Heavy crude and tar sands: Hydrocarbons for the 21st century. Volume 2, Reservoir behavior, drilling and production

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:10147836

Meyer, R F ^[1]

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1. ed.; Geological Survey, Washington, DC (United States)

Volume 2 is devoted to heavy oil reservoir behavior, production, and the drilling and completion of wells to meet the special needs of these fascinating but difficult oils and bitumens. The volume begins with four papers describing approaches to the recovery of heavy oil and to two fields subject to different recovery mechanisms. Although most heavy oil fields are produced with the assistance of steam stimulation, which commenced in Venezuela, or steam flood, many other methods for the improvement of recovery are potentially applicable. The seven reports on pilot projects examine mostly the results of studies on the dominant thermal recovery methods - steam stimulation, steam flood, and in situ combustion. The behavior of reservoirs under development through use of horizontal wells is the subject of three reports, of vertical wells, nine papers. Much is still to be teamed concerning the relative advantages of these two distinctive methods of reservoir development. The 18 reports on drilling and production are of great importance to the science and engineering of heavy oil because of the problems heavy oil causes after it is induced to flow to the well bore. Artificial lifting of the oil has traditionally centered on the use of sucker rods, but other methods, such as chamber or cavity-pump lift may prove to be efficacious. Horizontal well drilling is a logical approach to maximizing the amount of reservoir exposed to the well bore but this entails special problems in bore-hole clean-up. Heavy oils, too, pose special, frequently very difficult gravel packing problems. Sand production with heavy oil has always posed both economic and technological difficulties and major effort is devoted to overcoming them, as evidenced by the reports in this section. Individual papers have been processed separately for inclusion in the Energy Science and Technology Database.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG22-91BC14800
• OSTI ID: 10147836
• Report Number(s): CONF-9108240--Vol.2; ON: UN93012089; ISBN 0-7732-0635-3
• Country of Publication: Venezuela
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300
04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS
040401
040403
ARTIFICIAL LIFTS
BITUMENS
DIRECTIONAL DRILLING
DRILLING AND PRODUCTION
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FIELD TESTS
IN SITU METHODS
TRUE AND MODIFIED
LEADING ABSTRACT
MEETINGS
OIL SANDS
OIL WELLS
PETROLEUM
PRODUCTION
REFINING
STEAM INJECTION
VISCOSITY
WELL DRILLING