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International Congress and Exhibition "Sustainable Civil Infrastructures: Innovative Infrastructure Geotechnology"

GeoMEast 2018: Novel Issues on Unsaturated Soil Mechanics and Rock Engineering pp 179–197Cite as

Laboratory Characterization of Reservoir Rock and Fluids of Upper Assam Basin, India

Part of the Sustainable Civil Infrastructures book series (SUCI)

Abstract

The characterization of major oil producing reservoirs of Upper Assam Basin for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) application is discussed in this study. The characterization of reservoirs is done in terms of reservoir rocks and fluids. The reservoir rocks comprise of underground porous media of the depleted reservoirs. Crude Oil (CO) samples containing different percentage of Formation Waters (FWs) were collected from well heads of the producing reservoirs. The reservoir fluids comprise of FW and CO. The characteristics of the porous media were done in terms of porosity and permeability. COs were separated from FW to analyse the parameters of both CO and FW. The FWs produced from the reservoirs were found to be of high salinity and high electrical conductivity, less acidic, contain low Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and Total Dissolved Solid (TDS) contents. Besides, the Characterization Factor (CF), Correlation Index (CI), class of the CO samples was determined using ASTM distillation method. CI exhibited aromatic nature whereas the CF exhibited more naphthenic nature of CO, besides CO was found to be Class D class of crude with low pour point. The asphaltenes and resins contents were found to be towards the higher side. While the viscosity of CO with increasing temperatures was experimented using Cannon-Fenske Routine Viscometer which conclude the viscosity behaviour of the crude sample. The CO samples were found to have low pour point. Therefore, by characterizing the reservoirs an understanding can be made on the applicability of EOR processes in the depleting oil fields of Upper Assam Basin.

Keywords

  • Porous media
  • Formation water
  • Crude oil
  • Enhanced oil recovery

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Abbreviations

FW:

– Formation water

CO:

– Crude oil

DO:

– Dissolved oxygen

TDS:

– Total dissolved solids

ASTM:

– American Standard of Testing Materials

AAS:

– Atomic Absorption Spectrometer

GC:

– Gas Chromatography

FP:

– Flame Photometer

XRD:

– X-Ray Diffraction

A:

– Asphaltenes

R:

– Resins

ppm:

– parts per million

CI:

– Correlation Index

K:

– Characterization Factor

FBP:

– Final Boiling Point

SG:

– Specific Gravity at 15.5 °C (60 oF)

PPL:

– Plain-polarised light

XPL:

– Cross-polarised light

Ka:

– Air permeability

mS:

– milliSiemens

g/ml:

– gram per millilitres

\( \varnothing \) :

– Effective porosity

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Indo-US Project F. No. 194-1/2009(IC) dated 20.2.15 titled “Foam-assisted CO2 Flooding for the depleted Reservoirs of Upper Assam Basin and in Candidate Reservoirs in Louisiana” of 21st Century Knowledge Initiative Program under University Grants Commission. Thanks are also extended to all individuals associated with the project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Petroleum Technology, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, 786004, Assam, India

    Joyshree Barman, Subrata Borgohain Gogoi & Debasish Konwar

  2. Petroleum Engineering Department, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, 32610, Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia

    Jayakumar Viswanathan & Kumaresan Jagatheesan

Authors
  1. Joyshree Barman
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  2. Subrata Borgohain Gogoi
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  3. Jayakumar Viswanathan
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  4. Debasish Konwar
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  5. Kumaresan Jagatheesan
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Joyshree Barman or Subrata Borgohain Gogoi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

    Laureano R. Hoyos

  2. Department of Structural Engineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Prof. Dr. John S. McCartney

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Barman, J., Gogoi, S.B., Viswanathan, J., Konwar, D., Jagatheesan, K. (2019). Laboratory Characterization of Reservoir Rock and Fluids of Upper Assam Basin, India. In: Hoyos, L., McCartney, J. (eds) Novel Issues on Unsaturated Soil Mechanics and Rock Engineering. GeoMEast 2018. Sustainable Civil Infrastructures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01935-8_14

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