Vladimir Abramov
Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
Title: Ultrasonic technology for enhanced oil recovery. Viscosity reduction by ultrasonic treatment
Biography
Biography: Vladimir Abramov
Abstract
The ultrasonic and sonochemical method of EOR is one of the most promising methods, since it can be applied for the treatment of wells, which has already been subject of EOR, horizontal wells and heavy oil wells. It was developed over 30 years ago, but only today the state of the technique enables us to deliver enough energy to the perforation zone to show significant results. The method is based on years of research and involves not only ultrasonic treatment of the perforation zone, but also preliminary analysis of the perforation zone, determination of treatment intervals for selective treatment and subsequent pump-out using a specially designed jet pump. Only in such a way the method can be economically sound, especially in case of horizontal wells.
The technology delivers an ultrasound frequency to the reservoir which has the impact of reducing skin damage, putting resins, asphaltenes and waxes back into solution, and increasing penetration into capillars resulting in enhanced production and recovery of oil. Average results are a doubling of production and in some cases up to over a 900% increase.
In case of heavy oil the effect of viscosity reduction, caused by ultrasound is particularry important, since it contributes not only the the increase of production, but also facilitates the transportation of oil. For such cases we have developed a sonochemical technique, which allows us to secure the viscosity reduction by adding chemicals afterwards.
