ABSTRACT
Experience producing medium to heavy oil areas has demonstrated that most conventional artificial production systems are inefficient. This situation has been improved by mixing diluter fluids or light crude oil with medium to heavy crude oil downhole. The mixing increases production efficiency, crude oil selling value, and conditions crude to meet minimum selling conditions.
An analytical model has been developed to analyze the behavior of crude oil/diluter mixtures under continuous production conditions. The model developed for this study has practical application in field operations. The most important applications are: To select the proper diluter fluid to be used in a specific area; to calculate the exact amount of diluter to be mixed with crude oil to obtain a specific viscosity; to forecast the amount of diluter fluid required for normal and continuous oilfield operations; to predict crude oil-diluter mixture kinematic viscosity under any proportion of the components for economic evaluation, and to calculate API gravities of the produced mixture under continuous operation. The crude oils used in this study have a gravity between 8.6°API and 14.3°API. The diluters used have a gravity between 31.4°API and 63°API.
The paper presents the analytical model and one application to Venezuelan field in the Orinoco Petroleum Belt, one of the largest oil reserves in the world. Each well in the field has a different viscosity and different production rate. The production rate was considered continuous and under exponential decline.
