoir is so high that the oil flows upwards when drilling reaches the rocks containing the oil.

In order to maintain the pressure within a reservoir, oil companies have learned to displace the produced oil by injecting water. This water forces out the oil located in areas near the injection point. The actual injection point may be hundreds or even thousands of metres away from the production well.

Eventually, however, water injection loses its effect. Once the oil from all the easily reached pores has been recovered, water begins emerging from the production well instead of oil, at which point the petroleum engineers have had little choice but to shut down the well.

The petroleum industry and research community have been working for decades on various solutions to increase recovery rates. One group of researchers at the Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research (CIPR) in Bergen, collaborating with researchers in China, has developed a new method for recovering more oil from wells – and not just more, far more. [emphasis mine]

The Chinese scientists had already succeeded in recovering a sensational 15 per cent of the residual oil in their test reservoir when they formed a collaboration with the CIPR researchers to find out what had actually taken place down in the reservoir. Now the Norwegian partner in the collaboration has succeeded in recovering up to 50 per cent of the oil remaining in North Sea rock samples.

The ?, 2013 article (Nanoparticles helping to recover more oil) by Claude R. Olsen/Else Lie. Translation: Darren McKellep/Carol B. Eckmann for the Research Council of Norway, which originated the news item, explains what is left after the easy oil has been extracted and how this news technique squeezes more oil out of the well,

Water in an oil reservoir flows much like the water in a river, accelerating in narrow stretches and slowing where the path widens.

When water is pumped into a reservoir, the pressure difference forces the water away from the injection well and towards the production well through the tiny rock pores. These pores are all interconnected by very narrow tunnel-like passages, and the water accelerates as it squeezes its way through these.

The new method is based on infusing the injection water with particles that are considerably smaller than the tunnel diameters. When the particle-enhanced water reaches a tunnel opening, it will accelerate faster than the particles, leaving the particles behind to accumulate and plug the tunnel entrance, ultimately sealing the tunnel.

This forces the following water to take other paths through the rock’s pores and passages – and in some of these there is oil, which is forced out with the water flow. The result is more oil extracted from the production well and higher profits for the petroleum companies.

The article writers do not provide a description of the nanoparticles but they do describe the genesis of this Norwegian-Sino collaboration,

The idea for this method of oil recovery came from the two Chinese researchers Bo Peng and Ming yuan Li who completed their doctorates in Bergen 10 and 20 years ago, respectively. The University of Bergen and China University of Petroleum in Beijing have been cooperating for over a decade on petroleum research, and this laid the foundation for collaboration on understanding and refining the particle method.

At first it was not known if the particles could be used in seawater, since the Chinese had done their trials with river water and onshore oilfields. Trials in Bergen using rock samples from the North Sea showed that the nanoparticles also work in seawater and help to recover an average of 20?30 per cent, and up to 50 per cent, more residual oil.