American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2016 Official Program Guide - 128

Permian Basin Reports

Polymeric hollow ﬁber membranes fabricated at PRRC have achieved greater than 95
percent efficiency at removing organic salt from produced waters at less than 30 psi
pressure and 25 degrees F temperature differentials. A three-foot long bundle of ﬁbers
four inches in diameter has a ﬁlter surface area of more than 1,500 square yards.

New Mexico for a consortium of 10 companies.
PRRC has seven pending proposals
for 2017 in shale resource management,
optimized CO2 monitoring, seismic gradiometry, CO2 storage permanence, downhole CO2 and gas sensors, acid gas disposal, and carbon storage.
In addition to funded research, PRRC
performs unfunded service projects for
companies that produce in New Mexico.
In 2016, these projects included:
* Determining the source of injectivity
issues for Queen Sand waterfloods, which
consisted of lab work for Beach Exploration;
* A simulation study of acid gas injection into the Cherry Canyon formation
in New Mexico's Delaware Basin, based
off a filed acid gas disposal permit; and
* Continued maintenance and software
upgrades for the Go-TECH online pro-

duction database and other PRRC-designed
websites that service producers in the
state, and receive 3 million-5 million hits
a year
PRRC Research Groups
PRRC is divided into eight focus areas
representing a broad range of research
disciplines and laboratory functions.
The Advanced Materials Group is
led by Ning Liu (materials engineering)
and performs research utilizing nanotechnology for such oil field applications as fabricating chemical sensors
for monitoring carbon dioxide and developing stabilized CO2 foams for enhanced oil recovery.
An advanced material has engineered
properties such that existing materials
are modified or new materials are created
to achieve better performance under various conditions. Advanced materials, in-

Before (left) and after (right) scanning electron microscope images of core samples undergoing a simulated acid treatment in the laboratory enabled PRRC to determine that
ﬁnes migration was the source of injectivity problems Beach Exploration was experiencing in its Queen Sand waterﬂood.

128 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

cluding nanotechnology, represent new
frontiers in hydrocarbon recovery technologies.
The Alkaline Surfactant Polymers
Group is led by Guoyin Zhang (petroleum
engineering), and focuses on chemical
flooding using alkalis, surfactants and
polymers for enhanced oil recovery from
mature or depleted fields. These chemicals
can be used as individual components or
in combination.
By injecting these chemicals into reservoirs, both microscopic and macroscopic
oil sweep efficiency can be improved
significantly by manipulating interactions
among brine, oil and rock, including interfacial tension, fluid miscibility, rock
wettability, capillary pressure, and oil/water
viscosity.
The Gas Flooding and Flow Heterogeneities Group is led by Reid Grigg
(physical chemistry), and pursues research
interests in the areas of:
* Carbon sequestration or storage in
geologic formations, focusing on oil, gas
(EOR), coalbed and water aquifer formation;
* Improving conformance control and
sweep efficiency in CO2 flooding;
* Understanding and managing injectivity changes associated with water
alternating with gas injection; and
* Improving the modeling capability
of CO2 foam-enhancing processes and
WAG injection.
PRRC's Industry Services and Outreach Group is led by Martha Cather
(geology). Its main mission is providing
data and technology to New Mexico oil
and gas producers. ISOG's family of
websites is dedicated to making public
data available in intuitive and user-friendly formats. In addition, the research
group performs core scale geology and
microscopy.
The Petrophysics and Surface Chemistry Group is led by Jill Buckley (petroleum engineering). Its studies focus on
surface and interfacial properties of crude
oils, wettability alteration and crude
oil/brine/rock interactions, the stability
of asphaltenes, and core cleaning and the
effects of surfactants on assessing wettability.
The Produced Water and Petroleum
Engineering Group is led by Jianjia Yu
(petroleum engineering), and pursues advanced methods in membrane technology
for improving produced water treatment.
American Oil and Gas Reporter - PBIOS 2016 Official Program Guide

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