What's new in production

	Vol. 226 No. 9
VICTOR SCHMIDT, DRILLING ENGINEERING EDITOR

Heavy oil.The US Department of Energy projects that as much as half of the world’s oil-in-place is heavy. The designation “heavy” is usually applied to oils with 25.7°API (900 kg/m³) gravity or less. The Society of Petroleum Engineers defines the term as oils of 20°API or less with a viscosity of 1,000 cp or more. These oils represent an under-utilized resource because of the difficulty of extracting and processing them. Natural bitumens are even stiffer with 10°API or less and viscosities above 10,000 cp.

The wonderful thing about heavy oil is its worldwide distribution and large potential. The industry knows where it is and would bring more to market if it could be more easily extracted and processed. Venezuela and Russia hold major reserves of these oils with estimates of 1,400 and 1,000 Bbbl, respectively. Iraq and Kuwait also have significant reserves of 200 – 300 Bbbl. Total world reserves are estimated to be 9 – 13 Tbbl.

Producing these crudes requires lowering the viscosity, usually through heating with steam injection or fireflood. Chemical injection to dissolve the crude is also effective, but very expensive. Once oil is removed from the reservoir, the heat transferred to the oil must be maintained through processing or the crude will “freeze” in the lines and vessels. Once the process begins, it must continue.

Anything that improves refinery processing, field handling or in-well production will greatly facilitate the economics of heavy oil extraction and production, as well as make more of this readily available, but difficult to handle, resource to market. To that end three companies have developed new processes to overcome some of the difficulties and bring more heavy oil to market. While finding these technologies interesting, the following information – which was provided by the companies involved – should not be viewed as an endorsement, nor a statement on how well they work.

At the refinery – Genoil’s research team of has developed a new catalytic hydrocracking process, Genoil Hydroconversion Upgrader (GHU). The process is designed to lower the capital investment for hydroprocessing atmospheric or vacuum bottom, heavy oil, bitumen, or heavy fuel fractions without sacrificing conversion levels. The technique is based on catalytic hydrocracking, mixing hydrocarbons and hydrogen at lower temperature and pressure to overcome the mass and heat transfer barriers of fixed-bed reactors.

Teleperfs telescope outward from the production liner into the formation. Each teleperf has a sintered metal screen.

The reactions convert large molecular weight and other similar molecules into naphthenic oil fractions while reducing and or eliminating nitrogen, sulphur and heavy metals. High partial pressure of hydrogen slows down the development of polymerization and polycondensation of the aromatic hydrocarbon radicals. As a result of hydrogen addition and the decrease in molecular weights of the hydrocarbons, liquid yields range from 101% to 104% of input volumes.

Genoil tested the process with a 10 bpd pilot hydroconversion upgrader, composed of a hydrogen compressor (hydrogen comes from a water electrolysis unit), electrical substation, heater, low-pressure separator, and PLC for automated operational control.

The Silver Eagle Refinery in Utah is installing the first commercial unit to produce high quality synthetic crude, which should come online later this year. The upgraded oil is feedstock for the crude unit and is used to increase light-fuels yields and eliminate catalytic cracker feed, while minimizing bottom residues. The after-cost margin per processed barrel is expected to be $6 – $10.

In the field – Ensyn Group Inc. developed the Rapid Thermal Process (RTP) process and is applying it to heavy oil infield upgrading. The company was merged into Ivanhoe Energy earlier this year, bringing with it an interest in a 1,000-bpd commercial demonstration facility in California’s Belridge heavy oil field.

RTP upgrades heavy oil by a fast pyrolysis process. Heavy oil is fed into a heated reactor vessel where it is mixed in turbulent flow with hot sand at 500°C. The hot sand vaporizes the oil, whose gases are collected and condensed into light oil. Processing is simple and quick (under two seconds), making it suitable for field operations.

No-perf well. Teleperfs is a new idea in sand-control completion technology. The technology was developed through a joint industry project between BP, Chevron, ENI and Baker Hughes Inc. and funded through a US Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research grant. The oil production technology anticipates lower costs, reduced environmental and safety risks and increased production from heavy oil deposits, according to the DOE.

The tool uses prefabricated, hydraulically telescoping ports inserted around the wall of a well liner assembly. Using pump pressure, the teleperfs are projected outward into the wellbore face, which anchors the liner in the well. A blunt tapered mandrel can then be run, which pushes on each teleperf, to ensure that all teleperfs are extended to their full length. After cementing, bottomhole temperature dissolves a pre-injected polymer, releasing an organic acid to clean the interior at the wellbore surface.

Baker Hughes recently licensed the technology from research partner Completion Concepts Inc. of Katy, Texas, which devised a heavy oil production method to inhibit sand production at low cost. The device was tested last year and will be tried in an Alaskan injection well later this year, according to the DOE. See http://www.fossil.energy.gov.