Low grade crude palm oil (LGCPO) presents as an attractive option as feedstock for biodiesel production due to its low cost and non-competition with food resources. Typically, LGCPO contains high contents of free fatty acids (FFA), rendering it impossible in direct trans-esterification processes due to the saponification reaction. Esterification is the typical pre-treatment process to reduce the FFA content and to produce fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). The pre-treatment of LGCPO using two different acid catalysts, such as titanium oxysulphate sulphuric acid complex hydrate (TiOSH) and 5-sulfosalicylic acid dihydrate (5-SOCAH) was investigated for the first time in this study. The optimum conditions for the homogenous catalyst (5-SOCAH) wer

Efficient and cost-effective drilling of directional wells necessitates the implementation of best drilling practices and advanced techniques to optimize drilling operations. Failure to adequately consider drilling risks can result in inefficient drilling operations and non-productive time (NPT). Although advanced drilling techniques may be expensive, they offer promising technical solutions for mitigating drilling risks. This paper aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of advanced drilling techniques in mitigating risks and improving drilling operations when compared to conventional drilling techniques. Specifically, the advanced drilling techniques employed in Buzurgan Oil Field, including vertical drilling with mud motor, managed pres

The objective of this work is to study the influence of end milling cutting process parameters, tool material and geometry on multi-response outputs for 4032 Al-alloy. This can be done by proposing an approach that combines Taguchi method with grey relational analysis. Three cutting parameters have been selected (spindle speed, feed rate and cut depth) with three levels for each parameter. Three tools with different materials and geometry have been also used to design the experimental tests and runs based on matrix L9. The end milling process with several output characteristics is solved using a grey relational analysis. The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the major influencing parameters on multi-objective response w

Many oil and gas processes, including oil recovery, oil transportation, and petroleum processing, are negatively impacted by the precipitation and deposition of asphaltene. Screening methods for determining the stability of asphaltenes in crude oil have been developed due to the high cost of remediating asphaltene deposition in crude oil production and processing. The colloidal instability index, the Asphaltene-resin ratio, the De Boer plot, and the modified colloidal instability index were used to predict the stability of asphaltene in crude oil in this study. The screening approaches were investigated in detail, as done for the experimental results obtained from them. The factors regulating the asphaltene precipitation are different fr

This paper presents a study of the application of gas lift (GL) to improve oil production in a Middle East field. The field has been experiencing a rapid decline in production due to a drop in reservoir pressure. GL is a widely used artificial lift technique that can be used to increase oil production by reducing the hydrostatic pressure in the wellbore. The study used a full field model to simulate the effects of GL on production. The model was run under different production scenarios, including different water cut and reservoir pressure values. The results showed that GL can significantly increase oil production under all scenarios. The study also found that most wells in the field will soon be closed due to high water cuts. Howev

Nasryia oil field is located about 38 Km to the north-west of Nasryia city. The field was discovered in 1975 after doing seismic by Iraqi national oil company. Mishrif formation is a carbonate rock (Limestone and Dolomite) and its thickness reach to 170m. The main reservoir is the lower Mishrif (MB) layer which has medium permeability (3.5-100) md and good porosity (10-25) %. Form well logging interpretation, it has been confirmed the rock type of Mishrif formation as carbonate rock. A ten meter shale layer is separating the MA from MB layer. Environmental corrections had been applied on well logs to use the corrected one in the analysis. The combination of Neutron-Density porosity has been chosen for interpretation as it is c

Combining ultrasonic irradiation and the Fenton process as a sono-Fenton process, the chemical oxygen demand (COD) in refinery wastewater was successfully eliminated using response surface methodology (RSM) with central composite design (CCD). The impact of two main influential operational parameters (iron dosage and reaction time) on the COD removal from wastewater generated by an Iraqi petroleum refinery facility was explored. Removal of 85.81% was attained under the optimal conditions of 21 minutes and 0.289 mM of  concentration. Additionally, the results revealed that the concentration of has the highest effect on the COD elimination, followed by reaction time. The high R² value (96.40%) validated the strong fit of the mo

This paper presents a combination of enhancement techniques for fingerprint images affected by different type of noise. These techniques were applied to improve image quality and come up with an acceptable image contrast. The proposed method included five different enhancement techniques: Normalization, Histogram Equalization, Binarization, Skeletonization and Fusion. The Normalization process standardized the pixel intensity which facilitated the processing of subsequent image enhancement stages. Subsequently, the Histogram Equalization technique increased the contrast of the images. Furthermore, the Binarization and Skeletonization techniques were implemented to differentiate between the ridge and valley structures and to obtain one

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of operating variables on, the percentage of removed sludge (PSR) obtained during re-refining of 15W-40 Al-Durra spent lubricant by solvent extraction-flocculation treatment method. Binary solvents were used such as, Heavy Naphtha (H.N.): MEK (N:MEK), H.N. : n-Butanol (N:n-But), and H.N. : Iso-Butanol (N:Iso:But). The studied variables were mixing speed (300-900, rpm), mixing time (15-60, min), and operating  temperature (2540, oC). This study showed that the studied operating variables have effects where, increasing the mixing time up to 45 min for H.N.: MEK, H.N.: n-Butanol  and 30 min for H.N.: Iso-Butanol increased the PSR, after that percentage was decreased; increasing t