A Novel Quantitative Evaluation Method for Viscosity Reduction Effect of Heavy Oil Cold Recovery Based on The Area Diffusion Process

Abstract

After thermal recovery, the emulsification viscosity reduction technology for heavy oil cold recovery exhibits low energy consumption and low cost, making it a promising technology for ongoing heavy oil reservoir development. The evaluation and optimization of viscosity reducer is very important for the cold recovery of heavy oil. Prior research mostly employed the high-speed shear technique to measure viscosity following emulsion formation in order to evaluate viscosity reducers. This method ignores the seepage emulsification process under low dynamic conditions of formation, resulting in the selected viscosity reducer ' qualified but not ideal '. Based on the regional diffusion process, a quantitative evaluation method for cold recovery of heavy oil viscosity reduction is put forward. This method is used to simulate the static emulsification effect of heavy oil under real formation conditions, and quantitative evaluation is carried out. The outcomes demonstrate that, in comparison to the conventional assessment approach, this method is more accurate in selecting a viscosity reducer. Appropriately increasing the concentration of the viscosity reducer can improve the efficiency of viscosity reduction. The viscosity reduction effect improves with reservoir temperature. Heavy oil and viscosity reduction agent may be quickly matched using the prediction model of viscosity reduction in cold recovery of heavy oil developed by orthogonal experiment. At the same time, through field practice, the viscosity reducer chosen by this way has a good oil increase impact on oilfield production.