Abstract
Software tools are becoming an important ally in making decisions on the development or implementation of an enhanced oil recovery processes from the technical, financial or risk point of view. This work, can be manually developed in some cases, but becomes more efficient and precise with the help of these tools.
In Ecopetrol was developed a tool to make technical and economic evaluation of enhanced oil recovery processes such as air injection, both cyclic and continuous steam injection, and steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and hot water injection. This evaluation is performed using different types of analysis as binary screening, analogies, benchmarking, and prediction using analytical models and financial and risk analysis.
All these evaluations are supported by a comprehensive review that has allowed initially find favorable conditions for different recovery methods evaluated, and get a probability of success based on this review. Subsequently, according to the method can be used different prediction methods, given an idea of the process behavior for a given period. Based on the prediction results, it is possible to feed the software to generate a financial assessment process, in line with cash flow previously developed that incorporates all the elements to be considered during the implementation of a project. This allows for greater support to the choice or not the application of a method.
Finally the tool to evaluate the levels of risks that outlines the development of the project based on the existing internal methodology in the company, identifying the main and level of criticality and define actions for prevention, mitigation and risk elimination.
Numerical simulation of the heat losses through the steam injection in enhanced oil recovery process