Research Status and Prospect of Heavy Oil Recovery Technology

2021 ◽  
Vol 888 ◽  
pp. 111-117
Author(s):  
Yi Zhao ◽  
De Yin Zhao ◽  
Rong Qiang Zhong ◽  
Li Rong Yao ◽  
Ke Ke Li

With the continuous exploitation of most reservoirs in China, the proportion of heavy oil reservoirs increases, and the development difficulty is greater than that of conventional reservoirs. In view of the important subject of how to improve the recovery factor of heavy oil reservoir, the thermal recovery technology (hot water flooding, steam flooding, steam assisted gravity drainage SAGD and steam huff and puff) and cold recovery technology (chemical flooding, electromagnetic wave physical flooding and microbial flooding) used in the development of heavy oil reservoir are summarized. The principle of action is analyzed, and the main problems restricting heavy oil recovery are analyzed The main technologies of heavy oil recovery are introduced from the aspects of cold recovery and hot recovery. Based on the study of a large number of literatures, and according to the development trend of heavy oil development, suggestions and prospects for the future development direction are put forward.

2012 ◽  
Vol 550-553 ◽  
pp. 2878-2882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Yuan Gai ◽  
Fang Hao Yin ◽  
Ting Ting Hao ◽  
Zhong Ping Zhang

Based on the issue of enhancing oil recovery of heavy oil reservoir after steam injection, this paper studied the development characteristics of hot water flooding in different rhythm (positive rhythm, anti-rhythm, complex rhythm) reservoir after steam drive by means of physical simulation. The research shows that the positive rhythm reservoir has a large swept volume with steam flooding under the influence of steam overlay and steam channeling. Anti-rhythm reservoir has a large swept volume with hot water flooding, because hot water firstly flows along the high permeability region in upper part of the reservoir, in the process of displacement, hot water migrates to the bottom of reservoir successively for its higher density.


2018 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 01054
Author(s):  
Guan Wang ◽  
Rui Wang ◽  
Yaxiu Fu ◽  
Lisha Duan ◽  
Xizhi Yuan ◽  
...  

Mengulin sandstone reservoir in Huabei oilfield is low- temperature heavy oil reservoir. Recently, it is at later stage of waterflooding development. The producing degree of water flooding is poor, and it is difficult to keep yield stable. To improve oilfield development effect, according to the characteristics of reservoir geology, microbial enhanced oil recovery to improve oil displacement efficiency is researched. 2 microbial strains suitable for the reservoir conditions were screened indoor. The growth characteristics of strains, compatibility and function mechanism with crude oil were studied. Results show that the screened strains have very strong ability to utilize petroleum hydrocarbon to grow and metabolize, can achieve the purpose of reducing oil viscosity, and can also produce biological molecules with high surface activity to reduce the oil-water interfacial tension. 9 oil wells had been chosen to carry on the pilot test of microbial stimulation, of which 7 wells became effective with better experiment results. The measures effective rate is 77.8%, the increased oil is 1,093.5 tons and the valid is up to 190 days.


2019 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 922-931 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lanxiang Shi ◽  
Peng Liu ◽  
Dehuang Shen ◽  
Pengcheng Liu ◽  
Changfeng Xi ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 550-553 ◽  
pp. 468-471
Author(s):  
Fu Sheng Zhang ◽  
Jian Ouyang ◽  
De Wei Wang ◽  
Xin Fang Feng ◽  
Li Qing Xu

The core displacement experiments show that displacement system containing chemical agent can enhance oil recovery by over 20% comparing to water flooding. Mechanisms by which chemical agent enhance oil recovery of heavy oil reservoir water flooding are: (1) improving mobility ratio by significantly decreasing viscosity of heavy oil, volumetric sweep efficiency is improved; (2) increasing capillary number by significantly decreasing oil-water interfacial tension, oil displacement efficiency is increased; (3) changing wettability of the rock surface from oil-wet to water-wet by significantly reducing the contact angle between displacement liquid and sandstone surface, capillary force is changed from the resistance force to the motive force, the residual oil is expelled from the small pores and the wall of pores, oil displacement efficiency is significantly increased.


2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 797-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benyu Su ◽  
Yasuhiro Fujimitsu

With an increasing tendency towards more demand for energy resources, the supply of energy as a focus of global strategy is attracting more and more attention from the world. However, on the one hand, conventional hydrocarbon resources are decreasing gradually, and therefore it is definitely an urgent task to search for renewable and replaceable resources at the present time. On the other hand, it has been proved that the total reserves of heavy oil are already up to 1105×108 tons around the world, which means that exploring heavy oil can be a beneficial supplement for alleviating the shortage of oil and gas. Moreover, it is noteworthy that because the heavy oil can be exploited by heated CO2, collecting and consuming CO2 during the production process will help to relieve global warming. In this study, we take the feasibility of heavy oil recovery by CO2 steam into consideration only from the viewpoint of geophysics. In the process of research, with the help of borehole-surface electric potential and cross-borehole electric potential, the entire procedures from heating heavy oil reservoir and optimizing the location of well to deciding the layer of perforation are exhibited completely. In the course of calculation, potential distributions corresponding to a point source of current are acquired by solving the Poisson equation using a direct and explicit finite difference technique for a lower half-space with 3-D distribution of conductivity. As for computation of a large sparse matrix, the technique of nonzero bandwidth storage and the Incomplete Cholesky Conjugate Gradient method are adopted. The consequences prove that with the assistance of cross-borehole electric potential combining with borehole-surface electric potential, the project of heavy oil recovery by CO2 steam is feasible and effective.


Geofluids ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Yongtao Sun ◽  
Zhaomin Li

Under the conditions of thermal oil recovery, the heavy oil in a reservoir usually exists in the form of W/O emulsion with high water content, which has significant effect on oil recovery performance. The most important parameter on the stability of W/O emulsion is interfacial properties. Thus, in order to investigate the effect of interfacial properties on the stability of W/O emulsion in a heavy oil reservoir at elevated temperatures, experiments have been conducted to generate various emulsions with variations in the temperature; stirring rate; contents of asphaltene, resin, and wax of the simulated heavy oil; and water salinity based on a target heavy oil reservoir in China. Then, the properties of the W/O emulsions include viscosity, interfacial viscosity (IFV), interfacial tension (IFT), and dehydration rate; the microscopic morphologies are measured as well. The experimental results show evidently stable W/O emulsion of heavy oil and water generated in thermal processes due to the stable, thick, and indistinct interface between heavy oil and water, where the active molecules of asphaltene and resin are accumulated. The interface connects the central large droplet and the surrounding small droplets tightly. The results also indicate the size of the central droplet, and the indistinct interface can be enlarged with increasing temperature and increasing stirring rate. Compared to resin, it is noted that the larger asphaltene molecules have stronger connection because of their stronger intermolecular force, larger IFV, and less IFT. At the same time, the stability of W/O emulsion will be strengthened with increasing temperature and stirring rate and gradually weakened with increasing salinity. In conclusion, the stability of water in heavy oil emulsion is mainly related to the large interfacial viscosity of the interface with much more heavy components such as asphaltene and resin compared to thin oil.


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