OREANDA-NEWS. September 28, 2012. In order to ensure the highest productivity of oil deposits in the Orinoco Oil Belt (FPO), a group of young professionals from Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) are assessing new designs and technologies to maximize production with safety and minimize operational problems.

In several papers presented at the Fifth World Heavy Oil Congress held in the Scottish city of Aberdeen, members of PDVSA delegation showed several plans aimed at increasing productivity of oil wells through the use of technologies and designs adapted to the needs of the FPO.

Alberto Uzcategui, a drilling and completion engineer at Petrocedeno’s enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project, presented a paper in the Aberdeen’s Congress about the design of pack-off heads especially geared for use in thermal mechanisms, which will be applied in oil fields of the Petrocedeno joint venture, located at the Junin Block of the FPO.

According to Uzcategui, as the FPO crude oils will be eventually extracted by heat injection process, the best procedure is to prepare the drilling of future wells with this goal in mind. Therefore, the machinery and equipment to be used in the deposit should also be aimed at withstanding high temperatures in order to maintain their effectiveness.

The Venezuelan engineer said that thermal production “allows for a dramatic reduction of crude oil viscosity, making it lighter and easier to lift, either by artificial lift procedures or by making the oil flow naturally.”

The recovery factor at Petrocedeno oilfields can increase by steam injection from 8%, which is the current level, between 20 and 40 percent, as demonstrated in the pilot project carried out in Bare oilfield, where this process increased the recovery factor to 38%. A good well in Petrocedeno, with a horizontal section of 1.500 meters (4,921 ft), produces about 900 barrels a day. “However, with the use of steam injection in shorter wells with a horizontal section of 500 meters (1,640 ft), we could produce 2,000 barrels per day.”

Uzcategui said that PDVSA is already working to purchase equipment to ensure heat resistance since the steam will be injected into a well at a temperature of 270 degrees Celsius. Drilling works are expected to start in 2013. Meanwhile, steam injection is expected to begin in 2015. He recalled that Petrocedeno has an area set aside in the southeastern part of its oil fields, where the first wells were drilled three weeks ago. According to the guidelines, these wells will be eventually developed with thermal processing technologies.

Anticipating the need to shield oil infrastructure that will be required for the hot-working production of crude oil in the Orinoco Oil Belt, Jose Bernard, a petroleum engineer who works in the Operations Management Department at Petrolera Indovenezolana, a Venezuelan oil company, presented a paper at the World Heavy Oil Congress held in Aberdeen showing the benefits of using pre-insulating pipes to reduce heat loss in the bottom of the wells and to increase oil production and the recovery factor.

According to Bernard, the studies carried out in the Bare field, in the Ayacucho block of the FPO, showed that heat losses resulting from the use of conventional pipes were reduced to a fifth by means of pre-insulated pipes. This leads to higher benefits because it increases productivity of deposits and allows the reduction of operational problems, since it holds more heat at the bottom of the well and reduces the mechanical stress of completion operations.

“We have witnessed that the initial productivity rate is increased four or five times by the use of pre-insulated pipes, and that operational problems due to failures caused by temperature at high pressure decrease,” he highlighted.

The paper was recognized by experts from different international companies since these assessments are normally based on correlations or on the use of thermocouples (temperature measurement at a given point), while in this case the temperature was measured meter by meter from the surface up to more than 2,000 meter deep (6,562 ft) by Petrolera Indovenezolana’s team using a technology based on optical fiber and DPS systems. As a result, a model adjustment was performed and the efficiency of this type of pipes was more accurately assessed.