HEAVY OIL EXTRACTION TECHNIQUES

Saurabh Mathur Krupal Patel Jaymin Prajapati Siddharth Pamnoor Ravi Chaudri Jayesh Sindhav

Heavy oil is oil that is highly viscous, and cannot easily flow to production wells under normal reservoir conditions. It is referred to as "heavy" because its density or specific gravity is higher than that of light crude oil. API gravity < 20 degrees Oil Viscosity < 10,000 cp

Broadly production techniques for heavy oil are divided into two categories: Non Thermal Technique Thermal Technique

Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand (CHOPS) Polymer flooding Surfactant flooding Caustic flooding Water flooding Emulsion flooding

Cyclic steam stimulation Steam Flooding In-situ Combustion Steam assisted gravity drainage(SAGD) Toe to Heel air injection(THAI)

Primary oil production technique. Involves deliberate initiation of sand influx into the perforated oil wells, and continued production of substantial quantities of sand along with the oil. Instead of blocking sand ingress by screen or gravel pack, sand is encouraged to enter the well by aggressive perforation and swabbing strategies.

CHOPS increases productivity for following reasons: If sand can move, the basic permeability of fluid is enhanced. As more sand is produced, a growing zone of greater permeability is generated around the wellbore. Continuous sanding means that asphaltene or fines plugging of the near wellbore environment cannot occur to inhibit oil flow.

Cyclic Steam Injection, also called Huff n Puff, is a thermal recovery method which involves periodical injection of steam with purpose of heating the reservoir near wellbore, in which, one well is used as both injector and producer, and a cycle consisting of 3 stages, injection, soaking and production, repeats to enhance the oil production rate as shown in Fig. 1.

Steam is injected into the well for certain period of time to heat the oil in the surrounding reservoir to a temperature at which it flows (200~300C under 1 MPa of injection pressure). When enough amount of steam has been injected, the well is shut down and the steam is left to soak for some time no more than few days. This stage is called soaking stage. The reservoir is heated by steam, consequently oil viscosity decreases.

The well is opened and production stage is triggered by natural flow at first and then by artificial lift. The reservoir temperature reverts to the level at which oil flow rate reduces. Then, another cycle isrepeated until the production reaches an economically determined level.

Similar to SAGD, VAPEX (vapor extraction) involves injection of light hydrocarbon vapors such as propane, butane, or mixture of them as solvent into a reservoir to dilate and recover bitumen (late Butler, 1989).

The process involves transient diffusion of solvent into the bitumen at the interface. As soon as the oil at the interface attains mobility due to viscosity reduction, it drains, exposing a new interface of bitumen having a very low concentration of solvent. Surface renewal, aided by capillary imbibition, yields a higher mass transfer rate that enhances the rate of extraction.

It has the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions and significantly reduce water consumption, compared to other technologies currently in use, and can be used to recover bitumen from zones too thin for traditional thermal recovery. The applicability of the Vapex process may even surpass SAGD in thin reservoirs, reservoirs underlain by aquifer, offshore operations, etc

FIG . Vapex Mechanism.

Lower oil rate than SAGD Loss of solvent to untargeted zones Accumulation of non-condensable gas in the vapor chamber Formation damage by asphaltenes precipitation Hydrate formation

Canadian International Petroleum Conference, comparing Canadian and Venezuelan heavy oil CHOPS-cold heavy oil production with sand in Canadian oil field Wikipedia. http://vapextechnologies.com/References/ Ref.5.pdf SPE 50941-PA http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti cle/pii/S0920410509000217