182 results about "Enhanced recovery" patented technology

It was found that the addition of polymers to viscoelastic surfactant base system allows to adjust the rheological properties of the base fluid. Depending in particular on one side of the ratio of the concentration of added polymer and the concentration of viscoelastic surfactant and on the other side of the molecular weight of the added polymer, the same polymer—or the same type of polymer—may perform different functions such as viscosity enhancer, viscosity breaker or viscosity-recovery enhancer.

A cloud storage server-based approach allows detection of ransomware activity in cloud storage systems caused by ransomware infections on an endpoint device. A heuristic or rule-based technique is employed for recognizing sequences of file operations that may indicate ransomware activity. In some embodiments, users may be offered an opportunity to approve or disapprove of the possible ransomware activity. In others, cloud system file activity may be suspended or halted for the affected user upon recognition of possible ransomware actions. Enhanced recovery of files affected prior to recognition of the ransomware activity may be performed in some embodiments.

The present invention provides a microbial consortium containing three hyperthermophilic, barophilic, acidogenic, anaerobic bacterial strains for enhanced oil recovery from oil reservoirs where temperatures range from 70° C. to 90√ C. The said microbial consortium is unique in producing a variety of metabolic products mainly CO₂, methane, biosurfactant, volatile fatty acids and alcohols in the presence of specially designed nutrient medium. These metabolic products increase sweep efficiency of crude oil from oil bearing poles of rock formation. The present invention also provides a process for enhancing the oil recovery by in situ application of the said microbial consortium.

A device to enhance the delivery of a drug or other substance of interest into a selected organ or tissue, comprising special electrodes, one of the electrodes carrying a container with the selected drug or other substance of interest, said electrodes being capable of being positioned at preselected locations of said organ or tissue, wherein the electrodes are all connected with a selected energy source which generates and maintains an energy field before and during the enhanced delivery of said substance, under the influence of which delivery is accomplished in a direction from the active to the passive electrode and into said organ or tissue. The energy source may be selected from suitable sources providing an electric field, a magnetic field, ultrasonic waves, high energy waves like laser beams, or a combination thereof. Further a method for the enhanced delivery of said drug or other substance of interest to an internal organ or target tissue of an organism, for example the brain, bypassing the blood-brain barrier, is disclosed.

The invention relates to a flooding system used for improving the recovery factor after polymer flooding and a preparation method thereof, which belongs to the technical field of enhanced recovery of oil fields. A surfactant with unlike charges and a polymer react with each other to produce a high-activity compound; and the high-activity compound is mixed with a non-ionic surfactant to produce the novel flooding system. The novel flooding system solves the problems of the poor temperature resistance and the inorganic high valence cation resistance of the prior flooding system. The novel flooding system has the advantages of high viscocity, ultra-low interfacial tension, low feeding quantity and so on. The system has wide application prospects in oil fields to apply the technology for improving the oil recovery factor.

The present invention involves a method and apparatus for enhanced recovery of petroleum fluids from the subsurface by injection of a steam and hydrocarbon vaporized solvent in contact with the oil sand formation and the heavy oil and bitumen in situ. Multiple propped hydraulic fractures are constructed from the well bore into the oil sand formation and filled with a highly permeable proppant. Steam, a hydrocarbon solvent, and a non-condensing diluent gas are injected into the well bore and the propped fractures. The injected gas flows upwards and outwards in the propped fractures contacting the oil sands and in situ bitumen on the vertical faces of the propped fractures. The steam condenses on the cool bitumen and thus heats the bitumen by conduction, while the hydrocarbon solvent vapors diffuse into the bitumen from the vertical faces of the propped fractures. The bitumen softens and flows by gravity to the well bore, exposing fresh surface of bitumen for the process to progressively soften and mobilize the bitumen in a predominantly circumferential, i.e. orthogonal to the propped fracture, diffusion direction at a nearly uniform rate into the oil sand deposit. The produced product of oil and dissolved solvent is pumped to the surface where the solvent can be recycled for further injection.

The present invention provides a method for recovering oil from a subterranean reservoir using waterflooding, wherein the flooding fluid used in the waterflooding process comprises water and one or more ionic polyvinyl alcohol copolymers. The use of one or more ionic polyvinyl alcohol copolymers is expected to increase the recovery of oil by improving both the oil/water mobility ratio and the sweep efficiency in reservoirs with a high degree of heterogeneity.

The present invention involves a method and apparatus for enhanced recovery of petroleum fluids from the subsurface by injection of a steam and hydrocarbon vaporized solvent in contact with the oil sand formation and the heavy oil and bitumen in situ. Multiple propped hydraulic fractures are constructed from the well bore into the oil sand formation and filled with a highly permeable proppant. Steam, a hydrocarbon solvent, and a non-condensing diluent gas are injected into the well bore and the propped fractures. The injected gas flows upwards and outwards in the propped fractures contacting the oil sands and in situ bitumen on the vertical faces of the propped fractures. The steam condenses on the cool bitumen and thus heats the bitumen by conduction, while the hydrocarbon solvent vapors diffuse into the bitumen from the vertical faces of the propped fractures. The bitumen softens and flows by gravity to the well bore, exposing fresh surface of bitumen for the process to progressively soften and mobilize the bitumen in a predominantly circumferential, i.e. orthogonal to the propped fracture, diffusion direction at a nearly uniform rate into the oil sand deposit. The produced product of oil and dissolved solvent is pumped to the surface where the solvent can be recycled for further injection.

The present invention involves a method and apparatus for enhanced recovery of petroleum fluids from the subsurface by convective heating of the oil sand formation and the heavy oil and bitumen in situ by a downhole electric heater. Multiple propped vertical hydraulic fractures are constructed from the well bore into the oil sand formation and filled with a diluent. The heater and downhole pump force thermal convective flow of the heated diluent to flow upward and outward into the propped fractures and circulating back down and back towards the well bore heating the oil sands and in situ bitumen on the vertical faces of the propped fractures. The diluent now mixed with produced products from the oil sand re-enters the bottom of the well bore and passes over the heater element and is reheated to continue to flow in the convective cell. Thus the heating and diluting of the in place bitumen occurs predominantly circumferentially, i.e. orthogonal to the propped fracture, by diffusion from the propped vertical fracture faces progressing at a nearly uniform rate into the oil sand deposit. In situ hydrogenation and thermal cracking of the in place bitumen can provide a higher grade produced product. The heated low viscosity oil is produced through the well bore at the completion of the active heating phase of the process.

A process is disclosed for enhanced recovery of propylene and LPG from the fuel gas produced in Fluid catalytic cracking unit by contacting a heavier hydrocarbon feed with FCC catalyst. In the conventional process, the product mixture from FCC main column overhead comprising naphtha, LPG and fuel gas, are first condensed and gravity separated to produce unstabilized naphtha, which is subsequently used in the absorber to absorb propylene and LPG from fuel gas. However, the recovery of propylene beyond 97 wt % is difficult in this process since unstabilized naphtha already contains propylene of 5 mol % or above. In the present invention, C₄ and lighter components from unstabilized naphtha are first stripped off in a separate column to obtain a liquid fraction almost free from propylene (<0.1 mol %) and other LPG components. Such a stripped liquid fraction, after cooling to 20° C. to 30° C., is used in the absorber to absorb higher amounts of propylene and LPG from fuel gas, leading to improved recovery of propylene.

The present invention involves a method and apparatus for enhanced recovery of petroleum fluids from the subsurface by convective heating of the oil sand formation and the heavy oil and bitumen in situ by a downhole electric heater. Multiple propped vertical hydraulic fractures are constructed from the well bore into the oil sand formation and filled with a diluent. The heater and downhole pump force thermal convective flow of the heated diluent to flow upward and outward into the propped fractures and circulating back down and back towards the well bore heating the oil sands and in situ bitumen on the vertical faces of the propped fractures. The diluent now mixed with produced products from the oil sand re-enters the bottom of the well bore and passes over the heater element and is reheated to continue to flow in the convective cell. Thus the heating and diluting of the in place bitumen occurs predominantly circumferentially, i.e. orthogonal to the propped fracture, by diffusion from the propped vertical fracture faces progressing at a nearly uniform rate into the oil sand deposit. In situ hydrogenation and thermal cracking of the in place bitumen can provide a higher grade produced product. The heated low viscosity oil is produced through the well bore at the completion of the active heating phase of the process.

A method is provided for treating a hydrocarbon containing formation. The method comprises providing a hydrocarbon recovery composition comprising a mixture of branched internal olefin sulfonate molecules, and contacting hydrocarbons in the hydrocarbon containing formation with the hydrocarbon recovery composition. The mixture of branched internal olefin sulfonate molecules has an average number of carbon atoms of between 19 and 23, and an average number of branches of at least 0.6 per molecule. A hydrocarbon composition produced from a hydrocarbon containing formation, and a hydrocarbon recovery composition comprising a mixture of branched internal olefin sulfonate molecules are also provided.

The present invention relates to a process for the preparation, of thermoprecipitating affinity polymers useful in the enhanced recovery of enzymes. The process comprises polymerising a monomer comprising a spacer and a co-monomer with a polymerisation initiator and a polymerisation accelerator at ambient temperature and pressure for a period ranging between 2 to 24 hours to obtain a polymer and then linking an inhibitor to pendant carboxyl groups of the spacers in the polymer to obtain an affinity polymer.

Methods of combining mineral composition and laboratory test results for reservoir rock samples to predict future responses to secondary and tertiary oil recovery treatments are disclosed. Particular, SEM and EDS will be combined to produce a mineral map, including mineral distribution around the rock's pore space, for comparison with laboratory data to predict and/or interpret how certain mineral distributions will respond to various fluid-rock interactions.

A method for optimizing oil production rate from an oil well with high gas-to-oil ratio is disclosed to include modeling an Inflow Performance Relationship curve and calculating an optimal level of bottomhole pressure to be higher than zero. Maintaining the bottomhole pressure at that calculated optimum level by using a bottomhole tool of the invention or other known means such as gas injection provides for maximum oil recovery from a given well. The bottomhole tool includes a multi-stage flow resistor and a needle moved in and out of the resistor by a spring-biased piston responsive to a difference in pressure between a bottomhole pressure and a pipe pressure. Automatic adjustment of the bottomhole pressure is maintained over a wide range of operating parameters throughout the life of the well.