In the last five years PDVSA has dedicated a big effort to develop and evaluate new technologies in order to improve light-medium oil recovery factors, by optimizing: mobility ratio, surface tension and water conformance. As result of this, more than 50 wells have been treated with gels. Also, pilot tests of WAG and ASP are on schedule and a new technology to improve vertical sweep efficiency, by placing emulsion, is on testing. This situation contrasts with that of the previous 15 years, when no new EOR technology was tested in a Venezuelan field.
The process to evaluate a new technology is rather complicate, even for those technologies already proved by other companies. In this paper, the methodology used is exemplified through the scheme followed to evaluate the emulsion technology. The development started after the problem-opportunities analysis and establishment of the possible competitive advantage pointed that: i) a key problem of the oil industry was been addressed, ii) the process has clear success probability, and iii) the basic infrastructure and qualified human resources were available. A flat administrative structure, divided into 3 technical functional areas, was selected. The keys for the results obtained to the date are the integration of multidisciplinary teams, the continuous communication and the participation of potential users.
Among the barriers found, it is worth to mention the difficulties to start the fluently communication among disciplines and the right timing of the professional participation. In order to surpass them, technical leadership together with the appropriate management was necessary. The availability of an Intranet facility helped to disregard the geographical location problems in many cases.
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