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Willem Bart Bartels

2 records found

Authored

Driving mechanism of low salinity flooding in carbonate rocks

Conference paper (2015) - Hassan Mahani, Arsene L. Keya, Steffen Berg, Willem Bart Bartels, R.M.A. Nasralla, W.R. Rossen

Several studies conducted mainly on the laboratory scale indicate that in carbonate rocks oil displacement can be influenced by the ionic composition of the brine, providing an opportunity to improve recovery by optimizing the brine mixture used in secondary or tertiary recovery. In industry this topic has been termed "low salinity flooding (LSF) in carbonates" while the underlying mechanisms are not very well understood. The increased oil recovery has been attributed to wettability alteration to a more water-wet state. However, in some studies a positive low salinity effect (LSE) has been ascribed to dissolution of rock, which occurs on the laboratory scale but due to equilibration of brine with carbonate minerals on larger length scales this is not relevant for the reservoir scale. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanism(s) and investigate whether calcite dissolution is the primary mechanism of the LSE. We used a model system where the contact angle of crude oil deposited on planar surfaces coated with crushed carbonate rock particles was monitored as a function of brine composition. The approach is similar to the one published in Mahani et al. (2014) for sandstone rock, but instead of clay minerals we used carbonate materials from natural limestone and Silurian dolomite rocks. Furthermore, the effective surface charge at the oil-water and water-rock interfaces was quantified via zeta-potential measurements at several salinity and pH levels in order to establish a link between changes in the intermolecular interactions at the solid-liquid interface and the contact angle at the brine-oil-rock contact line, which is an indicator for wettability change. The impact of mineral dissolution was addressed by comparing the response to brines that were fully equilibrated (and hence dissolution suppressed) and the response to those completely under-saturated with calcium carbonate (leading to dissolution). The investigation was accompanied by geochemical modeling using PHREEQC. It was observed that by switching from formation water (FW) to seawater (SW), diluted seawater (dSW) and diluted seawater equilibrated with calcite (dSWEQ), the limestone surface became less oil-wet reflected in contact angle decrease. The recession of the 3-phase contact line observed for both SW and dSWEQ, which are not impacted by dissolution, suggests that the LSE occurs even in the absence of mineral dissolution. The trends observed for the zeta-potential data on brine composition clearly support the surface-charge-change mechanism for limestone, where at lower salinities the charges at the limestone-brine interface become more negative, causing lower adhesion or even repulsion between oil and rock. Dolomite rock shows a different behavior. First, there is a much smaller response in terms of contact angle change. Also, the zeta-potential of dolomite shows generally more positive charges at higher salinities and less decrease at lower salinities, where in comparison to limestone the electrostatic interaction remains attractive or becomes only weakly repulsive. In summary we conclude that a positive LSE in carbonate rock exists without any dissolution and it is driven by the brine composition dependency of electrostatic interactions between crude oil and rock. However, the magnitude of the LSE is impacted by the mineralogy of carbonate material.

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Contributed

The effect of leakage on backward erosion piping: A modelling study in 2D and 3D

Master thesis (2020) - L. Barendsen, M. Kok, A. Askarinejad, J.C. Pol, Willem Bart Bartels, Bram de Groot

In the Netherlands, dikes are the most commonly used structures to retain water and provide safety against flooding. In order to ensure the safety of these dikes against a number of different failure mechanisms such as backwards erosion piping, wave overtopping and macro stability, a detailed safety assessment has been created. The focus of this thesis is on the failure mechanism known as piping. Which consists of three different sub-mechanisms; uplift, heave and backwards erosion piping. The safety assessment against piping consists of a multi-step approach. First an elementary assessment is done, followed by a detailed assessment of the different sub-mechanisms and lastly a final analysis is done using more detailed data and software. Currently, Sellmeijer’s design rule is used in the detailed safety assessment to design against the sub-mechanism backwards erosion piping. His design rule is the starting point of this thesis. Before Sellmeijer was able to derive his design rules, he had to make a number of different assumptions and simplifications. The most significant being, simplifying the three-dimensionality of the piping process to a two-dimensional process, by neglecting the meandering nature of the pipe and excluding the effect of the lateral groundwater flow on the pipe progression. By limiting the problem to twodimensions Sellmeijer derived a mathematical model on which his design rule was based. In his design rule Sellmeijer relates the progression of a pipe to a hydraulic gradient. Over the years, Sellmeijer’s design rule has been adapted three different times. Each adaptation resulted in a more accurate design rule accounting for more and more parameters. However, with each adaptation, Sellmeijer’s design rule did not become more transparent. During the derivation of his design rule, Sellmeijer fails to account for the effect of a leaky layer on the critical hydraulic gradient for pipe progression. This limitation in his design rule is the focus of this thesis. In order to determine if leakage affects the critical hydraulic head for pipe rogression, a study is done using a two dimensional groundwater model in which his design rule is implemented. From these simulations it was observed that the presence of a leaky layer results in an increase in the critical hydraulic head. In the simulations studied, a maximum of 12 % increase is observed. Next an analysis is done on the results of these simulations. On the one hand an attempt is made to determine if and how leakage can be included in Sellemijer’s design rule. The simulations show that the effect of leakage on increasing the critical hydraulic gradient for pipe progression is largely dependent on the hydraulic conductivity of the cover layer. However, in order for a leakage term to be determined, and included in Sellmeijer’s design rule, additional simulations should be done. In MSeep it was also observed that leaky layers significantly impact the groundwater flow under the dike. The effect of this was quantified by looking at the effective depth. Which is defined as the portion of the aquifer which is responsible for groundwater flow towards the pipe and uplift channel. In order to further analyse the effect of leakage on groundwater flow, a number of quasi 3D and 3D scenarios were modelled in iMOD. For these simulations the effective depth, the effective width (in 3D) and the discharge in the well is determined. In this way, the effect of leakage can be quantified. In all three of the models similar trends are observed: a increase in the hydraulic conductivity of the cover layer resulted in the decrease of the effective depth. However, in the full 3D model the impact of leakage on the groundwater flow resulted in a larger range in the results. The results of this thesis, show that derivation of a leakage term would greatly benefit the output of the design rule. As a ’quick fix’ it is recommended to derive a leakage term which can be included in Sellmeijer’s design rule. However, further developments of a 3D model which correctly implements the effect of a pipe on the groundwater flow is also beneficial.