Applicability and Assessment of Micro-Wave Assisted Gravity Drainage (MWAGD) Applications in Mehsana Heavy Oil Field, India

Abstract

Exploitation of extra heavy oil resource will be the main R & D challenge in the future. In India Mehsana oil field is the one of the extra heavy oil belts. In such type of fields advanced EOR is of primary concern to increase the recovery. Apart from conventional thermal methods this paper discusses about the commercialization and broad application of (MWAGD) as alternative thermal method in the Mehsana oil field. In this study, applicability of microwave heating for heavy oil from Mehsana heavy oil field was experimented and analyzed quantitatively. In this paper a core sample of Mehsana field is taken and heated with the microwave energy provided by a microwave source consisting of magnetron tubes to generate the microwave power. Micro-Wave radiation is non-ionizing so requires high frequency current (3000 MHz) which causes friction by vibration of molecules which results in dielectric heating of the sample. In this experiment heat transfer between microwave source and core is described quantitatively. Temperature and viscosity profile of the gravity drained oil are observed graphically and analytically. Effects of initial oil and water saturations, wettability, porosity, permeability are discussed with respect to the drained oil. Economic evaluation is also done by comparing the costs in USD/barrel between the above proposed method and the method which is being run presently i.e. Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). In this paper authors have also shown the work-how of applicability of MWAGD in the Mehsana field in present scenario. MWAGD is cost effective than the conventional EOR methods. It is also more efficient and less time consuming as there is speedy heat transfer by dielectric heating. MWAGD does not cause any consequential damage and provides greater oil displacement efficiencies. Also, the heavy deposit of residual coke or carbon is rooted out.

Electromagnetic Heating of Heavy Oil and Bitumen: A Review of Experimental Studies and Field Applications

“…Jha et al [27] proposed using microwave-assisted gravity drainage (MWAGD) in the Mehsana oil field in India. They heated specially prepared samples with the required characteristics from that field in the laboratory using a microwave with variable power up to 1000 watts operating at 3 GHz frequency, which allowed them to obtain temperature and viscosity profiles of the gravity-drained oil.…”

“…Jha et al [27] suggested using MWAGD commercially by drilling one horizontal well and multiple vertical ones with downhole microwave antennas. However, this might not allow deep enough heat penetration, so other options are also proposed such as a combination of two horizontal wells and installing antenna inside the horizontal production well.…”

“…High-frequency electromagnetic radiation is a relatively new technique for use in enhanced oil recovery methods. It has been tested by theoretic, laboratories and field trial research in Russia [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10], the United States [11][12][13][14][15][16][17], Canada [18][19][20][21], and other countries [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Traditional thermal recovery and well stimulation techniques using hot steam or fluid are not effective in some cases [7,35] due to prohibitive heat losses from injection wells and reservoirs, low reservoir injectivity (especially for bitumen deposits), steam leakage, large overburden heat loss at thin pay zones, permafrost conditions, and so forth.…”

“…The most important thing in electromagnetic heating is that the heat is developed within the material rather than being brought from outside, which means the material is heated more uniformly throughout the medium [27]. Therefore, instead of heating the bulk reservoir volume, part of the reservoir can be targeted and heated more effectively with lower heat loss than other thermal methods.…”

History Matching of Electromagnetically Heated Reservoirs Incorporating Full-Wavefield Seismic and Electromagnetic Imaging

“…Johnson et al (1992) performed history matching with steamflooding in the Kern River field in California, optimizing formation-temperature, fluid, and permeability parameters with the relative permeability parameters corresponding with the data from laboratory experiments. Hiebert et al (2013) performed assisted history matching for a steam-assisted-gravity-drainage simulation incorporating 4D-seismic data.…”