Enhancing petroleum recovery from heavy oil fields by microwave heating

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2007
Acar, Çağdaş
There are many heavy oil reservoirs with thin pay zones (less than 10 m) in the world and in Turkey. Conventional steam injection techniques are not costeffective for such reservoirs, due to excessive heat loss through the overburden. Heat losses can be minimized through controlled heating of the pay zone. One such way is to introduce heat to the reservoir in a controlled manner is microwave heating. Laboratory studies on microwave heating of a scaled model of a heavy oil reservoir with a thin pay zone are presented with an economical feasibility of the method. In this thesis, three different conceptual oil reservoirs from south east Turkey are evaluated: Batı Raman (9.5 API) and Çamurlu (12 API) heavy crude oils and paraffinic Garzan (26 API)crude oil. Using a graphite core holder packed with crushed limestone with crude oil and water microwave effects of operational parameters like heating time and waiting period as well as rock and fluid properties like permeability, porosity, wettability, salinity, and initial water saturation are studied. The main recovery mechanisms for the experiments are viscosity reduction and gravity drainage. An analytical model is developed by coupling heat equation with the electromagnetic dissipated power per unit of volume based in Maxwell's equation successfully models the experiments for temperatures less than the pyrolysis temperature is presented. Also the experiments are scaled to the model by geometric similarity concept. In economic evaluation, the cost of oil is calculated based on domestic electricity prices.

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Citation Formats
Ç. Acar, “Enhancing petroleum recovery from heavy oil fields by microwave heating,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2007.