Aleksey Baldygin - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Aleksey Baldygin
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2014
This paper focuses on finding ways to improve the traditional core flooding experimental setup th... more This paper focuses on finding ways to improve the traditional core flooding experimental setup that has been used by the reservoir engineers over the past decades. The new proposed setup can be used in contemporary studies related to enhanced oil recovery. This setup has a possibility of using different flooding agents, e.g., surfactant, polymer, emulsion, oil and water. It also includes an automated effluent analysis, which has been developed to provide estimates on oil recovery efficiency. For validation purposes, the core flooding setup has been tested with an unconsolidated one-dimensional sand pack as a porous medium. Traditional water flooding experiments with paraffin oil and water were conducted at first. Also, two types of emulsion flooding techniques were tested for the sand packs: the direct emulsion flooding and the water flooding followed by the emulsion flooding as an example to exploit the capability of the new setup to successfully perform enhanced oil recovery techniques. Hence, this setup provides a valuable tool for the reservoir engineers to test the different flooding strategies in a laboratory scale experiment, before committing to huge resources in terms of man-power and cost in actual drilling operations in oil reservoirs.
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2014
water-alternate-emulsion emulsion core flooding flooding ratio enhanced oil recovery a b s t r a ... more water-alternate-emulsion emulsion core flooding flooding ratio enhanced oil recovery a b s t r a c t To meet the global need for efficient energy recovery, a new water-alternate-emulsion (WAE) technique for enhanced oil recovery is presented here. The key to this technique is the use of ex situ generated emulsion to recover the resident oil phase from reservoirs, where the emulsion is injected along with water in alternate slugs. Three different flooding ratios for water to emulsion (oil-in-water) slugs were investigated here using an unconsolidated sand pack as a model porous medium. It was found that for 5:1 WAE flooding, the total amount of oil recovered is 82% of OOIP for only 0.3 PV injection. This is significantly higher rate of recovery compared to conventional water flooding or emulsion flooding alone. Hence, the WAE flooding technique tested under laboratory conditions appears to be a promising technology for an enhanced oil recovery process, which needs to be tested in field reservoirs.
RSC Advances, 2014
A pressurized core flooding experiment was performed to better understand in situ coal bioconvers... more A pressurized core flooding experiment was performed to better understand in situ coal bioconversion processes. The core flooding experiment was conducted using a biaxial core holder packed with subbituminous coal particles (250-150 mm grain size) obtained from the Highvale mine in Alberta, Canada. The coal pack was inoculated with a methanogenic microbial culture enriched from coal and was continuously flooded with mineral salt medium and an organic carbon/nitrogen nutrient supplement (tryptone). The changes in the physical properties of the coal pack during the core flooding suggested coal bioconversion to methane under the experimental conditions. Colonization and bioconversion of coal by microbes was evident from the change in core permeability and presence of metabolites and gas (CH 4 and CO 2 ) in the effluent. A total of 1.52 mmol of CH 4 was produced per gram of coal during the 90 days experiment at 22 C. Signature metabolites consistent with anaerobic biodegradation of hydrocarbons, e.g., carboxylic acids, were identified in effluent samples throughout incubation. The transient nature of metabolites in effluent samples supports fermentation of coal constituents and nutrient supplement to simple molecules such as acetic acid, which served as a substrate for methanogenesis during the bioconversion process. Accumulation of carboxylic acids such as succinic acid in the effluent also demonstrates that the coal bioconversion process may be used for extraction of other value-added products apart from CH 4 generation. Importantly, results presented here suggest that coal bioconversion by biostimulation under reservoir conditions is a scalable technology with potential for energy generation and for overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2014
This paper focuses on finding ways to improve the traditional core flooding experimental setup th... more This paper focuses on finding ways to improve the traditional core flooding experimental setup that has been used by the reservoir engineers over the past decades. The new proposed setup can be used in contemporary studies related to enhanced oil recovery. This setup has a possibility of using different flooding agents, e.g., surfactant, polymer, emulsion, oil and water. It also includes an automated effluent analysis, which has been developed to provide estimates on oil recovery efficiency. For validation purposes, the core flooding setup has been tested with an unconsolidated one-dimensional sand pack as a porous medium. Traditional water flooding experiments with paraffin oil and water were conducted at first. Also, two types of emulsion flooding techniques were tested for the sand packs: the direct emulsion flooding and the water flooding followed by the emulsion flooding as an example to exploit the capability of the new setup to successfully perform enhanced oil recovery techniques. Hence, this setup provides a valuable tool for the reservoir engineers to test the different flooding strategies in a laboratory scale experiment, before committing to huge resources in terms of man-power and cost in actual drilling operations in oil reservoirs.
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2014
water-alternate-emulsion emulsion core flooding flooding ratio enhanced oil recovery a b s t r a ... more water-alternate-emulsion emulsion core flooding flooding ratio enhanced oil recovery a b s t r a c t To meet the global need for efficient energy recovery, a new water-alternate-emulsion (WAE) technique for enhanced oil recovery is presented here. The key to this technique is the use of ex situ generated emulsion to recover the resident oil phase from reservoirs, where the emulsion is injected along with water in alternate slugs. Three different flooding ratios for water to emulsion (oil-in-water) slugs were investigated here using an unconsolidated sand pack as a model porous medium. It was found that for 5:1 WAE flooding, the total amount of oil recovered is 82% of OOIP for only 0.3 PV injection. This is significantly higher rate of recovery compared to conventional water flooding or emulsion flooding alone. Hence, the WAE flooding technique tested under laboratory conditions appears to be a promising technology for an enhanced oil recovery process, which needs to be tested in field reservoirs.
RSC Advances, 2014
A pressurized core flooding experiment was performed to better understand in situ coal bioconvers... more A pressurized core flooding experiment was performed to better understand in situ coal bioconversion processes. The core flooding experiment was conducted using a biaxial core holder packed with subbituminous coal particles (250-150 mm grain size) obtained from the Highvale mine in Alberta, Canada. The coal pack was inoculated with a methanogenic microbial culture enriched from coal and was continuously flooded with mineral salt medium and an organic carbon/nitrogen nutrient supplement (tryptone). The changes in the physical properties of the coal pack during the core flooding suggested coal bioconversion to methane under the experimental conditions. Colonization and bioconversion of coal by microbes was evident from the change in core permeability and presence of metabolites and gas (CH 4 and CO 2 ) in the effluent. A total of 1.52 mmol of CH 4 was produced per gram of coal during the 90 days experiment at 22 C. Signature metabolites consistent with anaerobic biodegradation of hydrocarbons, e.g., carboxylic acids, were identified in effluent samples throughout incubation. The transient nature of metabolites in effluent samples supports fermentation of coal constituents and nutrient supplement to simple molecules such as acetic acid, which served as a substrate for methanogenesis during the bioconversion process. Accumulation of carboxylic acids such as succinic acid in the effluent also demonstrates that the coal bioconversion process may be used for extraction of other value-added products apart from CH 4 generation. Importantly, results presented here suggest that coal bioconversion by biostimulation under reservoir conditions is a scalable technology with potential for energy generation and for overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.