In situ formed carboxylic acids effect on light hydrocarbons oxidation in a carbonate reservoir

Abstract

Enhancing heavy oil recovery is attracting a considerable interest due to the depletion of conventional oil resources. In fact, thermal enhanced oil recovery methods are presenting a potential impact on improving heavy oil recovery especially for terrigenous reservoirs, where they are able to increase oil mobility due to heating (steam and thermal exposure) or due to its in-situ conversion to light fractions during ignition of the reservoir. At the same time, it is worthy to note that steam-thermal methods are accompanied by a significant heat loss when injecting steam into great depths heat. Moreover, oil deposits in heterogeneous low-permeability reservoirs (for example, carbonate) are among the potential unconventional oil resources. Along with geological heterogeneity, low porosity and permeability, fracturing, these reservoirs contain, in most cases, heavy oils with a high content of resins, asphaltenes and hard paraffins, characterized by a non-Newtonian fluid property. All this taken together makes the extraction of oil from such reservoirs a hard task to implement.

Overview of Methods for Enhanced Oil Recovery from Conventional and Unconventional Reservoirs

“…The lack of large-scale statistical studies, generalizations of field development experience and identification of factors that determine the achieved oil recovery factor depending on geological and physical conditions have become an urgent problem in world practice, although modern computerization allows this to be performed at a higher level. The reason is clear-the disunity of oil and gas companies and the hypertrophied understanding of trade secrets are often associated with the need to exaggerate the real state of affairs in terms of achieving design oil recovery factors for specific fields [177].…”