Ali is a PhD student in Flow Assurance and Scale Team (FAST) at the Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering- Petroleum Engineering Department at Heriot Watt University, he commenced his studies in September 2021. His research interest includes water injection optimization and the effect of geochemical reactivity on the scale problem. Furthermore, study the effect of changes in temperature, pressure, pH and CO2 concentration in the aqueous or hydrocarbon phases. Ali has about 13 (2008-2021) years of oil industrial experience working as reservoir and petrophysics engineer in Iraqi ministry of oil. Ali holds a BSc & MSc in petroleum engineering from University of Baghdad in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
Project Title
Optimization of Injection Brine Composition and Impact of Geochemical Reactivity
Funding
CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corporation) -Iraq
Supervisors
Prof. Eric Mackay
Prof. Ken Sorbie
Start Date
Sep 2021
Publications
1- Kinetics of In-Situ Calcium Magnesium Carbonate Precipitation and the Need for Desulfation in Seawater-Flooded Carbonate Reservoirs
Contact
Email: ama2006@hw.ac.uk – Engali84.malik@gmail.com
Google Scholar
ResearchGate
Project Description
Mixing incompatible injection and formation brines can lead to the deposition of inorganic scales, such as barite, celestite, dolomite and anhydrite in production wells. This issue is well-documented in seawater-flooded clastic reservoirs. One technique to prevent the resulting formation damage is to remove sulphate from seawater before injection using nanofiltration; however, this process is costly. This study considers these processes in two carbonate reservoirs, and the impact on the scaling risk at the wells.
This project describes the use of reactive transport reservoir simulation to investigate the impact of carbon dioxide partitioning and changes in pH, ionic concentrations, and temperature on carbonate reactivity and sulphate scaling risk in waterflooded carbonate reservoirs. The models calculate the dissolution and precipitation of calcite, dolomite, gypsum, anhydrite and barite, finding that these processes are coupled through various common ion effects. The compositions of the produced brine are used to calculate the scaling risk in the two fields, and to what extent CO2 partitioning from residual oil to injected water affect the scaling behaviour.