The VLA 6/9/21 Field is a waterflooded light crude oil reservoir located in Maracaibo Lake, West Venezuela. In the last two years PDVSA E & P has developed Integrated Laboratory Fields (ILF) as a strategy to evaluate new technologies and EOR methods in order to improve light and medium oil recoveryfactors. Alkali/Surfactant/Polymer (ASP) is one of the chemical flooding technologies that has recently been evaluated in Venezuela. The objetive of this study is to describe the followed methodology to develop ASP formulas, describe the pilot test planned for this year and also to determine whether ASP technology can produce incremental oil in the Eocene C-4Unit of VLA 6/9/21 Field economically. The study was performed at reservoir temperature of 90°C with dead crude oil and rock sandstones from the oil producing zone located in the pilot area. Several ASP formulas were developed for the VLA 6/9/21 Field with comercial petroleum sulfonates. Each ASP solution gave interfacial tension (IFT) values below 9×10-3 dynes/cm. Rheologic studies with polyacrylami depolymers using different additives indicate that the solution viscosity can be mantained over the time at least 2 cp above the crude oil viscosity (2,5 cP) atreservoir temperature. Surfactants, alkali and polymer retention were below 0,08 mg/g rock. Incremental oil recoveries were higher than waterflood, obtaining recoveries between 22 and 39% OOIP for 0,3 PV ASP and 0,15 PV polymer injection in reservoir cores. The positive results of this laboratory study provided an ASP formula for a pilot test supported with the injection of oil partitioning tracers before and after the chemical additives as part of one ofthe ILF of PDVSA E & P. Introduction PDVSA´s light oilfields in Lake Maracaibo have been under exploitation formore than four decades. To date, the expected recovery factor is only 29% ofthe OOIP. As these resources approach maturity, it has been realized tha timproving recovery will demand the earliest use of many technologies, provenand new, in an integrated manner and tailored to solve specific regional problems. The Integrated Field Laboratory (IFL) philosophy is one of PDVSA´s main technology strategies designed to accomplish these goals. Three Field Laboratories are being developed in the Maracaibo Lake Basin: one for heavy oils and two for light oils: shallow and deep reservoirs. Lagomar´s VLA-6/9/21 area was selected as representative of a large numberof shallow (less than 10000´) light oil reservoirs in the Maracaibo Lake basinwith similar reservoir characteristics, currently under water injection and atan advance stage of depletion. Resent characterization studies indicate that there exists a large volume of reserves not contacted in the VLA-6/9/21 area which need new strategies of exploitation to bring them to production. Venezuela has over 50000 MMSTB of oil currently in place in reservoirs with similar condition [1]. The area selected for the IFL has an approximate aerial extension of 10Km2. It is confined between two major sealing faults to the Southand West and the OWC to the East. To the North, an arbitrary line (Figure 1)limits it. There are six overlying reservoirs in the IFL´s area: Basal la Rosa,C-4, C-5, C-6-S/M, C-6-I and C-7. Most of the remaining reserves are concentrated in the three uppermost reservoirs, which were selected for the multi-reservoir water injection project.
Intelligent digital oilfield (iDOF) operations have gained momentum in the past few years, transformed from being merely a vision to real-world projects with quantifiable value. Challenges such as increased energy demand and diminishing new discoveries, coupled with a lack of specialist-domain expertise and trained personnel to efficiently operate assets, have forced operators to rethink the traditional way of asset management to increase productivity and operational efficiency. The amount of information that asset managers now have to make decisions has increased dramatically in the last few years. More data about a problem can lead to improved decisions, but it also increases the complexity of the decision-making process. Asset teams need tools and technologies to help them quickly and efficiently analyze and understand all this data so they make better, faster decisions. To help asset teams meet these challenges, a new generation of petroleum workflow automation integrates real-time data with asset models, helping team members to collaborate so they can better analyze data and more fully understand asset problems. We're calling this new generation of automated, intelligent workflows "smart flows." This approach is cutting-edge, but also more complex. The complexity is addressed with the use of artificial intelligence technology, such as proxy models and neural networks, coupled with a visualization engine to provide an effective visual data mining tool. The objective of this new generation of petroleum workflow automation is to provide integrated solutions to asset opportunities and guide the operations with instructions based on smart analysis and integrated visualization. This paper provides an overview of a workflow automation environment that is being implemented for a major operator.
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