Experimental study on percolation mechanism and displacement characteristics of cold recovery in offshore heavy oil field

• Published in: Journal of petroleum exploration and production technology Vol. 11; no. 11; pp. 4087 - 4115
• Main Authors: Liu, Ying-xian, Tan, Jie, Cai, Hui, Wang, Gong-chang, Mou, Song-ru
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.11.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Cold; Crude oil; Depletion; Displacement; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Energy Systems; Experiments; Flooding; Geology; Industrial and Production Engineering; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Offshore Engineering; Offshore equipment; Oil and gas fields; Oil field equipment; Oil fields; Oil reservoirs; Percolation; Physical simulation; Production capacity; Properties; Recovery; Reservoirs; Review Paper-Production Engineering; Rheological properties; Rheology; Technical services; Viscosity; Water flooding; Water wells; Cold recovery; Offshore oilfield; Displacement characteristics; Heavy oil; Seepage mechanism
• ISSN: 2190-0558; 2190-0566
• DOI: 10.1007/s13202-021-01284-1

The heavy oil reservoir is a special kind of oil and gas reservoir that differs from the conventional reservoir in many ways. Due to the high viscosity of crude oil, it is not easy to recover. When the viscosity of underground crude oil exceeds 150 cp, the land heavy oil field is generally developed by thermal recovery. S.Z. oilfield is a heavy oil reservoir in the Bohai Sea, with surface crude oil viscosity of 3000–25,000 cp and underground crude oil viscosity of 400–1000 cp. Limited by offshore equipment, the development strategy of land oilfields can't be directly applied. High production capacity is obtained through the cold production development of horizontal branch experimental wells, and the water drive production capacity can reach 40–70 m 3 /day. At present, there is a lack of research on cold recovery development under the viscosity of crude oil. The existing primary research and common knowledge are challenging to support efficient development technology for effectively producing heavy oil reservoirs. In this paper, through physical simulation experiments, the phase behavior and rheological properties of crude oil in the target block are studied, and the rheological properties of crude oil are clarified. Then, the depletion production and water flooding experiments are carried out, and the displacement characteristics and laws of water flooding cold production are analyzed. Finally, the indoor experiments of water flooding sweep efficiency and oil displacement efficiency in the target block are carried out. Clear its micro and macro spread. It provides technical support for the effective production of offshore heavy oil fields.