Application of Neutron Activation Analysis for Heavy Oil Production Control

Abstract

Monitoring of the process of oil production is essential for oil production control and optimization. About 70% of oil resource in a world is heavy oil. Largest of oil reserves located in Venezuela, Canada, Russia, Kuwait, Saudi, Mexico, China, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, USA consists from heavy oil, extra heavy oil and bitumen. It is still a challenge to find adequate and fair technology for heavy oil metering and control. The large number of multiphase flowmeters is defined for use in oil wells with viscosity much lower than 500cP, while metering of the Heavy Oil, Extra Heavy Oil, or bitumen in Hot Production brings lots of problems that conventional methods couldn’t resolve. Ideal measurement technology for heavy oil production control must works at wide range of temperature, in low pressure environment, ensures accurate metering of fluids of high viscosity, with high water-cuts, be resistant to erosion, plugging, unaffected by entrained gas or solid particles, has low sensitivity to changes in emulsion characteristics and velocity profile changes. The best solution will be if measurement can be made inline, right on site provides measurement in a real time. We propose development of the multiphase flow meter based on the neutron activation analysis as the possible answer to heavy oil production control challenges. Preliminary investigations show that with careful adaptation of various neutron activation analysis techniques, measurements of the ratio of sulphur and chlorine, concentration and speed of oxygen, and other elements in flow will give precise information about water-cut level, oil/water/gas content, water fraction velocity and other characteristics crucial for well production process.