Abstract
Samaria Somero field produces heavy and extra hevy oil. To mitigate the fluency problems present in this kind of fields is necessary to constantly evaluate chemical improvers such as Water-Base Flow Improvers (WbFI) and Oil base Flow Improvers (ObFI). The first type of improvers works by creating emulsions which generate partial solubility between the oil and water phases. The second ones focus on lowering the viscosity. The objective of both systems is to increase the fluency through the oil transportation process. These types of chemical systems are usually tested on the field, measuring its efficiency through the injection of different amounts of product to the wells, evaluating the oil production increments and wellhead pressure drops, during the injection of the enhancer. Because the parameters to evaluate the efficiency and compatibility can not be rigorously controlled on the field test, these assessments can be misleading, since the response of the well could be attributed to the chemical or how the well is operated. So it is not possible to evaluated and quantigy clearly the phenomenon that occurs when mixing a WbFI or ObFI with crude.
Given that field test have no strict control on the variables to assess the efficiency and compatibility of WbFI and ObFI, PEMEX in conjunction with the Mexican Petroleum Institute (IMP), developed an experimental methodology to evaluate these products with experimental tests.
The purpose of this paper is to show the results of laboratory analysis for the Samaria Somero fluid characterization process and present a new methodology to exam the Flow Improvers evaluation, which was used to evaluate 5 different companies' products in the market.
