Abstract

TOLENTINO, San Luís; CARABALLO, Simón; DUARTE, Ángel  and  MENDOZA, Jesús. Heating of oil fields by nuclear reaction capsules. uct [online]. 2016, vol.20, n.79, pp.58-68. ISSN 1316-4821.

The different heating technologies applied to oil wells to extract extra heavy and heavy oil are carried out by thermal methods, which are: injection of steam, hot water, in-situ combustion, electric heating, among others. These types of heating are performed in order to reduce the high oil viscosity, and to increase the low mobility of oil at the natural temperature of the porous medium of the reservoir. In this work the implementation of a new alternative for heating of oil fields of heavy and extra heavy crude in Venezuela, by heat-generating nuclear reaction capsules is proposed. The geometry of the conceptual design of the nuclear reaction capsule has the following dimensions: diameter of 152.4 mm (6 in) and length of 3,048 m (120 in). These capsules are installed vertically, and distributed through three arrangements in porous media of an extra heavy crude oilfield. Three computer simulations of steady state thermal analysis were performed, with the following considerations: 1) the fluid trapped in the porous medium is at rest, 2) the crude does not move through the slotted extraction line known as "grid or slotted liner". The results show the distribution of the temperature gradient around the capsules and the entire domain of the oilfield under study, for the three arrangements of heat generating capsules.

Keywords : Nuclear reaction capsule; extra heavy and heavy crude oil; temperature gradient; thermal simulation.

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