Application of Multi-Well Steam Injection and CO2 Technology in Heavy Oil Production, Liaohe Oilfield

Abstract

Abstract Liaohe Oilfield is well-known for wide distribution of heavy oil resoures whose viscosity is around 6.2×104mPa·s (degassed crude oil at 45°C). Heavy oil resources are usually found at the depth of 500-1700m. An integrated research has been completed to study the most efficient utilization of steam huff and puff methodology. In order to compare the new steam injection method with the conventional EOR method, we selected 7 wells in which steam injection was simulated by software. The high temperature gel particle plugging agents, high temperature frothers and resins were tested. The overall sweep efficiency and oil production rate of these wells were compared with that of adjacent wells that depended on conventional steam injection methodologies. The multi-well steam injection requires injecting steam into a specific group of wells, so that an overall thermal field may be created. In this way, steam channeling caused by longitudinal heterogeneity of heavy oil reservoirs may be overcome. CO2 has the best role in reducing the oil viscosity, while natural gas and nitrogen follow it. So CO2 is the most appropriate EOR gas. CO2's dissolubility declines as temperature goes up and improves as pressure increases. Temperature of liquefied CO2 varies a lot with different injection speeds, in that the heat diffusion time is different. The faster CO2 is injected, the shorter the heat diffusion time is, which makes downhole temperature change less. As CO2 is injected into formation, it dissolves rapidly with heavy oil and makes it expand. Steam is injected then to heat the borehole, while CO2 diffuses rapidly and its dissolubility declines as temperature goes up, which makes CO2 separated from oil and diffused by scale. Thus, clean-up additives and steam are widely distributed. After shut-in CO2 spreads until it keeps balanced dynamically with viscosity reducers. The daily production rate used to start to decrease after 5 rounds of steam injection. By injecting steam and CO2 into a group of wells we succeeded in improving the sweep efficiency and production rate.