The Electrothermic System for Enhancing Oil Recovery

Abstract

AbstractThe problem with the production of heavy oil is basically related to its heavy viscosity, the matter which results in its slow flow into an oil well and also in the difficulty of its pumping to the surface. One solution to this problem is the addition of heat to the oil flowing. A rough rule-of-thumb for most heavy oil is that heating the formation by about 5°C would cut the viscosity of the oil to half of its original value and, likewise, increase the flow rate by a factor of 2. The electrothermic system is designed to increase the flow rate of oil by accomplishing the following tasks: (1) Heat the entire flow string plus the down hole pump and pump rods so that the pump will work more efficiently and the viscosity of the oil in the flow string will be greatly reduced. (2) Heat out into the oil reservoir to a considerable distance from the wellbore, thereby increasing oil flow into the wellbore because of reduced viscosity. (3) The system also moves water away from a producing wellbore, thus incr...