A new recovery technique for heavy-oil reservoirs with bottomwater

Journal Article · Fri May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1992 · SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Reservoir Engineering; (United States)

OSTI ID:5356324

Chakma, A ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Calgary (CA)

This paper proposes a new recovery mechanism for heavy-oil reservoirs containing bottomwater zones. Many heavy-oil reservoirs are considered unproductive because of the presence of a bottomwater zone. No known mechanism now exists for producing oil from these reservoirs. Recently, horizontal wells have been proposed as a unique solution for producing reservoirs that are thin, fractured, or contain a bottomwater zone. For heavy-oil reservoirs, however, horizontal wells alone may not be sufficient. The electro-magnetic heating process has proved to be effective in in-situ heating of oil-bearing formations. Such heating, which is limited to small radii, in combination with a horizontal well offers an attractive process for recovering billions of barrels of oil unrecoverable by other means. The process of electromagnetic heating proposed here is coupled with gas or water injection to create a favorable pressure gradient in the presence of a bottomwater zone. Scaled model experiments were performed to study the feasibility of the process of inert-gas injection along with electromagnetic heating. The variables studied were oil/water-zone thickness ratio, oil viscosity, horizontal-well placement, inert-gas injection rate, and production-well temperature. A recovery as high as 77% oil in place (OIP) was obtained even in the presence of a bottomwater zone as thick as the oil zone. This technique offers heavy-oil production at a cost lower than that of any other thermal recovery scheme.

• OSTI ID: 5356324
• Journal Information: SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Reservoir Engineering; (United States), Journal Name: SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Reservoir Engineering; (United States) Vol. 7:2; ISSN 0885-9248; ISSN SREEE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300* -- Petroleum-- Drilling & Production
023000 -- Petroleum-- Properties & Composition
DIRECTIONAL DRILLING
DRILLING
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ENERGY SOURCES
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLUID INJECTION
FOSSIL FUELS
FRACTURED RESERVOIRS
FUELS
GAS INJECTION
INJECTION WELLS
INTERACTIONS
OIL WELLS
PETROLEUM
PULSES
RADIATIONS
RESERVOIR ROCK
SATURATION
SCALE MODELS
STRUCTURAL MODELS
THERMAL RECOVERY
VISCOSITY
WATER SATURATION
WATERFLOODING
WELLS