Russian scientists developed an intellectual system, which improves oil production significantly. Moreover, additional oil shows very good quality. Researchers invented a polymer-gel system for extracting additional oil from a well and reducing water content in hydrocarbon materials. The system was called “Temposcreen”.

A common technology for oil production at almost all Russian oil deposits is injecting fluid into oil reservoirs for supporting layer pressure. As a result, produced oil often contains about 96-98% of water, especially when certain oil deposit has complex geological structure and has been developed for a long period of time. Long-term use of layer pressure supporting technology makes water choose sites with high permeability and avoid sites with low permeability, where significant amount of oil can be found, Russian scientists explain. Since we want all oil to be extracted even from low-permeable layers, we should do our best to make water enter these sites.

In order to solve this problem, Russian researchers developed a polymer-gel system. A reagent modifies physical and chemical properties of high-permeability formations, which contain a lot of water (they are called “watered layers”), thus sharply lowering their permeability and changing filtration flows. Reservoir sweep grows due to waterflooding, and water content of produced oil drops down, thus oil production enhances.

Said enhancement becomes possible thanks to dispersed structure of “Temposcreen”, which gel particles have diameter between 0.2-4 millimeters. This gel is extremely mobile and perfectly enters pores and cracks. Furthermore, the gel does not enter low-permeable layers, since its particles are wider than pores in such rocks.

 

 

Hydrogel is easy to prepare – dry chemical agent is mixed with water and delivered into an oil well by means of a simple pumping unit. One well requires about 0.2-1 ton of dry chemical agent. The gel is pumped into a well for 20-30 hours. Well response appears after a month and a half or two months and lasts for about 10-17 months. Scientists calculated that one ton of a dry chemical agent is able to extract additional 2-6 thousand tons of oil – values depend on geological structure of oil deposit and amount of oil, remaining in the well.

The fact, researchers want to draw special attention to, is that their polymer-gel innovation has nothing to do with heavy metal compounds – toxic substances, which are dangerous for the environment and human beings. Heavy metals are frequently used in technologies, aimed at solving similar problems. Moreover, “Temposcreen” does not need any expensive proportioning unit, which costs may vary, but usually lie between $200-500 thousand.

Russian scientists have already tested their innovation on 32 oil deposits, located not only inn Russia, but also in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Geologists performed over 8 hundred well operations, during which they pumped polymer-gel “Temposcreen” into oil wells.

Source: Science & Life

Kizilova Anna