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Abstract

Summary

Extra-heavy oil reservoirs in the Carabobo Area, the eastern Orinoco Belt, have been exploited with Cold Heavy Oil Production (CHOP) with horizontal wells utilizing foamy oil drive mechanism nowadays, with a primary recovery less than 12% OOIP. Steam flooding (SF) can effectively improve oil recovery factor of heavy oil reservoirs, but for horizontal wells the steam breakthrough and steam overlying are serious problems hindering the application of SF. Therefore the Gravity Assisted Steam Flooding (GASF) technology is presented. For GASF technology, the injector (vertical well or horizontal well) is laterally above the producer, so that the direction of steam flooding is laterally downward. The technical feasibility and adaptability of GASF processes are investigated in this study.

A representative sub-model of Block M located in the Carabobo Area was extracted to evaluate the performance of GASF. And some key issues including transfer time from cold production to GASF, appropriate well pattern, well spacing, and operation parameters were further discussed using the ideal numerical models. The study indicates that the technology of GASF could drastically increase the oil recovery of foamy extra-heavy oil reservoirs after cold production. The oil displacement mechanism of GASF includes steam flooding and gravity drainage. The best transfer time from cold production to GASF is when reservoir pressure drops down to the lower pressure during the cold production phase. For the homogeneous reservoir, the GASF with injector of horizontal well presents better performance. But if the heterogeneity reaches a certain degree, the GASF with injector of horizontal well will be inefficient, and the injector of GASF should be vertical well. Moreover, for GASF horizontal distance between injector and producer reduces, the oil recovery and oil steam ratio increases obviously. In addition, for GASF the vertical distance between injector and producer, the vertical injectors numbers, steam injection rate, and steam quality are discussed in this work.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900096
2019-04-08
2024-04-26

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Gravity Assisted Steam Flooding (GASF) as a Post-CHOP for Foamy Extra-Heavy Oil Reservoirs
Conference Proceedings 2019, 1 (2019); https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.201900096
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900096
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.201900096
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