Author ：Anna Abramova
Today the average oil recovery in the world is less than 40%. This means that 60% of the reserves stays in the formation and can’t be extracted using the existing technologies. Thus, development of new technologies for enhanced oil recovery is a very urgent task.
However, there are more and more concerns about the environmental aspect of oil recovery. The technologies which enable the producers to extract additional oil are often energy-intensive, labor-intensive and not environmentally safe.
The use of high power ultrasound in oil wells has been explored over the last years. Based on years of research e innovative ultrasonic technology has been developed. This technology is totally safe as it doesn’t involve dangerous chemicals and affects only the wellbore perforation zone of the well, which is often polluted by resins, asphaltenes and paraffin.
This technology has been tested on more than 100 wells in Siberia and the Volga region and showed very good results. One operation lasts about 20 hours and increases the oil production in average by about 30 bbl/day in Western Siberia and by about 70 bbl/day in the Volga region. The effect of the treatment last from 3 month to 2 years depending on the formation.
Thus, a new promising technology for enhanced oil recovery has been developed. The main advantages of the ultrasonic EOR technology are: low energy consumption, the possibility to treat the reservoir selective, no harm to the well and its casing, no harm to the environment and to people.
Source:
Journal： Engineering
DOI: 10.4236/eng.2014.64021 (PDF)
Paper Id: 43803 (metadata)
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