Biodiesel is becoming one of the most attractive alternative biofuels for petroleum-based diesel fuels. The castor plant is one of the abundant non-edible oils found in many countries. This paper aims to study Libyan castor oil and its potential for diesel conversion. Experiments were carried out in the laboratories of the Specific Center for Training in the Oil Industries in Al-Zawiya. The oil was extracted using a Soxhlet extractor and n-hexane solvent at 60 °C. Transesterification reactions were conducted in a batch reactor (a three-neck flask was used, where the middle opening carries a reflux condensation unit) at 65 °C. The methanol-to-castor oil molar ratio was 6:1, with a catalyst concentration of 1 wt.% relative to the castor oil, and the reaction time was 30 min. Castor oil was analysed and found to have a fatty acid content of 0.7%. The productivity of biodiesel exhibited 80% yield. Standard test methods of analysis were conducted to determine the biodiesel’s properties. Results indicated that the kinematic viscosity at 40 °C was 14.24 cSt, the density was 0.924 g/cm3, the cetane number (CN) was 54 and the pour point was −15 °C, indicating that castor oil biodiesel is of high quality, with a high CN and a low pour point.
The Aaliji Formation in wells (BH.52, BH.90, BH.138, and BH.188) in Bai Hassan Oil Field in Low Folded Zone northern Iraq has been studied to recognize the palaeoenvironment and sequence stratigraphic development. The formation is bounded unconformably with the underlain Shiranish Formation and the overlain Jaddala Formation. The microfacies analysis and the nature of accumulation of both planktonic and benthonic foraminifera indicate the two microfacies associations; where the first one represents deep shelf environment, which is responsible for the deposition of the Planktonic Foraminiferal Lime Wackestone Microfacies and Planktonic Foraminiferal Lime Packstone Microfacies, while the second association represents the deep-sea environme
... Show MoreOil is considered the most important source for providing the funds for the national economic sectors. The revenues of oil constitute %95 of the GPD. Therefore, the development of the remaining sectors depend on oil..
The Iraqi Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) depended on the a unified price for all the buyers, That may not reflect the real value of market and did not contribute in marketing the type of heavy oil. Then, to what extent had SOMO been able to market the light and heavy crude oil in a way that contains the expected increase in the crude oil production.
A field trial was conducted at Abu-Ghraib research station , Baghdad , Iraq . The objectives were to study the effect of nitrogen fertilizer and planting space on the performance of rape seed. A split-plot in a randomized complete of block design with three replications were used. Five levels of nitrogen fertilizer ( 120,160,200,240,280 Kg / ha ) were assigned to main plots, where as planting space in sub-plots. The result obtained confirmed that 280,240 kg / ha nitrogen maximized seed yield 1.830 , 1.773 ton/ha, oil yield,0.843,0.824 ton/ha .Results showed that planting space 30 cm produced the highest seed yield 1.90 ton / ha and oil yield , 0.884 ton / ha . Interactions between nitrogen fertilizer and p
... Show MoreAn optimization study was conducted to determine the optimal operating pressure for the oil and gas separation vessels in the West Qurna 1 oil field. The ASPEN HYSYS software was employed as an effective tool to analyze the optimal pressure for the second and third-stage separators while maintaining a constant operating pressure for the first stage. The analysis involved 10 cases for each separation stage, revealing that the operating pressure of 3.0 Kg/cm2 and 0.7 Kg/cm2 for the second and third stages, respectively, yielded the optimum oil recovery to the flow tank. These pressure set points were selected based on serval factors including API gravity, oil formation volume factor, and gas-oil ratio from the flow tank. To impro
... Show MoreKnowledge of the distribution of the rock mechanical properties along the depth of the wells is an important task for many applications related to reservoir geomechanics. Such these applications are wellbore stability analysis, hydraulic fracturing, reservoir compaction and subsidence, sand production, and fault reactivation. A major challenge with determining the rock mechanical properties is that they are not directly measured at the wellbore. They can be only sampled at well location using rock testing. Furthermore, the core analysis provides discrete data measurements for specific depth as well as it is often available only for a few wells in a field of interest. This study presents a methodology to generate synthetic-geomechani
... Show MoreA field trial was conducted at Abu-Ghraib research station , Baghdad , Iraq , during the autumn season of 2006. The objectives were to study the effect of nitrogen fertilizer and planting space on the performance of rape seed. A split-plot in a randomized complete of block design with three replications were used. Five levels of nitrogen fertilizer ( 120,160,200,240,280 Kg / ha ) were assigned to main plots, where as planting space in sub-plots. The result obtained confirmed that 280,240 kg / ha nitrogen maximized seed yield 1.830 , 1.773 ton/ha, oil yield,0.843,0.824 ton/ha .Results showed that planting space 30 cm produced the highest seed yield 1.90 ton / ha and oil yield , 0.884 ton / ha . Interactions be
... Show MoreThis effort is related to describe and assess the performance of the Iraqi cement sample planned for oil well-cementing jobs in Iraq. In this paper, major cementing properties which are thickening time, compressive strength, and free water in addition to the rheological properties and filtration of cement slurry underneath definite circumstances are experimentally tested. The consequences point to that the Iraqi cement after special additives encounter the requests of the API standards and can consequently is used in cementing jobs for oil wells. At this research, there is a comparative investigation established on experimental work on the effectiveness of some additives that considered as waste materials which are silica fume, baux
... Show MoreThe Jeribe reservoir in the Jambour Oil Field is a complex and heterogeneous carbonate reservoir characterized by a wide range of permeability variations. Due to limited availability of core plugs in most wells, it becomes crucial to establish correlations between cored wells and apply them to uncored wells for predicting permeability. In recent years, the Flow Zone Indicator (FZI) approach has gained significant applicability for predicting hydraulic flow units (HFUs) and identifying rock types within the reservoir units. This paper aims to develop a permeability model based on the principles of the Flow Zone Indicator. Analysis of core permeability versus core porosity plot and Reservoir Quality Index (RQI) - Normalized poros
... Show MoreA new nano-sized NiMo/TiO2-γ-Al2O3 was prepared as a Hydrodesulphurization catalyst for Iraqi gas oil with sulfur content of 8980 ppm, supplied from Al-Dura Refinery. Sol-gel method was used to prepare TiO2- γ-Al2O3 nano catalyst support with 64% TiO2, 32% Al2O3, Ni-Mo/TiO-γ-Al2O3 catalyst was prepared under vacuum impregnation conditions to loading metals with percentage 3.8 wt.% and 14 wt.% for nickel and molybdenum respectively while the percentage for alumina, and titanium became 21.7, and 58.61 respectively. The synthesized TiO2- γ-Al2O3 nanocomposites and Ni-Mo /TiO2
... Show MoreGas-lift technique plays an important role in sustaining oil production, especially from a mature field when the reservoirs’ natural energy becomes insufficient. However, optimally allocation of the gas injection rate in a large field through its gas-lift network system towards maximization of oil production rate is a challenging task. The conventional gas-lift optimization problems may become inefficient and incapable of modelling the gas-lift optimization in a large network system with problems associated with multi-objective, multi-constrained, and limited gas injection rate. The key objective of this study is to assess the feasibility of utilizing the Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique to optimize t