Iranian Journal of Oil and Gas Science and Technology

Abstract In this study, asphaltene deposition from crude oil has experimentally and theoretically been studied using a test loop and an accurate temperature monitoring during a laminar flow. The effects of oil velocity and surface temperature on the thickness of asphaltene deposition were investigated. The results show that asphaltene deposition thickness increases by increasing surface temperature. As the oil velocity increased, less deposition was noticed in this experimental study. The thermal approach was used to describe the mechanisms involved in this process, and the results of data fitting showed that there was good agreement between the results of the proposed model and the measured asphaltene deposition rates. Moreover, the theoretical study of deposition process showed that the rate of asphaltene deposition was inversely related to velocity, which was proved by the experimental results.

Abstract Wettability alteration is one of the most important methods for oil recovery from sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. The effects of salinity, pH, temperature, and chemicals such as surfactants and fatty acids on the alteration of the wettability were described in previous studies. In recent years, attention has been directed to nanoparticles as a wettability alteration agent. The effect of some nanoparticles on the wettability alteration and oil recovery of sandstone and a few carbonate reservoir rocks have been investigated in several works. In this study, the effect of γ-Al2O3 on the wettability alteration of one of the Iran carbonate reservoirs is presented. The results show that the adsorption of γ-Al2O3 nanoparticles on the calcite surface changes the wettability from oil-wet to water-wet. At a γ- Al2O3 nanofluid concentration of 0.5 wt.%, the maximum change in contact angle was observed. It was observed that the oil recovery increased by 11.25% when 0.5 wt.% γ-Al2O3 nanofluid was injected into the core sample in a tertiary mode. This work illustrates the successful application of gamma alumina nanoparticle in enhancing oil recovery in carbonate rocks through the wettability alteration of rock surfaces.

Abstract Klinkenberg permeability is an important parameter in tight gas reservoirs. There are conventional methods for determining it, but these methods depend on core permeability. Cores are few in number, but well logs are usually accessible for all wells and provide continuous information. In this regard, regression methods have been used to achieve reliable relations between log readings and Klinkenberg permeability. In this work, multiple linear regression, tree boost, general regression neural network, and support vector machines have been used to predict the Klinkenberg permeability of Mesaverde tight gas sandstones located in Washakie basin. The results show that all the four methods have the acceptable capability to predict Klinkenberg permeability, but support vector machine models exhibit better results. The errors of models were measured by calculating three error indexes, namely the correlation coefficient, the average absolute error, and the standard error of the mean. The analyses of errors show that support vector machine models perform better than the other models, but there are some exceptions. Support vector machine is a relatively new intelligence method with great capabilities in regression and classification tasks. Herein, support vector machine was used to predict the Klinkenberg permeability of a tight gas reservoir and the performances of four regression techniques were compared.

Abstract In many reservoirs, after water flooding, a large volume of oil is still left behind. Hot water injection is the most basic type of thermal recovery which increase recovery by improved sweep efficiency and thermal expansion of crude.In the present work, the effects of injection rate and the temperature of the injected water were surveyed by using core flooding apparatus. Water flooding was performed at different rates (0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 cc/min) and temperatures (20 and 90 °C), and the reservoir temperature was about 63 °C. Oil recovery during hot water injection was more than water injection. Moreover, it was concluded that at injection rates of 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 cc/min breakthrough time in hot water injection occurred 10 min later in comparison to water injection. The results showed that higher oil recovery and longer breakthrough time were obtained as a result of reducing injection rate. In the first 50 minutes, the oil recovery at injection rates of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 cc/min was 27.5, 34, and 46% respectively. It was found that at the beginning of injection, thermal and non-thermal injection recovery factors are approximately equal. Moreover, according to the results, recovery factor at the lowest rate in hot water (T=90 °C and q=0.2 cc/min) is the best condition to obtain the highest recovery.

Abstract Water flooding is one of the most influential methods for pressure maintenance and enhanced oil recovery. However, water flooding is likely to develop the formation of oilfield scale. Scale formation in reservoirs, due to the mixing of injection water and formation water, could cause formation damage and production limit. Therefore, it is necessary to simulate the compatibility of brine and injection water. Scale prediction is performed using many thermodynamic and/or kinetic based models. In this study, simulations with speciation (ion pairing) are studied, which is a thermodynamic based tool. The utilization of reservoir conditions, formation water analysis, and sea water analysis as the inputs in this method resulted to the accurate prediction of potential scales. In this study, the factors impacting on the scale potential such as pH, temperature, and mixing ratio were also investigated. The obtained results showed that calcite and aragonite were the major scale potential to precipitate. Finally, the results illustrated the important effect of pH and temperature on different scales formation.

Abstract The unwanted addition of salt to drilling causes flocculation which has an adverse effect on mud rheological properties. To treat the flocculated mud chemical, deflocculants are commonly used; however, their disadvantages such as negative environmental effects, lower tolerance to contamination, and toxicity motivated scientists to search for effective additives. Using plant derived additives instead of commercial additives could help resolve the mentioned weaknesses, because they are nontoxic, cheap, easily accessible, and act multi-functional. In this paper the effect of black myrobalan rheological properties of flocculated bentonite mud was investigated and its performance was compared with chrome lignosulfonate (CLS). Rheological and filtration tests were conducted and properties such as plastic viscosity, yield point, gel strength, thixotropy, and apparent viscosity were calculated. It was perceived that by increasing black myrobalan concentration to 0.6 wt.%, rheological parameters and filtration loss decreased by 50% and 66.3% respectively, but they increased at higher concentrations, which indicated that black myrobalan acted as a deflocculant up to 0.6 wt.%. The deflocculation behavior of black myrobalan at low concentrations is attributed to ellagitannic acid and tannic acid. The comparison of the enactment of black myrobalan with chrome lignosulfonate showed that black myrobalan had a stronger decreasing effect on the rheological parameters and filtration compared to CLS.

Abstract The prediction of porosity is achieved by using available core and log data; however, the estimation of permeability is limited to the scare core data. Hence, porosity and saturation data through the framework of flow units can be used to make an estimation of reservoir permeability. The purpose of this study is to predict the permeability of a carbonate gas reservoir by using physical-based empirical dependence on porosity and other reservoir rock properties. It is emphasized that this new relationship has a theoretical background and is based on molecular theories. It is found out that if rock samples with different types are separated properly and samples with similar fluid-flow properties are classified in the same group, then this leads to finding an appropriate permeability/porosity relationship. In particular, the concept of hydraulic flow units (HFU) is used to characterize different rock types. This leads to a new physical-based permeability/porosity relationship that has two regression constants which are determined from the HFU method. These coefficients, which are obtained for several rock types in this study, may not be applicable to other carbonate rocks; but, by using the general form of the model presented here, based on the HFU method, one may obtain the value of these coefficients for any carbonate rock types. Finally, we used the data of cored wells for the validation of the permeability results.

Abstract Gas-condensate reservoirs contain hydrocarbon fluids with characteristics between oil and gas reservoirs and a high gas-liquid ratio. Due to the large gas-liquid ratio, wellhead choke calculations using the empirical equations such as Gilbert may contain considerable error. In this study, using drill stem test (DST) data of a gas-condensate reservoir, coefficients of Gilbert equation was modified; 26.7% of DST data has uncertainty. In these data, due to a problem of flow transmitter, the water flow rate is recorded equal to zero. This makes the mean absolute error of 5% in the measuring of total liquid phase flow rate. Because of uncertainty in the water flow rate in some DST data, the coefficients were optimized for two sets of data to investigate the effect of water flow rate on the calculations. The first dataset was the complete set of DST data, and, in the second, data were filtered with the elimination of uncertain data. The regression results showed that the whole data have a mean absolute error of 5.1%. For this regression, the uncertain data had a mean absolute error of 8.6%, while the error of the remaining data was 3.9%. In this case, for 38% of uncertain data, the mean absolute error was more than 10% indicating that these data are the major factor of the error. Mean absolute error for the filtered dataset was 3.0%. Error reduction was due to the elimination of data with uncertainty. In this case, 3% of the total data had a mean absolute error of more than 10%. In other words, 5% error of the liquid phase flow measurement that includes 26.7% of data caused an increase of 2.1% in the error of calculations. This showed that the elimination of uncertain data causes a remarkable reduction in error. To study the effect of temperature on choke calculations, wellhead temperature was considered as a variable in the Gilbert equation form. The regression results showed that the mean absolute error of 3.0% does not change, and the wellhead temperature has no considerable effect on the choke calculation accuracy.

Abstract Control of wellbore pressure during drilling operations has always been important in the oil industry as this can prevent the possibility of well blowout. The present research employs a combination of automatic process control and statistical process control for the first time for the identification, monitoring, and control of both random and special causes in drilling operations. To this end, by using automatic process control, control charts are applied to the output of the controlled process; subsequently, the points which are outside the predefined control limits are identified. This method is capable of using controllable input variables not used in automatic process control, such as changes in the mud weight, to fully control the process. Due to the dynamic nature of the process, adaptive model-based controllers have replaced feedback methods in automatic process control. Control charts have also been used to compare the performance of different automatic process control approaches. Based on this new criterion, the fuzzy adaptive approach is shown to have good performance in automatic process control. The results indicate that this approach can improve the limits of the automatic process control method by using statistical process control for controlling the bit pressure in an acceptable range.

Abstract Stimulation of hydrocarbon wells with matrix acidizing operation is among the most common operations to stimulate the formation, remove the skin, and improve the productivity index. However, equipment corrosion, including casings, is one of the most critical concerns. In the present paper, the influence of the magnetic field on the corrosion behavior of drilling casing in 1.5 M (5 wt %) HCl was investigated in various conditions using potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) and weight loss (WL) measurements. The Taguchi experimental design (L-18 array) was utilized to model the impacts of magnetic field intensity, elapsed time, magnetization time, and temperature on the corrosion rate. The experimental results showed that the passing of acid through a magnetic field reduced the corrosion rate of N-80 carbon steel in HCl by up to 96%. Consequently, magnetized acid could reduce the effects of corrosion on matrix acidizing operations as a green corrosion inhibitor.

Abstract In matrix acidizing operations, the main goal is increasing permeability. For production engineers, it is desirable that acid could be injected into whole [M.N.1] [amehri.gh2] pay zone. Sometimes, this pay zone has a long height and various sub-layers which have different permeability values. To prevent acid from going completely into the most permeable sub-layer, one of the useful techniques is using diverters, and one of the major groups of diverters is gel diverters. Diverter viscosity changes by temperature and pH, and an increase in viscosity leads to a decrease in its permeability; thus, acid can permeate further through less permeable sub-layers. In this study, two kinds of different viscoelastic surfactants (VES) provided by two different companies were used to produce gel to divert acid into a core plug sample having lower permeability in a dual parallel acid injection set-up. The core plug samples were taken from the pay zone of Ahwaz oilfield, one of Iran southwest oilfields. Before performing the injection test, some viscosity measurement tests were carried out. Unfortunately, one of these two VES’s did not have an acceptable quality and failed to pass the injection tests. However, the other one passed all the tests successfully and diverted the injection fluid. The water permeability values of the low-perm and high-perm core plug samples were 0.91 md and 6.4 md respectively, whereas, after injection, they rose to 1.5 and 18.5 md respectively.

Abstract Intelligent reservoir characterization using seismic attributes and hydraulic flow units has a vital role in the description of oil and gas traps. The predicted model allows an accurate understanding of the reservoir quality, especially at the un-cored well location. This study was conducted in two major steps. In the first step, the survey compared different intelligent techniques to discover an optimum relationship between well logs and seismic data. For this purpose, three intelligent systems, including probabilistic neural network (PNN),fuzzy logic (FL), and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS)were usedto predict flow zone index (FZI). Well derived FZI logs from three wells were employed to estimate intelligent models in the Arab (Surmeh) reservoir. The validation of the produced models was examined by another well. Optimal seismic attributes for the estimation of FZI include acoustic impedance, integrated absolute amplitude, and average frequency. The results revealed that the ANFIS method performed better than the other systems and showed a remarkable reduction in the measured errors. In the second part of the study, the FZI 3D model was created by using the ANFIS system.The integrated approach introduced in the current survey illustrated that the extracted flow units from intelligent models compromise well with well-logs. Based on the results obtained, the intelligent systems are powerful techniques to predict flow units from seismic data (seismic attributes) for distant well location. Finally, it was shown that ANFIS method was efficient in highlighting high and low-quality flow units in the Arab (Surmeh) reservoir, the Iranian offshore gas field.

Abstract Nowadays, the increasing demand for energy in the world is one of the main concerns for energy supply. In fact, the required energy can be obtained by increasing the production rate of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas. However, improving the efficiency of the equipment and facilities might have a significant impact on production from hydrocarbon resources. With respect to this subject, the optimization of separation facilities will be a simple and economic choice to increase the amount of the liquid obtained from production units all over the world. One of the parameters which have a noticeable effect on the yield of the production units is the separator pressure. Also, there are other factors such as heptane plus fraction properties, well head pressure, and ambient temperature which can change the optimum separator conditions. In this study, the influence of crude oil properties on the number of stages and pressure of each separator is investigated. The result shows that the most important property of the feed which has the greatest influence on the conditions of separators is the percentage of heptane plus fraction in crude oil. Therefore, a method for the estimation of the number of separators based on the percentage of C₇₊ component is developed. Moreover, the threshold of heptane plus fraction for selecting the optimum number of separator stages was observed to be around 30% in the feed composition. Hence, three separators and a stock tank can separate samples with a C₇₊ molar fraction lower than 30%, but two separators and a stock tank are needed for samples with a heptane plus fraction higher than 30%. Finally, the results indicate an increase of about 1.3% in the oil production for the new optimization method compared to the constant-ratio method.

Abstract Crude oils and source rocks from the northern and offshore Niger Delta basin, Nigeria, have been characterized by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry in terms of their origin and thermal maturity based on the distribution of chrysene and its derivatives. The crude oils and source rocks were characterized by the dominance of chrysene over benzo[a]anthracene. 3-methylchrysene predominated over other methylchrysene isomers in the oils, while 3-methylchrysenes and 1-methylchrysenes were in higher abundance in the rock samples. The abundance and distribution of chrysene and its derivatives allow source grouping of the oils into three families. However, this grouping disagrees with the results obtained from well-established aromatic source grouping parameters. The maturity-dependent parameters computed from chrysene distributions (MCHR and 2- methylchrysene/1-methylchrysene ratios) indicated that the oils have a similar maturity status, while the rock samples are within an immature to early oil window maturity status, which was further supported by other maturity parameters computed from the saturate and aromatic biomarkers and vitrinite reflectance data. The abundance and distribution of chrysene and its derivatives were found to be effective in determining the thermal maturity of crude oil and source rock extracts in the Niger Delta basin, but they may not be a potential source-dependent biomarker in the crude oils and rock extracts from the basin.

Abstract Drilling industry and its technical services are among the complex and advanced technology-based industries in the cycle of oil exploration and production. In this regard, the logging services role as one of the pillars of technical services is very important due to technological complexity and the importance of the results in the evaluation of oil and gas reservoirs. The complexity had caused small and medium companies in Iran not to be able to produce logging equipment by themselves due to financial and scientific constraints. Through the review of the articles and books written on this subject, this research has studied the factors affecting success in technology acquisition and then has categorized them in five dimensions as technological, technical, market, strategic, and financial factors. Next, through exploratory interviews with experts and theme analysis, the factors having the greatest impact on the acquisition of logging equipment technology have been identified and their opinion on various proposed methods in scientific resources for the acquisition of technology have been obtained. Several published methods have been reviewed; during interviews, some major effective characteristics were introduced by the experts, which could not satisfy existing methods or some principal dimensions were ignored. The results of the research and the case study of National Iranian Drilling Company show that the managed innovation network is the most appropriate method for the acquisition of the above mentioned technology for the National Iranian Drilling Company.

Abstract The aim of this research was to produce a convenient additive for enhancing the properties, especially the fluid loss, of oil well cement slurries. In this regard, a variety of drilling/cementing chemical additives known as fluid loss controllers were prepared through derivatization and chemical modification of lignite. Lignite-based graft copolymers were synthesized using different groups of acrylic monomers via aqueous the free radical polymerization method. Then, it was allowed to react with sulfomethylating agents to enhance its water solubility. Subsequently, a comparative sulfomethylated lignite was prepared and employed as the backbone in the free radical polymerization. ATR-FTIR and elemental analyses were performed to demonstrate the structures of the fluid loss controller and incorporated elements. The performance of these additives in improving the properties of oil well cement slurries was investigated through analyzing the quality of fluid loss controller in saline saturated slurries. Under similar desired well conditions, i.e. a compressive strength of 800-1100 psi, a thickening time of 400 minutes, and a viscosity of 25 cP, a fluid loss below 130 ml API was obtained. The best standard performance was assigned to the cement slurry which employed sulfomethylated lignite graft copolymer.

Abstract The well Sarai Sidhu-01 is located on Punjab Platform, Central Indus Basin, Pakistan. Punjab Platform is the eastern part of Central Indus Basin, and tectonically it is the stable portion of Indus Basin, which was least affected during Tertiary Himalayan orogeny. This study attempts to decipher reservoir potential for hydrocarbon exploration. It aims to delineate a subsurface hydrocarbon bearing zone and to estimate the reservoir properties. A complete suite of wireline logs containing Caliper log (CALI), gamma ray log (GR), spontaneous potential log (SP), neutron log (Ø_N), density log (Ø_D), and resistivity logs (MSFL, LLS, and LLD) with all drilling parameters and well tops were utilized. The methodology adopted to accomplish this task includes the calculation of volume of shale (V_sh) by using gamma ray log and effective porosity (Ø_E) by using density and neutron logs. Resistivity of water (R_w) was calculated by SPmethod, and the saturation of water (S_w) and the saturation of hydrocarbons (S_h) is calculated with the help of Archie’s equation. According to log signatures, Lumshiwal formation of early Cretaceous age encountered in well in the depth range of 5433 ft. to 5797 ft. was marked as a possible reservoir, and this zone was evaluated for its reservoir potential in detail using a set of equations. The average values calculated for different parameters are as follows: V_sh= 30%, Ø_E= 17%, S_w= 46%, and S_h= 54%. The analysis shows that S_h is low, so it is inferred that Lumshiwal formation has a low potential and is economically not feasible for hydrocarbons production.

Abstract Gas condensate reservoirs are characterized by a distinctive retrograde behavior and potential for condensate drop out during production and sampling. Efficient modeling of gas condensate reservoir requires careful phase behavior studies of samples collected prior to and during the production life of reservoir. In this work, an integrated characterization and tuning algorithm is proposed to analyze the pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) behavior of gas condensate samples. Each characterization and tuning scenario is described by a “path” which specifies the class of fluid, splitting and lumping (if any), the type of correlation, and grouping strategy (static or dynamic). Different characterization approaches were tested for the effective description of heavy end. Meanwhile, dynamic and static strategies were implemented to tune the equation of state (EOS) through non-linear regression. The optimum combination of characterization and tuning approach was explored for each sample by a rigorous analysis of the results. It was found out that the exponential distribution function gives the best performance for heavy end characterization in a dynamic tuning strategy. Also, analyses indicate that using higher single carbon number may not necessarily make EOS tuning more accurate. In addition, the optimum step is reached in either the third or fourth step for most cases in a dynamic tuning approach, and is sensitive neither to the characterization path nor to the selected end carbon number.

Abstract Cocurrent spontaneous imbibition (COCSI) of an aqueous phase into matrix blocks arising from capillary forces is an important mechanism for petroleum recovery from fractured petroleum reservoirs. In this work, the modeling of countercurrent imbibition is used to develop the appropriate scaling equations. Considering the imbibition process and the water and oil movement respectively as the wet phase and the non-wet phase in a block saturated by oil and surrounded by two vertical fractures full of water, a differential equation having partial and nonlinear derivatives is introduced using Darcy and mass balance equations. On the other hand, as there is no analytical solution for this equation, a new equation is introduced by considering the different intervals of the wet and non-wet phase viscosity and by selecting the best suitable functions for relative permeability and capillary pressure. Considering the boundary conditions governing the countercurrent imbibition, an analytical solution (equation) is developed. Finally, the developed equation is validated. The results of this research can be very important for a better understanding of the imbibition process and the water and oil movement in the fractured environments.

Abstract In Iran, power plants use liquid fuels such as heavy fuel oil (HFO) or mazut to prevent disruption in power generation. The high percentage of sulfur compounds in HFO and the lack of efforts to remove it, causing significant damage to the environment. The purpose of this research is performing a techno-economic analysis on the Hydrodesulfurization (HDS) process of HFO. The results showed that for removing 85% of sulfur compounds from HFO with a volume flow rate of 250 m3/h that includes 3.5% wt sulfur compounds, the total capital investment and the net production cost are 308.9 million US$ and 114.5 million US$/year, respectively. Besides, the sensitivity analysis indicates that with a 100% increase in the catalyst loading, the mass percentage of sulfur compounds in the HFO will be decreased by 15% more. Also, 6.4% and 32% will add to the total capital investment and net production cost, respectively. With a 100% increase in the gas to oil ratio, the mass percentage of sulfur compounds in the HFO will be decreased by 15.3% more. Also, 43.8% and 6% will be added to the total capital investment and net production cost, respectively. With a 100% increase in the pressure of the HDS process, the mass percentage of sulfur compounds in the HFO will be reduced by 20.75% more. Also, 43% and 6.75% will be added to the total capital investment and net production cost, respectively. Ultimately, with a 100% increase in the inlet temperature of beds, the mass percentage of sulfur compounds in the HFO will be reduced by 5% more. Among the effective operational parameters, hydrogen consumption has the greatest impact on net production cost and payback period, and the pressure of the Hydrodesulfurization process has the greatest impact on increasing the total capital investment of the process.

Abstract Thermal recovery involves well-known processes such as steam injection (cyclic steam stimulation, steam drive, and steam-assisted gravity drainage), in situ combustion, and a more recent technique that consists of heating the reservoir with electrical energy. When high frequency is used for heating, it is called electromagnetic (EM) heating. The applications of EM heating for heavy-oil reservoirs can be especially beneficial where conventional methods cannot be used because of large depth, reservoir heterogeneity, or excessive heat losses. This process can be modeled to determine temperature distribution in the porous reservoir rock during EM heating. In this paper, the homotopy perturbation method (HPM), a powerful series-based analytical tool, is used to approximate the temperature distribution, which has been modeled using a partial differential equation and special assumptions when high frequency currents are used. This method decomposes a complex partial differential equation to a series of simple ordinary differential equations which are easy to solve. According to the comparison of the solutions obtained by HPM with those of a numerical method (NM), good agreement is achieved. Moreover, a sensitivity study is done to determine the effect of initial temperature, oil rate, frequency and input power on the accuracy of HPM.

Abstract Least squares method (LSM) is an accurate and rapid method for solving some analytical and numerical problems. This method can be used to estimate the average reservoir pressure in well test analysis. In fact, it may be employed to estimate parameters such as permeability (k) and pore volume (Vp). Regarding this point, buildup, drawdown, late transient test data, modified Muskat method, interference test, and other methods are equivalent to a separable least squares problem. The main advantage of LSM in the well testing problems is that the results would be confident and no trial and error is required. Furthermore, the given method requires a short time. The fast rate of convergence and high accuracy of the LSM are demonstrated through two examples. The current study concerns a modified Muskat method. The results of LSM combined with the modified Muskat method are compared with the other iterative and qualitative methods. The preliminary numerical results with both simulated and field data suggest that the method be capable of producing smooth interpretable estimates of reservoir parameters from data.

Abstract It has been proved that ultrasonic energy can considerably increase the amount of oil recovery in an immiscible displacement process. Although many studies have been performed on investigating the roles of ultrasonic waves, based on the best of our knowledge, little attention has been paid to evaluate wave attenuation parameter, which is an important parameter in the determination of the energy delivered to the porous medium. In this study, free fall gravity drainage process is investigated in a glass bead porous medium. Kerosene and Dorud crude oil are used as the wetting phases and air is used as the non-wetting phase. A piston-like displacement model with considering constant capillary pressure and applying Corey type approximation for relative permeabilities of both wetting and nonwetting phases is applied. A pressure term is considered to describe the presence of ultrasonic waves and the attenuation factor of ultrasonic waves is calculated by evaluating the value of external pressure applied to enhance the flow using the history matching of the data in the presence and absence of ultrasonic waves. The results introduce the attenuation factor as an important parameter in the process of ultrasonic assisted gravity drainage. The results show that only a low percentage of the ultrasonic energy (5.8% for Dorud crude oil and 3.3% for kerosene) is delivered to the flow of the fluid; however, a high increase in oil recovery enhancement (15% for Dorud crude oil and 12% for Kerosene) is observed in the experiments. This proves that the ultrasonic waves, even when the contribution is not substantial, can be a significantly efficient method for flow enhancement.

Abstract Porosity is considered as an important petrophysical parameter in characterizing reservoirs, calculating in-situ oil reserves, and production evaluation. Nowadays, using intelligent techniques has become a popular method for porosity estimation. Support vector machine (SVM) a new intelligent method with a great generalization potential of modeling non-linear relationships has been introduced for both regression (support vector regression (SVR)) and classification (support vector classification (SVC)) problems. In the current study, to estimate the porosity of a carbonate reservoir in one of Iran south oil fields from well log data, the SVR model is firstly constructed; then the performance achieved is compared to that of an artificial neural network (ANN) model with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) architecture as a well-known method to account for the reliability of SVR or the possible improvement made by SVR over ANN models. The results of this study show that by considering correlation coefficient and some statistical errors the performance of the SVR model slightly improves the ANN porosity predictions.

Abstract Onset of asphaltene precipitation is the key parameter in dealing with asphaltene problems because it is the starting point of the asphaltene separation from the solution. In this study, a new technique is provided based on the experimental observations for the determination of the onset of asphaltene precipitation using accurate density measurements of the crude oils upon titration with precipitating agents like n-alkanes. Moreover, density measurements have been conducted for three different crude oils diluted with different ratios of precipitating agents, i.e. n-pentane, n-hexane, and n-heptane. The experimental results confirmed that, as it was expected, the density showed a decreasing trend as the dilution ratio increased, except at one point, at which the density increased with raising dilution ratio; this corresponded to the onset of asphaltene precipitation. For all the crude oils used, a sample diluted with a non-precipitating solvent (toluene) was also used as a reference system, its densities were measured upon titration with toluene, and the results were used for comparison with the other systems diluted with precipitating solvents. The measured onsets of asphaltene precipitation using this technique were confirmed with the onsets obtained by using interfacial tension approach.