Abstract
The feasibility of implementing solar thermal energy in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects in Colombia has been practically avoided mainly owing to its high operating cost. However, Solar thermal energy can enable generating steam to be used for the EOR process with SAGD. Based on the amount of steam needed for an extra-heavy oil project, a solar thermal parabolic trough heat plant of 76.6 MWt for field application was designed to produce up to 261 MMBTU/h from computer simulated studies. This plant can generate injection steam during day hours and can be complemented with a steam conventional generation system for operating during night hours and on highly cloudy days. The obtained results showed the generated solar steam can contribute an average of 37.5% total daily steam requirement. By applying System Advisor Model (SAM), the produced solar steam can generate a saving of US$ 27602/day, which is signification saving of US$ 10.07 MM in one year. Therefore, the solar thermal parabolic trough heat technology can be a suitable option to implement in the Colombian Eastern Llanos Basin for thermal EOR.
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