IMPACT OF NUMBER OF FRACTURES ON OIL RECOVERY DURING ELECTROMAGNETIC HEATING

Abstract

Thermal recovery methods are used typically to produce heavy oil and bitumen. During this process, the temperature is raised to reduce oil viscosity. Conventional thermal methods may not be effective on deep wells or thin zones. An alternative to the thermal process is electromagnetic heating, which is a process based on the transformation of electric energy into thermal energy due to the electromagnetic field and electrically sensitive particles interacting on the medium. In this paper, reservoir simulations with similar characteristics to those found in the sedimentary basins of the Brazilian Northeast were performed. The purpose of this work is to analyze the impact of the number of fractures, fracture configurations and number of producer wells during electromagnetic heating over the oil recovery factor (ORF) value. The results revealed an oil production increment with increasing number of producer wells and when fractures are located at the center of the oil production zone. However, oil production did not show an evident increase connected to the number fractures.