Tomsk R&D Institute Emerges as the Go-To for Oil Chemistry

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Hydrocarbon extraction is more difficult and ecology is yet another issue. The Tomsk Institute understands that the latest technologies are the key ingredients to solving these issues, and continues to serve the industry, devloping solutions at the frontlines.
Surviving “Perestroika”
Until the mid-1980s, domestic scientific research was on par with, and even surpassed foreign competition. Multilateral well drilling, hydraulic formation fracturing, and other advanced technologies were first introduced in Russia. At that time, the deepest exploration well had been drilled in the Kola Peninsula – the Kola well reached 12,262 meters.
However, on the heels of the Soviet collapse and “perestroika” came a period of devastation and stagnation. That negatively affected both fundamental and applied sciences. Reasearch and development virtually disappeared, funding was scarce and employees were paid below industry standards. Financial support was cut by 95 percent, making it difficult to perform the much needed research. Despite these setbacks, fundamental science has managed to survive.
The Russian Academy of Science held maintained its position. Years of little or no investment in major equipment for research purposes has resulted in a considerable fallback in laboratory equipment. Frequently, employees left their research studies for increased compensation at petroleum companies and other firms.  For example, one employee at a petroleum research institute left his position for a career in a production company where he was offered an income equal to that of all his former colleagues combined at the institute department.  The salary of a research institute director alone was smaller than that of an attendant on a long-distance train.
Subscriptions for national and foreign scientific magazines cost a considerable amount of money. Given the choice between paying the salaries or paying for the subscriptions to these scientific publications, employees often favored the subscriptions, in the name of science.
The Institute of Petroleum Chemistry of Russian Academy of Science had 400 employees prior to “perestroika.” They had a design bureau, laboratory facilities, and a manufacturer of trial samples. Afterwards, there was hardly anything left of these processes and the number of scientific research specialists fell by 30 percent. The chemical industry received a serious blow as institutes focusing on development and research in the areas of petroleum production and processing, basically ceased to exist. For instance, there used to be cellulose ester production in Russia, but not anymore as the only plant has been shut down completely. In comparison, China has nearly 20 plants manufacture this type of product today.
Over the last few years, financing has increased, but is still below “pre-perestroika” levels. Today, there is at least a chance for a research institute to receive some heavy equipment for free. For instance, a weight spectrometer worth 500,000 Euros can be won in a competition. This is important, as it is still difficult for scientific institutions to buy such expensive equipment on their own. Salaries are rising little by little, but not as quickly as prices during the current inflationary period. Today, institutes can earn money by performing scientific research for production companies under contract. While it was only possible to retain testing facilities in the earlier days of change and confusion, now most organizations are expanding them. This is especially valuable for the chemical industry where experiments and testing are critical. The prestige of a scientific profession, which sank below any reasonable point during “perestroika,” has been on the rise lately. Now there is such a renewed interest in pursuing a scientific education that there are often more post-graduates than positions available.
As part of the legacy of a “transitional” period, Russia has inherited a technological lag, old machinery, and a poor infrastructure. However, there are signs of improvement due to a revival in production and certain steps made by the government to encourage scientific research in the industry. On the whole, the fundamental sciences have been preserved, leading to an upturn in the field. The Institute of Petroleum Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences Siberian Branch, located near Tomsk, illustrates this trend.
To Meet and Beat International Standards
The director of the Tomsk Institute of Petroleum Chemistry SB RAS, Lyubov Altunina believes that the research by the scientists of her institute is on par with, or surpasses those internationally recognized. The scientists often communicate with their foreign colleagues at various European and international fairs and conferences, and maintain objectivity in the estimation of their own research. In fact, there was an international tender announced in Oman a few years ago for the use of oil recovery enhancement and water reducing technologies. IPC participated alongside with the more well-known Shell and Halliburton companies, and the Tomsk Institute was accepted to carry out experimental work.
 “There are some 160 billion tons of light and low-viscosity oils in the world now, and five times as much of high-viscosity oils,” says Lyubov Altunina. “Production of viscous oils around the globe is constantly increasing. So, the problem of recovering highly viscous oils is critical, and, most importantly, it is sure to be the issue of tomorrow and, depending on the way it is resolved, to affect us for many years ahead.” Considerable reserves of HV oils are located in Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, the USA, Russia, Kuwait and China. Of all modern HV oil recovery techniques, a thermal or, steam reservoir treatment (a permanent or cyclic steam injection) is regarded as the most effective. However, there are some weak points in this method – the small size of the treated formation due to its heterogeneity, and rather low efficiency of the thermal treatment during the final development stage. The Institute of Petroleum Chemistry SB RAS has developed a new technology for HV oil recovery enhancement. To increase the efficiency of repetitive and continued steam treatment of high-viscous oil bearing formations, a combined use of gelling and oil displacing materials has been suggested, thus, applying certain laws of chemistry and physics. The scientific base for this technology is the fundamental research of physical, chemical and rheological properties of surface and volume phases within a system of interaction; oil formation, surfactant solutions and polymers. A promising technique has been invented. They can either use the formation energy or,  the energy of the injected steam for generation of oil displacing fluid, gels and soils (colloidal solutions) right in the formation. However efficient a steam treatment is, this method is very complicated and costly. Therefore, a possibility of applying chemicals without any thermal treatment has been investigated.
IPC has invented eight oil recovery enhancement techniques that are currently being used on a large scale throughout Western Siberia and other regions. Petroleum companies like LUKOIL, Rosneft, etc. utilize technologies developed by the Institute. For example, water influx prevention jobs have been performed successfully at more than 20 wells in Tomsk region fields (at Gurarinskoye and Sobolinskoye) using technologies developed by the Institute. More than 500 wells in Western Siberia have been treated over the last five years following IPC invented techniques, with over 1.5 million tons of oil additionally produced due to the application of new technologies. Utilization of such new techniques pays for itself soon enough; in five to ten months’ time. The technologies have been successfully tested in the White Tiger Offshore Field in the South China Sea (Vietnam), Lao-He Fields (China) and in Oman.  The water influx prevention technology was proved effective at nine wells in Oman in 2007, prompting a plan by the Oman State Petroleum Company to apply this technique at about 40 wells in 2008. The production of gelling and oil displacing materials has been organized in Russia and China. The institute has received more than 40 Russian patents, one Chinese and one from Vietnam.
It is not only physical and chemical properties that IPC scientists use, but micro-biological methods also. “Oil bearing formation is a complex, living system with a great amount of germs and bacteria,” says Altunina. “There is a very diverse indigenous microflora, which is absolutely critical for oil production and processing. They (the germs) are the most efficient biological machines as they can multiply by 1,000-1,000,000 times within three-five days. There isn’t a chemical process to beat it. When surfactant or nitrogen compound chemicals – that have good oil displacing properties – are injected into the formation, they enhance oil displacement considerably at the beginning of the process. After these substances in the formation are diluted 100-1,000 times, they turn into food for the microflora of that formation. And that boosts flora growth, with germs producing biological polymers which, in turn, improve oil displacement.”
“Hence, we have a complex impact – a physical and chemical method which allows for a 15 to 20 percent increase in oil displacement, and the micro biological aspect provides another 5 to 7 percent on top of that. Nitrogen compounds, urea, potassium nitrate – they are all good nitrogen fertilizers. They contribute to the formation of micro flora growth, since there is not enough nutrition. Microbes, like people, live in “communities and stimulate growth of a certain useful type of germs while inhibiting sulfate-reducing bacteria that contributes to corrosion. This positive by-product can be observed at many fields,” continued Altunina.
IPC is also working on new solutions for associated gas processing. Catalytic oxidation is an effective and promising technology that can be used with insignificant associated gas cuts contained in the oil. The method allows for the significant reduction of the emissions of  products of incomplete combustion such as carbides, CO, NO and many other hydrocarbons that fail to burn – especially, a benzpyrene type, one of the most dangerous carcinogens.
The most attractive way to use associated oil well gas is to arrange for small scale processing in order to obtain a liquefied propane-butane, aromatic hydrocarbons by means of catalytic reactions and also, to concurrently receive a concentrate of aromatic hydrocarbons (a high-octane additive), benzene, and a dry gas.
A new technology is being developed is a process called BiCyclar which is a combined conversion of methane with propane, butane, isobutane, or, with a propane-butane fraction. The process is performed in a flow-type reactor with a permanent modified zeolite catalyst coating at 450-550 C, under atmospheric pressure or slightly over pressurized, at a gas mixture flow rate of 300-1,600 cu. m / hour. As a result, there is a high emission of aromatic hydrocarbons including benzene, toluene and xylene among others.
IPC has created a unique geo-information system and a database on physiсochemical properties of oils. Currently, the base contains 18,000 samples from more than 4,800 fields located in 168 oil-and-gas bearing basins in 86 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Australia. The database is Microsoft Access and Windows supported, which makes it possible to collect and put together all the information from various sources, and present the information in a convenient format of spreadsheets, drawings, diagrams, charts or reports. Use of the database allows a complex analysis of oil and gas by their physicochemical and qualitative characteristics with reference to the geographical location, geological age of the formations, depth, temperature, pressure and lithological properties of particular fields and oil bearing areas in general. These records also make it possible to predict physicochemical properties of oils and gas, their quality, thermal and pressure parameters of occurrence for new fields by using a series or stratigraphic analysis.
IPC has also studied the transfer of highly viscous oils. The institute has developed methods of obtaining compound additives from oil and timber products that allow an improvement of the rheological properties of paraffin oils. The additives’ main role is to prevent asphaltene and paraffin precipitation, improve the rheology of oils and reduce corrosion development in oil field equipment and transport pipelines during recovery and transfer. The additives serve as pour point depressants for paraffin oils, lowering it by 15-20 C with the chemical consumption rate of about 30 to 50 grams per ton of oil. If pumped at proportion of 0.03-0.05 percent of the weight, the additive is a corrosion inhibitor: it reduces corrosion development by a maximum 90 percent in well bores and lines. It cleans oil field equipment from asphaltene and paraffin precipitation if pumped at the proportion of 2-5 percent of the weight. The chemicals are safe for the environment.
Since 2006, the institute has been working on ecological issues. A pilot project in the Myldzhin field, tests an adsorption filter technology for cleaning industrial fluid waste. From this technology, adsorbents are obtained from the wastes of coal heat power plants and waste materials after underground water purification.
Also, a geo-information method has been developed to assess the impact of the petroleum industry on the environment, which enables a registration of the affect of associated gas flaring in oilfields on the flora.

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