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Energy Department selects two Arctic drilling research projects New Mexico Tech will look at effect of synthetic-oil-based muds on rock cores; University of Houston will develop simulator which can show results of injecting mixtures of gases Petroleum News • Alaska
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory has selected two research projects aimed at boosting productivity of oil exploration and production on the North Slope in an environmentally sound manner.
Both projects — one by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, the other by the University of Houston — will evaluate ways to boost the productivity of oil exploration and production operations on Alaska’s North Slope in an environmentally sound manner.
The projects will be managed by the Department’s National Petroleum Technology Office in Tulsa, Okla.
Snythetic-oil-based muds Researchers at New Mexico Tech’s Petroleum Recovery Research Center will receive $750,000 in federal funding for a three-year study on how synthetic-oil-based muds change the properties of rock cores extracted from Arctic reservoirs. The University will contribute another $360,400.
On the North Slope, drillers must use specially formulated synthetic-oil-based muds, rather than water-based muds, both for environmental reasons and to function properly in the Arctic climate. The synthetic muds, however, can change the properties of the core samples which geologists extract and analyze to determine the best ways to produce oil from the reservoir. The New Mexico researchers will explore ways to restore the original properties of the reservoir rock cores or perhaps to develop synthetic muds that do not have detrimental effects on the cores.
Simulator to study carbon dioxide injection Researchers at the University of Houston, Houston, Texas, will receive nearly $600,000 in federal funding for a three-year effort to develop a reservoir simulator that would show how injecting different mixtures of hydrocarbon and other gases can boost oil recovery and possibly lead to the sequestration of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The university will add $150,000 to the research project.
University researchers are especially interested in a process of water-alternating-gas injection that operators could use in the future to produce heavy oil from the North Slope’s shallow sand reservoirs. With today’s state-of-the-art simulators, researchers can model how a single gas — methane, for example — behaves as it moves through a reservoir. When the gas composition varies, however, the modeling and simulation process becomes significantly more complex.
The University of Houston model could make it possible for future North Slope operators to predict how injecting methane, carbon dioxide, flue gases, or combinations of these gases, along with water, can enhance the production of North Slope heavy oil.
In the case of carbon dioxide, the model could also reveal important information on how the greenhouse gas might be captured and remain in the reservoir, which could lead to a viable way of disposing of several megatons of the greenhouse gas at the North Slope.
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