Extraction of Heavy Crude Oil from Reservoirs. 4

[bbqnw12]

Please, can anyone help me by letting me know of ANY technologies, whether it be existing, new or simply basic research, which are involved in the extraction of heavy crude oils from reservoirs?

Please, any help will be greatly appreciated no matter how frivolous.

Thanks, people.

 

[jimbo]

Suggest you post in the Petroleum Engineering Forum.

 

[asesor]

Dear bbqnw12
the information you´re looking for can be obtained from three different companies in Venezuela : Mobil ( OCN project),INTEVEP ( the state run tecnological support company) AND Sincor A SUBSIDIARY OF THE FRENCH company totalfinaelf.
The technology is called orimulsion, and permits the extraction of oil of less than 10°API.
regards,
asesor

 

[Mondolfi]

bbqnw12,

In first place, define "heavy oil" for you. For refiners, an oil below 20ºAPI is heavy. About the 10ºAPI venezuelan oil, this is called bitumenous oil.

Usually these reservoirs are not too deep and even some times they flourish atop. For the extraction of these kind of oil many techniques has been developed. I can tell you that SINCOR "injects" a very ligh naphta (45ºAPI) as "cutter" in several points around a production rig. Later this "solvent" is recovered downstream and recicled.

Other technology involves the use of HP steam to increase temperature, thus reduce viscosity, and extract it. The injection of steam is in the same point of the extraction.

ORIMULSION is a process that creates an stable emulsion between bitumen and water with some additives.

Another experimental procedures are the injection of a fluid catalizator to initiate a catalitic cracking of the bitumen. The problem is the inhibition of the reaction or how to stop it when you want, and the other one is controled combustion thermal cracking- in the reservoir.


Regards,

 

[petrolhead]

Another commonly practised technique is called SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) and consists of drilling two parallel horizontal well sections in the reservoir containing the heavy crude. Steam is pumped into the "top" horizantal drain and an enhanced flow of the crude is extracted through the "bottom" drain. It requires certain reservoir characteristics to be a viable technique and is widely practiced in Canada

 

[asesor]

Well mondolfi sure explain it to the T.
That is exactly what they do. They inject a ligth nafta and then recuperate it at the shipping point 200 miles away from the well. If you're really interested I can get you in touch with some engineers here in Venezuela. My e-mail is asesor7@cantv.net.
The system proposed by petrolhead migth work better in the north though

 

[jmw]

Try this web site:

http://www.titanoilrecovery.com/titan-history.html

This is a Carrol brothers process. If anyone knows anything about it or has independent experience of it i'd be pleased to hear about it. There is some question about their claims for "Green Plus" in the Steam Engine thread (Engines and Fuel engineering and the presentation styles are very similar.... same marketing agency I guess...

 

[whoislee]

For heavy oil recovery, the common application is water injection/flooding. Salt water is treated to remove impurities and oxygen. Then the treated salt water is injected into the oil well. Oil being lighter than salt water will floats on top. This water injection aims to increase the oil well pressure and promote enhanced oil recovery.

If you like more information, let me know via email.

There are 2 sides of a coin
One is to give, one is to take
Give until it hurts with a smile

 

[asesor]

dear friend my computer erased the hard disk and I haven´t been able to answer you.
please contact
bissir@cantv.net.
he is a production engineer with repsol ( the Spanish company working in Venezuela)knows about PCP and vapor extraction and other methods for heavy oil

 

[jmw]

Mondolfi,
You relate that SINCOR “injects” a very light naptha as a cutter. Obviously the result of adding a cutter to the heavy crude is to reduce its viscosity and make it flow more easily. Since you recover the naptha (I am assuming the recovery is very efficient) then there is not a significant naptha cost other than processing. My question is, how does the amount of naptha affect the process? Too much may be more expensive and result in a lower viscosity of the crude recovered. Too little and presumably the viscosity is not reduced sufficiently and the recovery rate is reduced. Is this right?
How is this measured and adjusted?
The reason I ask is that in Canada some of the crudes recovered are too viscous and have too high a density for the pipeline. Therefore cutter is brought back from the refineries in road tankers to dilute the crude. Problems with viscosity measurement (the density measurement methods have been around for about 40 years or more) usually mean that too much cutter is used. However, with new viscometery techniques the amount of cutter used has been substantially reduced (reported to be between 25-30% or better). I am wondering if similar measurements may be relevant here. I suspect, however, that the best that can be done is to measure the recovery rate, correlate with the viscosity and adjust the injection accordingly. In the pipeline example the time lapse between blending the cutter and crude is only minutes from the continuous viscosity measurement point allowing for closed loop control. In the case of naptha injection I would suspect that continuous in line measurement is of little value and that a lab viscosity evaluation would be sufficient. I would be interested to know more.

 

[asesor]

The process is patented by the venezuelan oil institute ( intevep) and it extracts extra heavy oil ( less than 8 ºAPI)
using a diluent, the pump it to the coast ( more than 200 miles) and recuperate the diluent. The proccess is called orimulsion ( trade mark)

 

[asesor]

By the way they have pipelines from the production field to the refinery and back from the refinery to the production field in order to recycle the diluent. The foreign companies involved are Total ( french), Conoco and and Mobil. They are getting excelent results