Improve Oil Production From Tar-Impacted Reservoirs Using In-Situ Steam Generation and Ionic Liquids

One of the typical production challenges is occurrence of impermeable layers of highly viscous asphaltenic oil (known as tarmat) at oil/water contact within a reservoir. Tar forms a physical barrier that isolates producing zones from aquifer or water injectors. As a result of tar occurrence, is a rapid pressure decrease that can be observed in such reservoirs, increasing number of dead wells, and declining productivity. Another indirect consequence of Tar presence is poor sweep efficiency that leads to water cut increase by a drastic magnitude. An innovative approach was developed to establish better sweep efficiency, transmissibility and pressure maintenance of Tar impacted-areas using thermochemical treatment. The treatment consists of injecting exothermic reaction-components that react downhole and generate in-situ pressure and heat. The in-situ reaction products provide heat and gas-drive energy to mobilize tar, improve sweep efficiency and maintain flooding for better pressure maintenance. Typically, downhole heat generation through chemical reaction releases substantial heat which could be employed in various thermal stimulation operations. Nano/ionic liquids, high pH solutions, solvents and nano metals were combined with the exothermic reaction to improve tar mobilization. Based on lab testing, the new technology showed more recovery than conventional steam flooding. Permeable channels were created in a tar layer with sandback samples, which enhanced transmissibility, pressure support and sweep efficiency. The effect of thermochemical treatment and ionic liquid on bitumen texture will be described. Impact of In-situ generated heat on injectivity will also be presented. The novel method will enable commercial production from tar-impacted reservoirs, and avoid costly steam flooding systems. The developed novel treatment relates to in-situ steam generation to maximize heat delivery efficiency of steam into the reservoir and to minimize heat losses due to under and/or over burdens. The generated in-situ steam and gas can be applied to recover deep oil reservoirs, which cannot be recovered with traditional steam, miscible gas, nor polymer injection methods.

Conversion Timing of Following-Up Thermal Recovery Approaches of Post-CHOP for Foamy Extraheavy Oil Reservoirs

The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal conversion timing of follow-up thermal recovery approaches of post-CHOP for foamy extraheavy oil reservoirs. The microscopic visualization experiment and the one-dimensional sand pack experiment are conducted to investigate the influence of temperature on the foamy oil cold production process. According to the experimental results, it can be concluded that the temperature has great influence on foamy oil flow stage during the CHOP process. Therefore, it is necessary to study the optimal conversion timing of follow-up thermal recovery approaches after CHOP for the foamy extraheavy oil reservoir. Based on the analysis of the experimental results, the compositional foamy oil model is established by taking the effect of temperature into consideration. In the numerical model, the conversion timings of different thermal recovery approaches are investigated. The optimal conversion timings for cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and steam flooding (SF) processes are the moments when the pressure drops to the pseudo-bubble point pressure. For the CSS method, excessive pressure cannot give full play to the production potential of CHOP stage; when the pressure is too low, it lacks enough energy to drive the heated crude oil to the wellbore. For the SF method, high pressure cannot fully release the latent heat of steam, and the content of dissolved gas (which will hinder the heat transfer) in oil phase is higher under high pressure, while the very low pressure leads to relatively high viscosity of crude oil; thus, the performance of the SF process becomes worse. For the SAGD process, the adverse effects of released solution gas in foamy extraheavy oil reservoir outweigh the positive effects. As a result, the CHOP period should be extended as long as possible to obtain a high recovery. In other words, the recovery process should be switched to the SAGD process at a relatively low formation pressure. The findings of this study could help for better understanding of the CHOP and post-CHOP thermal techniques for foamy extraheavy oil reservoirs, and it can provide guidance for reservoir engineers to make better use of the thermal recovery techniques to further improve the recovery performance of foamy extraheavy oil reservoirs.

Development of a Thermal Stability Method for Phase Appearance and Disappearance Handling in Thermal Compositional Simulators

Thermal compositional simulators rely heavily on multicomponent, multiphase flash calculations for a variety of reasons, including reservoir and wellbore initialization, phase appearance and disappearance, and property calculation. In a mass variable formulation, an isenthalpic flash is used for phase split computation, phase saturation update, component mole fraction update in different phases, and temperatures. A natural variable formulation utilizes an isothermal flash mainly for phase appearance and disappearance as well as computation of component mole fractions in appearing phases. Multiphase multicomponent isothermal flash calculations cannot be performed in narrow boiling systems which are very common in the simulation of thermal EOR operations such as Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) or Steam Flooding (SF). In a narrow boiling point system, pressure and temperature are not linearly independent, and an isothermal flash will fail. In addition, flash calculations are computationally expensive, and reservoir simulators use different techniques to perform them as little as possible. A new thermal stability check has been developed that can be used in thermal compositional simulators and replaces an isothermal flash calculation. The new stability check quickly determines the phase state of a fluid sample and can be used as an initial guess for mole fraction of a phase appearing in the next simulation cycle. In this method, primary variables of the simulator are used as input for the stability check immediately after the nonlinear solver update so that computation of global mole fractions is not required. The new stability check can also be used in separator and isenthalpic flash calculations to determine the phase state of a fluid. An algorithm is provided, covering all different transitions of phase states in a thermal compositional simulator. The proposed algorithm is significantly faster than a flash calculation and saves simulation time spent in this calculation, hence the overall speed up is case dependent. The new stability check is simple, computationally inexpensive, and robust. It can be used for multicomponent and single-component systems, and we tested it rigorously against real field and synthetic models. The new thermal stability check always predicts the number of phase states correctly and never fails. In this paper, we demonstrate a thermal compositional simulation that is run without performing a single flash calculation.

Assessment of Seismic Risk in Geothermal and Hydrocarbon Reservoirs Using an Exact Analytical Solution of Stress Change

Both for the oil & gas and geothermal industry, induced seismicity caused by field development and operation can pose a risk, in particular when the reservoir (or overburden / underburden) is intersected by faults. The mechanisms by which faults can be reactivated (potentially leading to seismicity) include pressure effects (reservoir depletion, or pressure rise over large areas as a result of injection) or thermal effects (cooling such as in geothermal operations or heating such as in steam flooding). Earlier, we proposed a simple methodology to assess seismic risk for geothermal reservoirs that can also be applied to hydrocarbon reservoirs. This methodology uses an elastoplastic finite element model of the reservoir in question. However, its application turned out to be laborious. Therefore, we developed an exact analytical solution for the stress changes induced by cooling, depletion and /or pressurization along (a) representative fault(s). This solution is a generalisation of the Goodier analytical solution for the situation of non-vertical faults. The analytical solution can be used to quickly evaluate a number of different scenarios related to temperature and /or pressure distributions in the reservoir. In the case of fault activation, maximum fault displacements (slip) can be computed by linking the results to elastic finite element calculations for similar load conditions. Using published standard correlations, the seismic magnitude can subsequently be estimated from the computed fault displacements. The analytical model was applied to different fault geometries, reservoir temperature distributions and depletions. It turns out that certain fault geometries (dip angles, offsets) are far more prone to activation than other fault geometries. An explanation of this result is provided. Furthermore, for non-critically stressed faults, the risk of activation is far less for geothermal operations than for situations where large parts of the reservoir are depleted or pressurized. This can be explained by the fact that the extent of the cooled zone in geothermal operations is generally limited, even after 30 years of operation. Consequently, cooling-induced stress changes along the fault are significantly reduced because of arching by the adjacent non-cooled areas. Finally, one geothermal field example in The Netherlands is presented where the above methodology was applied to demonstrate that there exists no seismic risk over the entire field life.

Status Quo of a CO2-Assisted Steam-Flooding Pilot Test in China

It is challenging to enhance heavy oil recovery in the late stages of steam flooding. This challenge is due to reduced residual oil saturation, high steam-oil ratio, and lower profitability. A field test of the CO2-assisted steam flooding technique was carried out in the steam-flooded heavy oil reservoir in the J6 block of the Xinjiang oil field (China). In the field test, a positive response to the CO2-assisted steam flooding treatment was observed, including a gradually increasing heavy oil production, an increase in the formation pressure, and a decrease in the water cut. The production wells in the test area mainly exhibited four types of production dynamics, and some of the production wells exhibited production dynamics that were completely different from those during steam flooding. After being flooded via CO2-assisted steam flooding, these wells exhibited a gravity drainage pattern without steam channeling issues, and hence, they yielded stable oil production. In addition, emulsified oil and CO2 foam were produced from the production well, which agreed well with the results of laboratory-scale tests. The reservoir-simulation-based prediction for the test reservoir shows that the CO2-assisted steam flooding technique can reduce the steam-oil ratio from 12 m3 (CWE)/t to 6 m3 (CWE)/t and can yield a final recovery factor of 70%.

The Impact of Plane Heterogeneity on Steam Flooding Development in Heavy Oil Reservoirs

Steam flooding is proven to be an effective method to improve the development effect of heavy oil reservoirs. And steam flooding is the most common oil recovery technology for heavy oil reservoirs in China. However, because of the various reservoir physical properties, bring great challenges to successful steam flooding development. According to the previous research and development practice, we know that reservoir heterogeneity has a great influence on the development effect of water flooding. Due to the heterogeneity of reservoirs, the development of different injection-production well patterns will be affected. However, it is uncertain whether reservoir heterogeneity has an impact on steam flooding development effect. In order to clarify the above scientific issues, we take Xinjiang steam flooding oilfield as the research object to carry out relevant research. According to the reservoir distribution characteristics of Xinjiang Oilfield, three conceptual heterogeneity models representing permeability, thickness, and geometric plane heterogeneity are firstly proposed. Then, mathematic models with different plane heterogeneity of reservoir sand were built. Based on the mathematic model, initial conditions, boundary condition, and geological parameters of conceptual models, different steam flooding patterns were studied by applying numerical calculation. It is found that heterogeneity is an important geological factor affecting the development of steam flooding of heavy oil reservoir. And the results showed that cumulative oil production was different of different flood pattern at the same production condition. It can be concluded that the development effect of steam flooding of heavy reservoirs is strongly influenced by flood pattern. In order to improve development effectiveness of steam flooding of heavy oil reservoirs, flood pattern should be optimized. For each type of plane heterogeneity reservoir, a reasonable flood pattern was proposed. For plane heterogeneity of permeability, thickness, and geometry form, under the conditions of that as the producer was deployed in high permeability, thick, wide sand body and injector was deployed in low permeability, thin, narrow sand body, the recovery of steam flooding in heavy oil reservoir was better. Finally, how the three types of plane heterogeneity influence steam flooding of heavy reservoirs was discussed by adopting a sensitivity analysis method. The results show that the influence of permeability heterogeneity is the largest, thickness heterogeneity is the second, and geometric heterogeneity is the least. This conclusion can help us improve the development of this reservoir. And also, the findings of this study can help for better understanding of properly deployed well pattern and how to effective develop the heavy oil reservoirs of strong plane heterogeneity for other heavy oil reservoirs.