Berihun Negash

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS | UTP · Department of Petroleum Engineering

Interwell interference is a ubiquitous concern in shale reservoir development that results in declines in productivity. It mainly appears when a high number of closely spaced parent/offset and child/infill wells are placed in the shale producing zone to stimulate hydrocarbon production. Its consequences become risky when multibranch horizontal infi...

Recently, a modified mathematical model was presented in order to determine the productivity of multi-fractured shale gas wells. However, the considerable challenge of the model was assuming an average fracture width for the determination of the practical fracture geometry of the stimulated reservoir volume. This challenge led to over prediction of...

Thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is one of the main contributors to EOR worldwide production. Steam huff and puff injection, one of its methods, is a technique in which steam is injected in a cyclical manner alternating with oil production. Reservoir simulation is considered as the most reliable solution to evaluate the reservoir performance and...

Rock/fluid interfacial tension (γrock-fluid) govern the fluid flow dynamics, the injection/withdrawal rates, the gas storage capacity, and containment integrity during gas (H2, CO2, N2) geo-storage. Clay-gas interfacial tension (γclay-gas) data, especially for the clay-H2 (γclay-H2), the clay-N2 (γclay-N2) and the clay-CO2 (γclay-CO2) systems, have...

Analytic models, complex simulations, and simple models are being used to predict the production performance of hydraulically fractured shale. Analytical models such as decline curve analysis and rate transient analysis are used for a quick evaluation of reservoir performance. However, they have considerable limitations. For instance, decline curve...

Usage of supercritical CO 2 (Sc-CO 2 ) as fracturing and displacing fluid is given much attention in recent years. It enables the prevention of issues related to hydraulic fracturing such as formation damage, clay swelling, capillary trapping, and consumption of a high volume of water. However, the low proppant carrying capacity, high frictional re...

Shale instability due to hydration and swelling is an unavoidable problem during hydraulic fracturing or drilling with water-based fluids. In this study, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (BMIMCl) an ionic liquid was utilized as a clay swelling inhibitor. The performance of BMIMCl was evaluated by the bentonite plate soaking test and linear swel...

Slickwater hydraulic fracturing creates complex fracture networks in unconventional shale gas reservoirs. The use of spherical micron and nano-sized particles have been proposed as suitable sized materials to keep nano fractures conductive. Few materials have been investigated for occupying induced unpropped nano fractures. In this study, the nanom...

Shale rocks are one of the world's most important unconventional gas resources today, thanks to technical advancements. Fluid adsorption in tight rocks like shale is critical for designing fracturing and treatment fluids. However, adsorption of fluids in shale is not fully understood, and quantifying it remains difficult. In addition, the complicat...

Low salinity water (LSW) flooding is a novel and emerging technique for oil recovery and has received significant attention recently by petroleum industries as an efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly method compared to other secondary and tertiary oil recovery methods. Although LSW flooding has been proven to be a promising technique...

Steam huff and puff injection is one of the thermal EOR methods in which steam is injected in a cyclical manner alternating with oil production. The cost and time inefficiency problem of reservoir simulation persists in the design of a steam huff and puff injection scheme. Building predictive proxy models is a suitable solution to deal with this is...

With the increasing of water injection activities especially for marginal or stranded fields, the well pair analysis in routine water injection surveillance is crucial to understand the reservoir performance and identify opportunities to improve the ultimate oil recovery. This article aims to propose an alternative technique to evaluate the communi...

Wax deposition and gelation of waxy crude oil in production pipelines are detrimental to crude oil transportation from offshore fields. A waxy crude oil forms intra-gel voids in pipelines under cooling mode, particularly below the pour point temperature. Consequently, intrusion of non-reacting gas into production pipelines has become a promising me...

After successful implementation for more than 6 decades by the oil and gas industry, hydraulic fracturing remains the pioneer well stimulation method to date. Polymers are one of the additives in fracturing fluids that play a significant role. Polymers are used as friction reducers and viscosifiers to provide a transport medium for proppants in fra...

A benchtop humidity and temperature chamber was used to assess water vapor sorption in four US shale samples at 90 °C. Water sorption isotherms were measured at relative humidity ranging from 10 to 99% and temperature of 90 °C. Shale fractal properties were then evaluated, and capillary pressure (ranging from 1.70 to 386 MPa) was obtained using Kel...

Water-based fracturing fluids without an inhibitor promote clay swelling, which eventually creates wellbore instability. Several ionic liquids (ILs) have been studied as swelling inhibitors in recent years. The cations of the ILs are crucial to the inhibitory mechanisms that take place during hydraulic fracturing. Individual studies were carried ou...

Shale reservoirs, despite having abundance in hydrocarbon storage, offer significant challenges in terms of understanding the pore-scale and reservoir-scale phenomenon. Typically, hydraulic fracturing treatment is implemented to improve hydrocarbon productivity through the injection of fracturing fluid to induce the breakdown of the formation to cr...

The interest in designing and developing polymeric nanoparticles has grown in recent years. The inclusion of nanoparticles in polymer solutions enhances several properties, such as stability, rheological and shear characteristics, polymer adsorption, wettability alteration, and so on, leading to increased oil recovery. Graphene oxide (GO) nanosheet...

This study presents a model application for the evaluation of Effective Stimulated Reservoir Volume (ESRV) in shale gas reservoirs. This current model is faster, cheaper, and readily available for estimating ESRV compared to previously published models. Key controlling parameters for efficient ESRV modeling, including geomechanical parameters and t...

Polymers play a major role in developing rheology of fracturing fluids for multistage hydraulic fracturing horizontal wells in unconventional reservoirs. Reducing the amount of polymer adsorbed in the shale formation is essential to maintain the polymer efficiency. In this study, the ability of silica nanoparticles to minimize polymer adsorption in...

Billions of tons of quarried material are globally produced per annum, generating siliceous solid cutting and powder waste which are usually disposed of in landfill sites. Herein, two cheap and distinct granite quarry waste cuttings have been reduced into microproppant dimensions. They were characterized for potential application in hydraulic fract...

Ionic liquids (ILs) can play a vital role in clay swelling inhibition during hydraulic fracturing. Previous studies highlighted the effect of side-chain length attached to the cationic core and different anions possessing almost the same chemical properties on inhibition performance. However, polyatomic anions have the potential to superiorly inhib...

Many studies tied to adsorption on heterogeneous surfaces have been reported in the literature. However, finding an adsorption model that accurately describes the sorption mechanism in gas shales remains a challenge. This is due to the complex surface heterogeneity and the presence of multiple components in the formation. Modelling and simulation a...

The environment is a prime concern in the mining industry because of its adverse impact on the solid, liquid, and gaseous surroundings. These three parts of the environment are directly connected to agricultural production. As the Barapukuria coal mine is located in the agricultural zone, its effects can be crucial. Previously, the impacts of the s...

Caprocks/CO2 interfacial tension (𝛾𝑠𝑐) is an essential parameter that helps to provide insights into the interaction between CO2 and caprocks. Lower values of 𝛾𝑠𝑐 suggest stronger CO2 - caprocks interaction (lower capacity is inferred) and vice versa. Rocks/CO2 interfacial tension also explains why different minerals have different wettability to C...

The Multilevel Inverter (MLI) uses Selective Harmonic Elimination (SHE) of the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) approach to tackle the fundamental harmonics with the elimination of selected lower harmonics. The optimal switching angle for this PWM method is calculated by solving a set of nonlinear equations. The PWM signal is generated using these angl...

A substantial amount of water used for fracking shale formations is trapped by capillary and interfacial forces. Such trapped water is detrimental to gas production because of its potential to obstruct gas’s desorption and, subsequently, its flow path. Surfactants are proposed to alleviate the problem; however, further insight is required to unders...

Molecular simulation enjoys a high preference for use in adsorption studies. However, modeling and preparing a realistic shale topology remains a constraint. Majority of studies are performed using a single component, such as kerogen or montmorillonite, to represent shale surface. Where more than one component is used, they are not mixed but are at...

There is an urgent need to store millions of tons of CO2 in deep underground formations to reduce anthropogenic emissions in the atmosphere. Basaltic rocks are recently depicted as feasible and safe candidates for storing CO2 in mineralized form. The leakage of stored CO2 in basaltic rocks could be minimized due to the mineralization process report...

Well placement optimization is considered a non-convex and highly multimodal optimization problem. In this article, a modified crow search algorithm is proposed to tackle the well placement optimization problem. This article proposes modifications based on local search and niching techniques in the crow search algorithm (CSA). At first, the suggest...

In recent years, directional drilling becomes more popular in petroleum industry due to its more exposure to reservoir. During wellbore trajectory design for directional drilling, more importance should be given on safety issues. Well-profile energy is the key parameter which can assure a safe and efficient wellbore trajectory through proper optimi...

Stimulated reservoir volume (SRV) seldom provides an actual producible reservoir volume in gas shale reservoirs. It is determined by analysing microseismic events induced by a network of hydraulic fracture and reopened natural fractures. However, the occurrence of noncontributory microseismic events leads to an overestimation while the presence of...

The cost and environmental effects of most conventional surfactants have increased the search for a greener and cheaper alternative for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) applications. The natural L-amino acids are amphoteric compound with excellent surface properties that have found versatile applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industr...

Surfactant injection into a depleted hydrocarbon reservoir is one of the ways to reduce residual oil saturation, thereby enhancing crude oil production. However, surfactants emanating from petroleum sources are toxic, costly, and not biodegradable. Hence, several ongoing studies target to replace them with green and cheaper alternatives. Recently,...

The presence of swelling clays, namely, montmorillonite and illite-smectite mixed layer clays alike, significantly affects well stimulation processes, such as hydraulic fracturing. In this study, the inhibition potentials of three natural amino acids, namely, glycine, lysine monohydrochloride (lysine MHCl), and methionine, on the swelling propertie...

Water reservation, especially in remote and drought-prone areas and environmental concerns, are two major drawbacks of water-based fracturing. Waterless fracturing technologies, however, also referred to as green hydraulic fracturing, are friendly to the environment and have the potential to replace water-based fracturing. This article critically r...

The complexity of optimizing well location poses a major challenge. Past studies have used classical and non-classical methods to solve this problem. However, the most metaheuristic techniques, which we consider to be the most effective algorithms in the field, present local optimization problems. This paper studies the application of the novel bat...

Proppants have evolved from their primary role of preventing fracture closure to performing technically functional roles within reservoirs. This paper presents an extensive review of recent advances in functional proppant technology. Multifunctional proppant roles, such as the enhancement of multiphase flow of reservoir fluids, delivery of CO2 for...

The high dimensional, multimodal, and discontinuous well placement optimization is one of the main difficult factors in the development process of conventional as well as shale gas reservoir, and to optimize this problem, metaheuristic techniques still suffer from premature convergence. Hence, to tackle this problem, this study aims at introducing...

External excitation of oil reservoirs has shown promising potential in increasing residual oil recovery. Although several numerical, experimental, and pilot studies were conducted over the last decades, large-scale field application is not realized due to inconclusive results on its performance. This paper aims to investigate the effect of external...

Optimization of well placement is one of the main dicult factors in the development process in the oil and gas industry. The well placement optimization is high dimensional, multi-modal and discontinuous. In previous research , conventional and non-conventional optimization techniques have been applied to resolve this problem. However, gradient-fre...

The influence of an anionic surfactant, a cationic surfactant, and salinity on adsorbed methane (CH4) in shale was assessed and modeled in a series of systematically designed experiments. Two cases were investigated. In case 1, the crushed Marcellus shale samples were allowed to react with anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and brine. In case 2,...

An incomplete data set of flow rate and pressure is detrimental to reservoir management and operation. It has the potential to increase uncertainty and has the potential to unfavorably affect operational and managerial decisions. Such a data set might transpire because of failure in the flowmeters, pressure gauges, and/or unrecorded shut-in periods...

This article comprehensively reviews the potential application and effects of different moieties of ionic liquids (ILs) on shale stabilization processes. The shale swelling inhibitory mechanisms and dispersion properties of 22 ILs were discussed. The effect of IL’s concentration, temperature, chain length, cations, anions and polymerization functio...

In this paper, the destabilization inhibition potentials and mechanisms of Alanine, Arginine, and Proline on montmorillonite clay were investigated. A swelling test was done using an M4600 HPHT Linear swell meter at 1000 psi, 25 °C, and 2 wt% inhibitor solutions. Shear rates and temperatures in the range of 0.01 s⁻¹ to 1000 s⁻¹ and 25 °C – 50 °C, r...

In this study, previous literature that discussed CO2/brine interfacial tension and wettability of rock/CO2/brine systems were critically reviewed. Using a shale core from Malaysian formation, laboratory experiments were conducted to extend the scope of available data for CO2/brine interfacial tension (IFT) and contact angles of shale/CO2/brine sys...

This work presents a comprehensive review on the use of bio-inhibitors for stabilizing gas/oil shales during drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The swelling and dispersion inhibiting potentials and mechanisms of 23 bio-inhibitors were analytically reviewed and compared with existing conventional inhibitors. Relevant data on the influence of bio-inh...

As the conventional prediction methods for production of waterflooding reservoirs have some drawbacks, a production forecasting model based on artificial neural network was proposed, the simulation process by this method was presented, and some examples were illustrated. A workflow that involves a physics-based extraction of features was proposed f...

Well placement optimization is one of the major challenging factors in the field development process of oil and gas industry. The objective function of well placement optimization is considered as high dimensional, discontinuous and multi-model. Over the last decade, both gradient-based and gradient-free optimization methods have been implemented t...

Well placement optimization is one of the major challenging factors in the field development process in the oil and gas industry. This chapter aims to survey prominent metaheuristic techniques, which solve well the placement optimization problem. The well placement optimization problem is considered as high dimensional, discontinuous, and multi-mod...

The ever-increasing energy demand and the quest for clean energy has prompted an intensified research on clean gas production from tight formations specially from shale gas reservoirs. Hydraulic fracturing technology has made the shale gas production possible, however, a multitude of researches are required to address the accompanying challenges. S...

Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (CEOR) techniques include alkaline, surfactant, and polymer flooding, as well as their binary and ternary combination such as alkali-surfactant (AS) and alkali-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding. However, the conventional synthetic chemical agents deployed in chemical flooding are confronted with several challenges, ma...

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of wax, calcites and clay on the stability of petroleum emulsions. It proposes a proxy model that takes into cognizance the presence of solids other than asphaltene and resin. This study aims to investigate the combined effects of these solids on the stability of emulsions and show their relevance or ot...

Water-in-oil petroleum emulsions were prepared using response surface methodology (RSM) based on box-Behnken design (BBD). The emulsions were prepared using a treated Malaysian offshore crude oil,where the saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes (SARA) of the crude oil were extracted using amodified SARA analysis. Other native solids, wax and...

The high computational cost associated with first principle based numerical reservoir models create a barrier for realizing their full potential. Currently, high fidelity proxy models, capable of mimicking the numerical reservoir models, are used to undertake some of the tasks. Nonetheless, large number of experimental simulations are required to g...

A numerical simulation of flow of oil blob through a capillary tube constriction is presented. The simulation was run in a 2D axisymmetric model. Water is injected at the inlet to mobilize oil blob placed near the capillary tube constriction. Transient flow images were used to understand the flow evolution process. Results from the study show that...

Conventional reservoir modeling employs variograms to predict the spatial distribution of petrophysical properties. This study aims to improve property distribution by incorporating elastic wave properties. In this study, elastic wave properties obtained from seismic inversion are used as input for an artificial neural network to predict neutron po...

In the oil and gas industry, numerical reservoir modelling and simulation is the most common and widely used tool for decision making. However, construction of such model requires a large amount of data from sources such as well logs, seismic, core analysis and well testing. The data obtained are not error free, they are prone to measurement error....

This book presents articles from the International Conference on Improved Oil Recovery, CIOR 2017, held in Bandung, Indonesia. Highlighting novel technologies in the area of Improved Oil Recovery, it discusses a range of topics, including enhanced oil recovery, hydraulic fracturing, production optimization, petrophysics and formation evaluation.

Petroleum emulsions formed in the oil industry are pricy problems both in terms of chemicals used and the production lost. These emulsions form when oil and brine come into contact with each other, with the influence of sufficient mixing, and in the presence of surface-active-agents (surfactants) or emulsifiers. Although, these emulsions might not...

Simulation of numerical reservoir models with thousands and millions of grid blocks may consume a significant amount of time and effort, even when high performance processors are used. In cases where the simulation runs are required for sensitivity analysis, dynamic control, and optimization, the act needs to be repeated several times by continuous...

Low-resistivity pay is a popular phenomenon in many sedimentary formations, and is present in clastic reservoirs of Yanan formation, Ordos Basin of North Central China. The reservoir quality of the studied sandstones is affected positively and negatively by several diagenetic processes, our classification is based on precipitation of pyrite and fel...

Shale studies are essential for the optimization of the reservoir performance as its presence can significantly reduce the oil reserves. Contingent on the degree of communication, reservoir dynamics can vary considerably, leading to several key issues including well completion and perforation strategy and enhanced recovery program. The principal ai...

Various studies have witnessed the wide application of assisted history matching for the calibration of dynamic reservoir models. Although the proposed algorithms have the potential to improve the history matching process in some synthetic cases, most of them have failed or have partially succeeded when applied to real, complex reservoirs. Thus far...

This book presents the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Integrated Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences 2016 (ICIPEG 2016), held under the banner of World Engineering, Science & Technology Congress (ESTCON 2016) at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre from August 15 to 17, 2016. It presents peer-reviewed research articles on exploratio...