The Contaminants in Sea Water - Research Proposal Example

? Research Proposal Optimizing the Water Injection System in the Offshore Drilling Wells Background ment When extracting oil from offshore wells, there pressure in the wells reduces as more (fluids petroleum) is extracted from the well. Thus, need to inject water in the well to maintain the high pressure within the well. In offshore wells, the water used from the sea, however this water is not pure and result in damaging the well, hence the need to optimize the water to obtain desired results. After the discovery of petroleum or oil has been made in an acceptable area of reserve potential, the main challenges becomes the manner in which to best optimize extraction of these petroleum in a way that produces an adequate returns on against the net expenditure needed to run the operate. As noted by Krupnick et al surface as well as subsurface situations and conditions of the discovery made have significant effect on the extraction work, related expenses and determine the success or failure of the whole project. Technical success maybe achieved but the project may fail economically. First hand experience has shown that the most technical success is easy to achieve, but economic success is much difficulty. According to Spellman, and Whiting the process of analyzing the best way to optimize extraction of recoverable reserves starts by formulation of a development plan (266). This development plan takes into consideration all existing geologic as well as engineering data and information to come up with initial ways of optimizing water injection systems Research aims The following research will have two aims: 1. What are the contaminants in sea water? 2. What are the main methods used in optimizing water for injection in the offshore wells? Research design methodology (data collection methods and analysis of data) Research Design This research will be carried out using secondary research also qualitative research. The methods used to get information will be collection, analysis and evaluation of past studies rather than primary research, as noted by Mason secondary research can obtain its data from internal or external sources (26). The current online libraries provide a source where extensive research can be carried out on this topic and latest information obtained. Methodology The research will be conducted using secondary sources, whereby it will be based on past studies that were done on the same topic in order to answer the formulated research question. The topic under discussion requires extensive resources for a researcher to carry out a primary research, this is because it would involve visiting a number of offshore wells, carrying out interviews and formulating questionnaires. Though there are some limitations towards this methods, like the researcher has to depend on views of other researchers, its main benefits is that it avails a big database of information to the research, and he can select relevant and substantial material to use in the research (Robson 78). For the sake of keeping the data to managerial size, it was thought that the research should concentrate basically on the methods used to optimize water injection in the offshore wells. Methods of Data Collection Since our study will be based on secondary research, data collection will entail getting information results from the previously done studies and analyzing the information. Though the results from the previous studies may be not 100% accurate meaning that this will affect our final outcome, still, this will be reliable data. It should be noted that methods of optimizing injection of water in offshore wells requires extensive resources and technology used do not change quickly. Data Collection procedures and Data Analysis To evaluate and review the data collected from the study seeking to answer the research question, the study will use known database application like Microsoft Excel to compile table and other data to compilation. This data will be used to statistically determine if the studies relevance of data collected from past studies to determine the research’s aggregated results. This research will analyze the data that will be generated from meta-analysis. Microsoft Excel will be applied (by the researcher) to set up a spreadsheet, get percentages of responses from previous studies and drawing tables. Literature review Petroleum reserves exist in form of oil or gas trapped in parts of reservoir rock that s created as a result of structural and stratigraphic geologic attributes. However, as pointed out by Turgay et al water is the main liquid laying in the permeability and porosity area of the subsurface parts within the crust (117). The gravity of oil and gas is lower than that of water and thus the two (oil and gas) floats on the on top unless they trapped inside. Normal reservoir rock comprises of sand, limestone, dolomite or sandstone. These reservoirs may begin from the surface to deep subsurface of 6.4 km below sea level. Their sizes as well vary and could cover thousands of hectares, with a varying thickness of a few inches or hundreds of feet. In explaining water injection, Mohammed explains that hydrocarbon reservoirs comprises of natural rocks that have got both hydrocarbons and water (P 447). Owing to this underground manner of formation, the temperatures of the reservoirs are normally under very high pressures. During the extraction of petroleum from the reservoir, the high pressure normally goes down, resulting in a reduction of the amount of petroleum flowing to the production well area. More so, and this differs with reservoirs, the speed at which the petroleum moves to the well as well declines (American Petroleum Institute). This therefore necessitates the water injection process; a process whereby water is injected into the reservoir with the objective of maintaining the pressure within the reservoir to increase the movement of hydrocarbons into the production well. Use of water injection: in many cases, the best and convenient fluid used for injection is water that has been produced from the well (Moore 158). Similarly, injection is used as a convenient way of disposing the produced water. In oil wells located in offshore, seawater is normally used for the injection. To optimize the injection process in this offshore wells, the water used has to be of food quality so that it does not lead to problems like plugging or and scaling that may occur in the injection equipments. As stressed by Mohammed (p, 447), this is a very critical issue to observe in offshore wells, since the cost of drilling these wells is very high. In his observation Bill Mitchell notes that, since a reservoir is very sterile, if the water injected has oxygen and microorganisms such as bacteria (145), then this could result in a “souring effect” of the reservoir. This means that the reservoir will have hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in its hydrocarbons. This will reduce the quality of obtained hydrocarbons from the well and at the same needs costly production materials and equipments to deal with the bad quality of the produced petroleum. In their study, Gelfgat, Gelfgat, & Lopatin established that the main contaminants that in injection water that should be removed are solids, hydrocarbons, sulphates and scalling compounds (235). Conclusion Many offshore wells face the problems of increasing pressure when extracting petroleum as the pressures reduces in the wells. To address this complexity, water is injected in the offshore wells, however for maximum effect, there is need to optimize the water injection processes. One of the best ways of optimizing water injection is by ensuring that water used is pure and with less contaminant. Nonetheless, there are various ways in which an oil company can use to optimize water injection. Work cited American Petroleum Institute: Subsurface salt water injection and disposal. 2nd edition: 1978; Available from the Ground Water Protection Council Library. Arnold, Ken; Stewart, Maurice: Designing Oil and Gas Production Systems." World Oil, Vol 200, No 4, p 69-78, Mar 1985 Donaldson, Erle : Injection Wells and Operations Today," in Underground Waste Management and Environmental Implications: American Assoc. Petroleum Geologists; Mem. 1972. No. 18, p. 24-46. Ferguson, G.C. et al. "Subsea cuttings injection guide base trial" in Proceedings of the SPE Offshore European Conference, v.1, p. 99-108, 1993. (SPE-26681) Fraser, K et al: Managing drilling operations: London: Elsevier Applied Science, 1991 Gelfgat Yakov, Mikhail Gelfgat, & Yuri Lopatin: Advanced Drilling Solutions: Lessons from the FSU, Vol. 1 Publisher: Penn-Well. 1987 International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC): Incident Statistics Program, Reporting Guidelines. 2010 Krupnick Alan, Sarah Campbell, Mark A. Cohen, and Ian Parry: Understanding the Costs and Benefits of Deepwater Oil Drilling Regulation: University of Houston Law Center, 2011 Lambert, William: Potential Corrosion of Storage Well Casings from a Carbon Dioxide-Water Environment American Gas Association, Operating Section Proceedings, 1982. p 57-60, Mark A. Cohen, Madeline Gottlieb, Joshua Linn, and Nathan Richardson: Deepwater Drilling: Law, Policy, and Economics of Firm Organization and Safety. University of Houston Law Center, 2011 Mason, Jones: Qualitative reasoning. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 1996 Mitchell, Bill: Advanced Oil Well Drilling Engineering Handbook (Tenth Edition).1995 Mohammed A. Mian: Petroleum Engineering Handbook for the Practicing Engineer, Tulsa, Okla.: Penn-Well, 1992, p.447. Moore, William: Injection Wells Could Be Largest Use of Subsea Completions: Oil & Gas Journal, June 6, 1977, v75, n23, p 158(3). Robson, Colin: Real world research: a resource for social scientists and practitioner-researchers. Oxford; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. 1993. Spellman, Frank R and Whiting, Nancy: Environmental Science and Technology: Concepts and Applications. Rockville, MD: Government Institutes.1999 Turgay Ertekin, J.H. Abou-Kassem, and G.R. King: Basic Applied Reservoir Simulation, Society of Petroleum Engineers; Textbook. 2001. Vol. 7 West Engineering Services: Mini Shear Study for the US Minerals Management Service; December 2002. Read More