Prasenjit Talukdar

A common issue encountered by drilling engineers during drilling operation in oil and gas industries is that simple water-based muds are not suitable for deeper depth and certain clay-swelling formations. Another option as to increasing the density of the drilling mud which brings about an increase in filtration loss, additives may be added to improve the fluid properties. This paper aims on determining the effectiveness of common salts, sodium chloride (NaCl) and potassium chloride (KCl), and haematite on the rheological properties of optimized carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)–bentonite and partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (PHPA)–bentonite muds. Both CMC and PHPA polymer act as fluid loss-reducing agents and viscosifiers for normal bentonite water-based mud. The mud is further enhanced to counter certain swelling formations such as shale through the addition of NaCl and KCl. These salts inhibit the shale formation from swelling through its ions by entering the lattice of the drilli...

The need for production by Enhanced Oil Recovery has increased drastically over the past two decades because of the constantly increasing need of Hydrocarbons and decline in the discovery of new oil and gas producing horizons. This paper deals with development of an ideal thermo chemical method of Enhanced Oil Recovery in the mature and depleting Naharkatiya Oilfield by experimental investigation of Reservoir rock and fluid samples and different phenomena occurring in the Petroleum Reservoir with TGA, XRD, SEM, PVT Analysis. In this paper the authors have designed a novel combination strategy taking into consideration all the techno-economic feasibilities and Reservoir Characteristics to develop the best method of EOR which can be employed by the Industry not only in Naharkatiya but also in analogous fields all over the world having the same Rock and fluid properties.

Using of biosurfactant producing microorganisms for pipeline cleaning, bioremediation, enhanced oil recovery, etc. is a much soughed approach of petroleum industry. Although, many alternatives are available to serve these purposes, being ecofriendly and economic, microbial application is considered superior than most of the alternatives. This paper presents a comprehensive study on effectiveness of bacterial strain isolated from oil contaminated soil sample of Lakwa oilfield for required purposes. Its temperature sustainability and surfactant production capability was studied. Further characteristics of the produced biosurfactant were assessed through Emulsification Index measurement, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectra, Drop Collapse Test, Contact Angle and Viscosity measurement.

Oil and gas processing acts as the preliminary treatment required to be performed on the raw crude oil and gas obtained from the wells so as to make it fit for further processing in the refinery. A particular oil and gas processing facility, located in the Assam Arakan basin is chosen and a detailed study is carried out regarding its various aspects. The study shows that the processing facility has certain problems related to its design and layout which affects the entire crude processing operation. This paper aims at finding solutions to all these problems and suggesting a new layout in a manner that is both technologically and economically feasible. This technology can also be applied to analogous field processing stations in different parts of the world which have reservoirs having similar characteristics to upper Assam basin and also having crude with similar PVT properties. Keywords : Oil and gas processing, modifications in design and layout, PVT properties, sand control, effl...

In this research article, a hydrogel was prepared on the purpose of performing a water shut-off process in an oil reservoir. The hydrogel was prepared by using the crosslinking of a partially-hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (PHPA) polymer and zirconium acetate. The tests were conducted to evaluate the effect of various parameters, such as temperature, polymer and crosslinker concentration on the gelation time using the bottle testing method. The effect of temperature on rheological parameters and hydrogel system was also studied. Phase diagram provides the optimum gel formation and effectiveness of optimum gel system was studied through the in-situ gelation and sand pack flooding experiments. The experiments show that the significant permeability reduction of the sand pack cores achieved at reservoir conditions by optimum gel system. Hence, this gel system may be suitable in water shut-off treatments required for enhanced oil recovery from the oil fields.

One of the most important elements of oil and gas well drilling process is drilling fluid or drilling mud. To remove cuttings from well, to suspend the cuttings and weighting material when circulation ceases and release them, to transmit hydraulic energy to clean the bit and the bottom of the borehole, to maintain wellbore stability, to minimize damage to the pay-zone, to minimize environmental impact, etc. are the most important functions of drilling fluids. All these functions are connecting to the rheological properties, filtrate & particle invasion and mud-cake quality of drilling fluids and all are more or less controlled by the clay component in conventional Water Base Mud (WBM). Non Damaging Drilling Fluid (NDDF) is an environmental friendly polymer mud system mostly used in pay zone sections of development wells and specifically in horizontal drilling to avoid formation damage. Non degradable compositional fine solid like clay, barite, etc. are not used in NDDF to counter th...

Keeping the cost and environmental effects in mind, an alternate locally available and suitable drilling mud additive was searched for. This study focuses on the effectiveness of banana starch and cornflour starch as rheology modifier and fluid loss control agent in non damaging drilling fluids (NDDFs). Comparative study of properties obtained from the different types of starch added mud and the base mud were carried out. Starch is an environment friendly drilling mud additive used in water based drilling fluids to control filtration loss. They are also said to have thermal stability upto 250 F. In this study, the authors have experimented to find out environment friendly alternatives for drilling fluid additives which are cheap, organic, bio-degradable, nontoxic and easily available.

Excellent drilling fluid techniques are the significant guaranteed measures to insure safety, quality, efficiency and faster completion of drilling operations. However, after the completion of drilling operations these fluids become wastes and are discarded which can have a large negative impact on the environment. Both the drilling materials and additives containing drill cuttings, oil and water are dumped onto soil, surface water, ground water and air causing severe environmental pollution. The preservation of environment has become a major concern these days. Hence, this paper focuses on the use of calcium tannate as an environment friendly drilling fluid additive that is derived from tea waste obtained from tea industries using simple procedures. In this study, basically the rheological properties of the laboratory prepared drilling mud with and without adding calcium tannate have been determined and compared.

Crude oil needs to be transported from oil wells to refinery and storage facilities in one form or another to ultimately become end use products. After the successful extraction of oil from the ground it is mostly transported through pipelines where the crude oil experiences various changes in its physical and chemical properties. These rheological changes may cause numerous flow assurance problems such as wax and paraffin deposition which ultimately restricts the flow of oil. Chemical additives such as Pour Point depressants (PPDs) are used in this case for the efficient transportation of crude oil by lowering the Wax Deposition Temperature (WAT). Hence, in order to enhance the knowledge about PPDs, the mechanism of various types of Pour Point Depressant for aiding the flow of crude oil while transportation were discussed in this paper.

In the aura of this research we developed the grafted nanocomposite pour point depressant by culmination of a set of monomers namely acrylamide, maleic anhydride, styrene, and octadecyl methacrylate and further grafted to nano silica for improving the flow properties and thereby decrease the temperature of pour point value of the NorthEast Indian waxy based crude oil. Moreover, to emphasize and understand the central effects of different concentrations of synthesized nanocomposite pour point depressants on the pour point of waxy crude oil, several important experiments were undergone and later its results were compared with the commercial pour point depressant. In addition, the rheological props of the sample crude were also analyzed with and without additives. The results shows that the synthesized nanocomposite has more effectively reduced the viscosity as well as pour point of the sample to desired value when compared to that of the commercially used pour point depressant.

The drilling of the wells from surface to target location with conventional drilling fluids may impair production and ultimate recovery by failing to adequately connect the reservoir with the wellbore by damaging the producing interval. One of the most common ways of damaging a formation is the filtration loss. Non Damaging Drilling Fluid (NDDF) is a clay and barite free environmental friendly polymer mud system mostly used in pay zone sections of development wells and specifically in horizontal drilling to avoid formation damage. Starches [(C6H10O5) n] are an environment-friendly drilling mud additive for water-base drilling fluids used to control the filtration loss. This paper reports the effect and optimum composition of Pre-Gelatinized Starch (PGS) as a filtration control component in the NDDF. PGS is a high-quality nonionic polysaccharide having the Chemical Formula: C27H48O20 and Molecular Weight: 692.658020 [g/mol] which controls the filtration loss by sealing the walls of t...

The rapid industrialization and growing energy needs have put a great stress on the conventional energy resources. This is even more concerning for a country like India which is a net importer of oil. To meet the ever increasing need for energy, it is essential that the search for unconventional energy is intensified. This paper deals with the estimation of coal bed methane potential of the Margherita Coal Field of Assam, India. For this purpose, eight coal samples were collected from Tirap O.C.P., Ledo UG Incline and Tikak O.C.P collieries of the Margherita coal field. Proximate analysis, megascopic study and finally qualitative analysis of these eight samples was undertaken. After analysis, the inferred reserves of CBM at Margherita Coalfield, was found to be in the range of 42.5-49.04 Billion Cubic Meter.Int J Appl Sci Biotechnol, Vol 3(2): 232-235DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijasbt.v3i2.12449