Russian Science Foundation Grant Winners: Petroleum Extraction Enhancement

Yuan Chengdong (Rheological and Thermochemical Research Lab) and his colleagues research petroleum oxidation processes.

The project is titled «Research of the mechanisms of reactions of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons and petroleum based on the analysis of thermodynamic and kinetic parameters and ratios of free radicals».

Mr. Yuan commented on the importance of this work, “It is a very important area for the applications of in-situ combustion and some other air injection techniques. We have implemented in-situ combustion on the field. But the data from the field shows that sometimes it’s not very easy to ignite the oil in the reservoir due to some effects of the low temperature of the reservoir, or high water cut, or some other characteristics. So we needed to make it easier for the reservoir to ignite. Sometimes it ignites and starts to combust, but sometimes the combustion front does not propagate very stably, so it just disappears. So to improve oxidation behavior we need to study the initiation of the oxidation of crude oil in the air injection techniques”

The researcher has been working in this field for five years. He started it during a master course in Southwest Petroleum University, one of the major partners for KFU in China. He is fully concentrated on this problem and has big plans, “First of all, I plan to research air injection techniques. I want to study the oxidation mechanism. Many scientists have started studying oxidation of crude oil, but there are still many problems that need to be solved. On one side, I will concentrate on the oxidation mechanism and initiation of oxidation. I want to start working on catalysts to improve oxidation behavior. The second one is that I plan to continue studying chemical flooding and polymer surfactant flooding. For the first two years during my master degree course I studied air injection techniques, but then I started studying chemical flooding, so now I research surfactant flooding for my PhD dissertation”.

Chinese colleagues first visited SAU EcoOil's labs in 2016 when they visited that year’s TheOR conference. Mr. Yuan was so impressed with the existing possibilities that he immediately came up with the idea to arrive to KFU for PhD studies. The Lab’s employees were eager to assist him in this endeavor. This project turned out to be truly an international effort, with Russian and Iranian scientists joining Yuan in his undertaking.

As the hard-working PhD candidate told us, he may return to his other areas of interest in the nearest future – and work on them at KFU.