First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot - A Game Changer to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska’s North Slope

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhijit Dandekar ◽  
Baojun Bai ◽  
John Barnes ◽  
Dave Cercone ◽  
Jared Ciferno ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Slope ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Polymer Flood ◽  
Game Changer

First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska North Slope – Producer Responses and Operational Lessons Learned

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samson Ning ◽  
John Barnes ◽  
Reid Edwards ◽  
Walbert Schulpen ◽  
Abhijit Dandekar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Polymer Flood

First Ever Polymer Flood Field Pilot to Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on Alaska's North Slope Pushing Ahead One Year Later

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhijit Dandekar ◽  
Baojun Bai ◽  
John Barnes ◽  
Dave Cercone ◽  
Jared Ciferno ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Slope ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Polymer Flood ◽  
One Year

scholarly journals Experimental Investigation of Polymer Induced Fouling of Heater Tubes in the First-Ever Polymer Flood Pilot on Alaska North Slope

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anshul Dhaliwal ◽  
Yin Zhang ◽  
Abhijit Dandekar ◽  
Samson Ning ◽  
John Barnes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Polymer Flood

scholarly journals Experimental Investigation of Polymer-Induced Fouling of Heater Tubes in the First-Ever Polymer Flood Pilot on Alaska North Slope

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anshul Dhaliwal ◽  
Yin Zhang ◽  
Abhijit Dandekar ◽  
Samson Ning ◽  
John Barnes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Polymer Flood

Polymerflood Field Pilot Enhances Recovery of Heavy Oils on the Alaska North Slope

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (04) ◽  
pp. 53-54
Author(s):  
Chris Carpenter
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Polymer Solution ◽  
Polymer Concentration ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Polymer Injection ◽  
Quality Control Process

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 201279, “First-Ever Polymerflood Field Pilot To Enhance the Recovery of Heavy Oils on the Alaska North Slope: Producer Responses and Operational Lessons Learned,” by Samson Ning, SPE, Reservoir Experts and Hilcorp Alaska, and John Barnes, SPE, and Reid Edwards, SPE, Hilcorp Alaska, prepared for the 2020 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, originally scheduled to be held in Denver, 5-7 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed. The complete paper describes a field pilot project to perform an experiment to validate the use of an advanced polymerflooding technology on the Alaska North Slope. Polymer injectivity of horizontal wells is found to be sufficient to replace reservoir production voidage, although some declines occurred as high-viscosity polymer swept the near-wellbore region. Production data show significant reduction in water cut and increase in oil production rate. No polymer production has been confirmed from the two horizontal producers after 23 months of polymer injection into the two supporting horizontal injectors. Introduction The pilot involves two horizontal injectors (J-23A and J-24A) and two horizontal producers (J-27 and J-28) drilled into the Schrader Bluff NB sand in an isolated fault block of the Schrader Bluff heavy-oil reservoir in the Milne Point field. The lengths of the horizontal wellbores range from 4,200 to 5,500 ft, and the interwell distance is approximately 1,100 ft. Hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) polymer injection began on 28 August 2018 using a custom polymer mixing and pumping unit. Polymer-solution quality control is discussed in detail in the complete paper. Injector Performance Since the start of polymer injection, a few shutdown events have occurred that lasted longer than 2 weeks. The first major shutdown took place in September 2018, when a more-than-expected amount of hydrocarbon gas was detected from the source water used to make the polymer solution. The polymer-injection facility was shut down for 3 weeks to modify the pressure-letdown module for operation safety. The second major shutdown occurred in November 2018 for pump and auger repairs. The third major shutdown happened from mid-June through late August of 2019 because of polymer-solution-quality issues. After 2 months of diligent work, the polymer-hydration problem was resolved and improvements made in polymer facilities, operational procedures, and the onsite quality-control process. Polymer-injection operations have been smooth since August 2019 except for a few short shutdowns for equipment maintenance. As of late May 2020, total cumulative polymer injected was 708,000 lbm into the two injectors, and the total amount of polymer solution injected was 1.4 million bbl, approximately 8.8% of the total pore volume in the two flood patterns. Since polymer injection began, injected polymer concentration was mostly between 1,500 and 2,000 ppm to achieve a target viscosity initially set at 45 cp and then reduced to 40 cp.

History Matching and Performance Prediction of a Polymer Flood Pilot in Heavy Oil Reservoir on Alaska North Slope

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xindan Wang ◽  
Cody Keith ◽  
Yin Zhang ◽  
Abhijit Dandekar ◽  
Samson Ning ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Simulation Model ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Reservoir Simulation ◽  
Heavy Oil ◽  
History Matching ◽  
Polymer Flooding ◽  
North Slope ◽  
Polymer Flood ◽  
Reservoir Simulation Model ◽  
Water Cut

Abstract The first-ever polymer flood pilot to enhance heavy oil recovery on Alaska North Slope (ANS) is ongoing. After more than 2.5 years of polymer injection, significant benefit has been observed from the decrease in water cut from 65% to less than 15% in the project producers. The primary objective of this study is to develop a robust history-matched reservoir simulation model capable of predicting future polymer flood performance. In this work, the reservoir simulation model has been developed based on the geological model and available reservoir and fluid data. In particular, four high transmissibility strips were introduced to connect the injector-producer well pairs, simulating short-circuiting flow behavior that can be explained by viscous fingering and reproducing the water cut history. The strip transmissibilities were manually tuned to improve the history matching results during the waterflooding and polymer flooding periods, respectively. It has been found that higher strip transmissibilities match the sharp water cut increase very well in the waterflooding period. Then the strip transmissibilities need to be reduced with time to match the significant water cut reduction. The viscous fingering effect in the reservoir during waterflooding and the restoration of injection conformance during polymer flooding have been effectively represented. Based on the validated simulation model, numerical simulation tests have been conducted to investigate the oil recovery performance under different development strategies, with consideration for sensitivity to polymer parameter uncertainties. The oil recovery factor with polymer flooding can reach about 39% in 30 years, twice as much as forecasted with continued waterflooding. Besides, the updated reservoir model has been successfully employed to forecast polymer utilization, a valuable parameter to evaluate the pilot test’s economic efficiency. All the investigated development strategies indicate polymer utilization lower than 3.5 lbs/bbl in 30 years, which is economically attractive.

Microscopic versus process parameters in heavy-oil upgrading

1992 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 366-367
Author(s):  
V.A. Munoz ◽  
R.J. Mikula ◽  
C. Payette ◽  
W.W. Lam
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Weight ◽  
Liquid Fuels ◽  
Chemical Components ◽  
Heavy Oils ◽  
Synthetic Fuels ◽  
High Hydrogen ◽  
Optical Texture ◽  
Polar Groups ◽  
Anisotropic Character ◽  
Planar Molecules

The transformation of high molecular weight components present in heavy oils into useable liquid fuels requires their decomposition by means of a variety of processes. The low molecular weight species produced recombine under controlled conditions to generate synthetic fuels. However, an important fraction undergo further recombination into higher molecular weight components, leading to the formation of coke. The optical texture of the coke can be related to its originating components. Those with high sulfur and oxygen content tend to produce cokes with small optical texture or fine mosaic, whereas compounds with relatively high hydrogen content are likely to produce large optical texture or domains. In addition, the structure of the parent chemical components, planar or nonplanar, determines the isotropic or anisotropic character of the coke. Planar molecules have a tendency to align in an approximately parallel arrangement to initiate the formation of the nematic mesophase leading to the formation of anisotropic coke. Nonplanar highly alkylated compounds and/or those rich in polar groups form isotropic coke. The aliphatic branches produce steric hindrance to alignment, whereas the polar groups participate in cross-linking reactions.

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