Microwave Heating as an Alternative Lifting Method for the Heavy Oil Deposits
ERDILA INDRIANI(a*); PURNOMOSIDI (b)
a) Polytechnic Energy And Mineral Akamigas
b) Human Resources Development Centre for Oil and Gas
Abstract
It has to be realized that the era of conventional-oil is coming to an end. It will consume a lot of effort and cost to look for a new conventional-oil resource. However, unconventional-oil resources are abundant; most of oil reserves in the world are dominated by unconventional one (heavy, extra-heavy and bituminous oil). Heavy oil has density less than 16 0API and its viscosity greater than 400 cP at 100 0F (Visser, 1987). A critical problem that has to be faced during the production of heavy oil is its viscous characteristic which making heavy oil is not easy to flow naturally to the wellbore. Other issue is its composition dominantly composed by heavier hydrocarbon components. Therefore, thermal lifting methods are common ways been applied to squeeze residual heavy oil deposits. Steam flood and insitu combustion have been applied and studied vastly in over decades. However, steam flood and insitu combustion have some limitation on its field application. Therefore, heavy oil lifting needs an alternative method that able to produce heavy oil effectively and has high success ratio. A new technology that has been introduced as an effective way to produce it is microwave heating. This method utilizes micro radiation to vibrate the fluids and rock molecules in the reservoir to increase the temperature, then, reduce the oil viscosity. The microwave heating able to reduce oil viscosity from 4412.11 cP on its pour point at 51 oC to 134.24 cP at 90 oC. From the microwave heating, it is also known that the heating rate is directly proportional to output power and nano ferro concentration. The increase of temperatures also affected the recovery factor at 51 oC, 60 oC, 70 oC, 80 oC, and 90 oC, respectively the recovery factor are 0%, 28.55%, 34.07%, 35.32%, and 36.08%.
Keywords: Microwave Heating, Thermal Recovery, Heavy Oil, Well Stimulation
Topic: Electrical Engineering