(146c) Thermodynamic Modeling of Mineral Solubility in High-Temperature, High-Pressure Petroleum Systems.

Over the past decades, most shallow reservoirs have been depleted of recoverable hydrocarbon energy sources due to increasing oil demand. Hence, oil and gas industry have expanded the search for petroleum in offshore deep oil and gas wells where elevated temperatures, pressures, and total dissolved solids prevail in the presence of mixed electrolytes including such elements as sodium, calcium, potassium, chloride, phosphate, magnesium, etc. Under these extreme conditions, minerals may easily precipitate to form mineral scales that build up on the production pipes leading to significant decreases in oil production. Therefore, accurate thermodynamic modeling at these extreme conditions to predict the formation of mineral scales is critical in the mitigation strategy of mineral scaling.
Here, we present our thermodynamic model to predict the solubility of various minerals found in the oil field. The contribution of major model components will be discussed. Our predicted results agree reasonably well with available solubility experimental data.