Heavy Oil Enhanced Oil Recovery by Nanoparticles

Energy consumption worldwide is expected to increase by 50% relative to current levels by the end of 2030. This growth is unlikely to be met by renewable resources, and thus there is a strong and growing demand for oil as a predominant energy resource. Primary and secondary oil recovery methods typically produce only 15-30% of the original oil in place, depending on the compressibility of fluids and initial pressure of the reservoir. Therefore, for more recovery from these reservoirs, methods of enhanced oil recovery should be applied. On the other hand, with increasing energy demand and depletion of conventional hydrocarbon resources, the oil and gas industry needs new technological developments to increase recovery rate, and productivity index. Therefore, using advanced technology like Nanotechnology can be overcome the problem of low recovery from reservoirs. This research is a review on application of the nanoparticles such as metal nanoparticles, polymer nanoparticles, and etc. in the heavy oil enhanced oil recovery.

Keywords:

Enhanced oil recovery , Heavy oil , Nanoparticles , Polymeric surfactant