EOR Scenarios: Different types of reservoirs exist on the earth depending upon their shape, characteristics of rocks and

formation etc. A review has been presented over here concisely shedding light on different scenarios and suitability of EOR processes relating to them. Following picture shows a view of different types of off shore oil reservoirs with different depths. Oil Platform is to be installed for offshore oil reservoirs to house the workers as well as machinery to extract the oil. Different types of oil platforms are used depending upon the depth of reservoir from sea surface. Usually a floating platform is used for the reservoirs whose depth is more than 200 meters from sea surface.

Different types of oil reservoirs exist on earth, we will discuss the scenarios one by one.
1. The reservoirs which have oil intermixed with small amount of water or

no water at all, are suitable for using electric current as ohmic heating element. But this would be favorable if oil is not lying under huge amount of water (which is although a rare case) because in this case initially water will be converted to steam before reaching the oil which will increase the cost of production. Other limitation on this method is depth of the reservoir, if the reservoir is very deep in that case huge

amount of power will be required to heat the oil which will not be feasible economically. A flow diagram for this case will be as under:

Oil Electri c Curre

Forward flow (I) Reservoir,

(oil & water)

Return Path (I) Production well

Small water

Oil Flow

Current will be flowing up to the reservoir surface and returning back through the return path. It will produce heat because it is passing through the resistive lines (high resistive lines to be used) because of the power dissipation phenomenon this heat will make the oil warm reducing its viscosity and enabling it to flow towards production well. But limitation on this method is that it needs a huge amount of energy to be dissipated so as to raise the temperature of the reservoir. Following diagram shows a prospective case for application of this method:

The other phenomenon in this situation may be using the injection well as anode and production well as cathode. Energy will be supplied through the injection well and the current will flow through the conductive brine towards production well which is cathode and provides a returning path for the current. When the current flows through brine, it heats up the brine and oil making steam as well which will provide additional heat and help in raising the temperature in less time. As the temperature of oil increases, its viscosity decreases and it starts flowing towards the production well.

Cathode

(Anode) Injection Well Oil Reservoir with brine

(Current Flow through brine)

Production Well

Limitation on this method is that it requires the presence of a conductive material inside the reservoir, otherwise current will not flow because the path for current flow will not be completed. 2. If there are some inductive metal elements like ferrous present in the reservoir, then Inductive heating process will be viable. Because the inductors installed inside the reservoir will produce strong magnetic field around themselves, the polarity of field will be subject to change along with the frequency of applied power supply system. This changing magnetic field will also link the inductive metal elements and continuous changing of polarity will also produce along with the heat of the coils themselves, which will help in raising the temperature of oil making it less viscous. When an electric current is passed through an inductor, it produces a magnetic field around the inductor whose direction is found by Right Hand Rule. When the current alternates its polarity, direction of magnetic field is also reversed. When an alternating current is passed through an inductor, the polarity of magnetic field around the inductor changes at the rate of applied alternating current frequency. This magnetic field is also linking the inductive material (Ferrous etc.) inside the well hence inducing an alternating voltage in the inductive material as well. Rapid change of frequency produces heat in the inductor as well as in the ferrous which heats up the oil causing it to flow towards production well. A view of the proposed method is as follows:

Oil Reservoir With the presence of Ferrous

The disadvantage of this method is the presence of magnetic material inside the reservoir which should be in excess so as to make the process economically and commercially viable. On the other hand, if magnetic materials are not present in abundance then this mechanism of Inductive heating would not be able to heat the reservoir up to the desired level for EOR.
3. Some are having oil droplets trapped inside the rock pores but this is

not under the water surface. Water is there in the reservoir but it is in the form of drops mixed with oil droplets and trapped inside the rocks. For this type of reservoirs, using microwaves will be best suited because when microwaves will be applied, the polar water molecules will also be set to vibrations along with the frequency of applied microwaves, the oscillations will convert these water molecules will convert these water molecules into steam which will be in situ effect of microwaves in addition to the heat which it will provide by friction of oil molecules with each other. If hydrocarbons are mixed with sand, they can absorb huge amount of microwaves and hence the temperature

can be raised to 300-400 degree centigrade rapidly(Ellingsen 2002). A good application area for microwaves is shown in the following figure:

In this method of heating the reservoir, although ultrasonic waves may also be used for EOR but microwaves are more productive because microwaves can produce high temperatures instantly because of in situ heat phenomenon as compared to sound waves which are providing stimulations to the water and oil droplets instead of heating them electrically. In addition, porous media of the oil well is a big challenge for ultrasound waves propagation; they can penetrate through up to just a few millimeters in the porous media. And hence the oil and water trapped inside the porous rocks in more depth (up to a few centimeters will not feel the effect of these ultrasonic vibrations) but Microwaves can penetrate in more depth into the porous rocks as compared to ultrasonic waves. Microwaves cable can be employed inside the injection well for maximizing the energy input to the polar molecules (water molecules).A pictorial view will be as follows:

Oil Reservoir MW Generat or

Flow of oil

(Inside Injection Well) Microwaves Cable

Water and oil droplets caught in the rock pores will be heated by the application of microwaves which will cause the water droplets to be converted to steam and oil droplets to flow (because of a reduction in viscosity). Oil droplets will be collected from different pores and start flowing towards the production well. All the heating methods discussed until now have a common disadvantage that they require some measurement and adjustment of temperature plan inside the reservoir. Some mechanism should be installed which can measure the temperature of inside of reservoir and send a command to generator to increase or decrease the energy supply as per requirement. One proposal in this aspect is to measure the temperature of the oil being extracted and estimate the temperature of inside reservoir considering the depth of reservoir and then decide whether to increase or decrease the temperature inside the reservoir. This can be achieved by employing a comparator to compare the estimated temperature and a threshold, if the difference is negative then send a command to generator to increase the output otherwise decreases the energy supply from generator.
4. In some cases we have much viscous and dense oil as compared to

water which sinks underneath the water. In this case Ultrasound waves can be preferred because they need a medium for propagation so they will travel through the water and reach up to the crude oil which will be warmed by ultrasonic energy. Following figure shows a case of application of ultrasound waves:

Ultrasonic waves can also be applied to the reservoirs which have oil and water molecules trapped inside the rock pores and it has high water content. Application of ultrasonic waves will change the capillary forces and the adhesive forces between rocks and fluids. Interaction of sound waves with the fluid in pores change the relative permeability of rock to oil and water, and therefore increase the oil recovery(Amro, Al Mobarky et al. 2007).A cable can be employed for transferring maximum energy from the Ultrasound Generator to the intermixed oil and water of this situation. A good advantage of Ultrasonic waves on other heating methods is that there is no danger of losing oil properties in case of heating beyond threshold limit. A pictorial view of this process is provided below:

Ultrasound Generator

Injection Well Production Well Ultrasound Cable

Oil Reservoir (Oil intermixed with water and lying beneath water)

In the above proposed method, ultrasonic energy is supplied to the water which is carrying heavy oil at its depth. As ultrasound waves are supplied to the water surface through a conducting medium therefore the maximum energy will be available at the water surface which in turn will vibrate the oil lying at the bottom of the reservoir. Ultrasonic waves can easily propagate through water without losing much energy and reach up to the layers of oil at the bottom of water. When this heavy oil is vibrated mechanically by the applied ultrasonic waves, it starts flowing towards the production well. Microwaves cannot be applied in this scenario as they will not be able to pass through the water and unless the water is not removed heat cannot be reached up to the oil lying in the bottom. But this is a rare case, in fact in majority of the cases oil lies at the surface of water because it is less dense as compared to water. In this case microwaves may also be applied causing the surface water molecules to set into vibrations at the frequency of applied microwaves and as a result raising the temperature of the water surface. But since it may be a deep reservoir of water with oil at the surface, so this increase in temperature will not be viable because microwaves cannot penetrate into the depth of water(hence cannot change the temperature of water a few centimeters down from the surface).As a result, the process of movement of oil will be very slow. This process will be feasible in case the water is not much in quantity .But microwaves are best to use in the case when oil droplets are intermixed with water droplets and trapped inside the rock pores (Amro, Al Mobarky et al. 2007).
5. In case of vertical reservoirs in which permeability decreases along

with the increase of depth of reservoir, ultrasonic waves may also be applied. Because the permeability of oil increases along with the decrease in interfacial tension by application of ultrasonic waves which results in enhanced oil recovery. The proposed method of employing

ultrasonic waves would be same as discussed above.

As the

penetration of ultrasonic waves in porous media is a big issue and the intensity of waves reduces as they penetrate through porous media of the oil well therefore, use of a cable for propagation of ultrasonic waves will be feasible in this case. Ultrasonic Generators: Different types of Ultrasonic Generators are available in the market; I found two of them to be suitable for applications in EOR.
1. Elmasonic

X-tra

250

LSM

(made

by

Elma-Hans

Schmidbauer,

Germany). Its frequency range is 25/45 KHz and 300 watts power of ultrasound waves.
2. Sonic Digital LC Ultrasonic Generators made by Weber Ultrasonics

The most suitable is Sonic Digital LC Ultrasonic Generator because it can create digital ultrasonic frequencies of 25, 30, 40, 80 to 150 KHz and power of up to 2000 watts. Dr. Mohammed M. Amro and Dr. Emad S. Al-Homadhi of King Saud University used PUNDIT, a low frequency ultrasonic generator in their final research report No.53/426. PUNDIT stands for Portable Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Digital Tester (Amro and Al-Homadhi). It can generate the low frequency ultrasound pulses and couples the generated waves to rocks through transducers which are placed in contact with inlet and outlet faces of the rock samples. Following is a view of the amplitude of generated waves by PUNDIT versus time.

On the other hand, for high frequency Ultrasonic waves, they used Clifton Ultrasonic Bath MU-22 which is also used by other researchers as well. Its output frequency is 50 KHz with a power output of 300Watts. This bath can be used for the case where oil is intermixed with water or lying underneath the water surface. In experimental phase core samples can be placed inside the bath in the centre of the bath by filling it with water so as to create a practical scenario. Ultrasonic power required for this experiment can be calculated basing upon the frequency of operation. Low frequency ultrasonic waves have greater depth of penetration but are less focused which means there intensity (ultrasonic energy per unit area) will be less. Similarly high frequency ultrasonic waves are highly focused but have less penetration depth. Focusing of ultrasonic beam also depends upon the diameter of the transducer, the larger the diameter, the focused the ultrasonic beam will be. But the energy distribution in this case is uniform and the minimum energy will be close to the transducer (Amro and Al-Homadhi).

Conventional EOR: The conventional enhanced oil recovery methods for example CO2 Injection, Water and Steam Injection etc. have two types of Injections.
1. Miscible Injection, in which the injected fluid is mixed up with the oil

and water inside the reservoir and the underlying oil starts flowing towards the production well as a result of a decrease in the viscosity of oil.
2. In case of Immiscible Injection, on the other hand injected fluid does

not mix up with the oil and water completely because of the characterization of oil. It is just absorbed inside the oil and water and starts building pressure which in turn tends to the movement of oil blobs lying at different places. These oil blobs are mixed with each other and start flowing towards the production well. The main consideration in Miscible and Immiscible injection is that miscible injection is carried out for large fracture pressure reservoirs while immiscible injection is done for limited fracture pressure reservoir. Say, for example, if a reservoir has 1000 PSI fracture pressure reservoir then we cannot proceed with the Miscible Injection of 1200 PSI because it will fracture the reservoir and immiscible fluid will be better in this case. As far as the recovery time is concerned, it depends upon the heterogeneity of the reservoir. If it is permeable and not very heavy oil then it will take less time as compared to the reservoir having less permeability and high viscosity. ADCO carried out the first pilot for CO2 injection in Rumaitha field in November 2009. Co2, for this purpose, was supplied by Masdar. It was the very first CO2 injection EOR Pilot in a complex onshore reservoir in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Most of the EOR reservoirs lie in high API gravity (more than 40) and resident depths of 8000 to 10,000 feet.

Fig. ADCO CO2 EOR Single well Pilot configuration Three wells were used for this pilot; CO2 Injector well, Observer well and Oil Producer well as shown in above fig. The wells were perforated and acid stimulated before co2 injection. They observed the fluid properties after CO2 injection and any fracturing because of CO2 injection near well bore especially Thermal fracturing and they found it economical to employ CO2 injection in other reservoirs (Al-Hajeri, Negahban et al.).

References

1.Al-Hajeri, S., S. Negahban, et al. Design and Implementation of the first CO2-EOR Pilot in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
2.Amro, M., M. Al Mobarky, et al. (2007). Improved Oil Recovery by Application of Sound Waves to Water Flooding. 3.Amro, M. M. and E. S. Al-Homadhi "ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY USING SOUNDWAVE STIMULATION." 4.Ellingsen, O. (2002). Method to increase the oil production from an oil reservoir, Google Patents.