Emeraude Vapeurs A Steam Pilot in an Offshore Environment

Abstract

Summary Adverse conditions prevail in the Emeraude field offshore Congo on the West African coast, including shallow (200 to 500 m), very heterogeneous reservoirs and 100-mPa·s oil at reservoir conditions. In 1983, a steamdrive pilot was begun in two superposed and independent reservoirs to estimate recovery rate and oil/steam ratio (OSR). The shallow reservoirs required tilted conductor pipes, a tilted rig, and adapted pumping units on one platform, while steam production equipment had to be located on a second platform because of the distance to shore. After 3 years of steam injection, the incremental recovery rate was promising and the OSR was 0.30 vol/vol in the pilot area. Some wells outside the five-spot pilot also showed oil-rate increases. Numerical simulations of the pilot behavior were made with a thermal pseudocompositional simulator.