Deployment of Large Scale Surfactant Manufacture for EOR Projects

摘要

Surfactant quantities increase dramatically moving from small field tests (e.g. single well tests) to multiwell pilots to full scale EOR projects. This paper is a companion paper to SPE-190453, presented at the SPE conference in Oman in March 2018, and shows how best practices from existing large-scale surfactant manufacture (for household and industrial applications) can be applied and adapted for manufacture and delivery of EOR surfactants as field projects are upscaled. Surfactant concentrates can be viscous, making them difficult to pump and mix. This paper presents improved methods to manufacture and handle them. In addition, dilution of the concentrate in the field to the working (injected) formulation needs to be carried done in a manner which avoids the formation of viscous phases that are common with surfactants. The main learnings from this paper are: 1. For small field projects, it is usually advantageous to ship less concentrated products (e.g. ≤ 30% active matter, AM) as, for the small volumes involved, the advantages of ease of mixing and dilution in the field tend to outweigh the cost savings in transporting a highly concentrated product. 2.An additive (viscosity modifier), applied during manufacture, reduces viscosity and improves handleability of highly concentrated products (e.g. ≥ 65% AM). This viscosity modifier is benign for sub-surface performance of the surfactant. 3. For large projects, two strategies can be used to reduce logistics costs: 3.1Supply a concentrated product with viscosity modifier (to reduce the percentage of water shipped), and/or 3.2Manufacture the product (or part of the product) in country/region and near the field. 4. A realistic supply chain was used to estimate the logistics costs to transport low and high %AM products from a USA point of manufacture to an EOR project destination in South America. This calculation assumed an equal manufacturing cost for the low and high %AM products and transportation by 20 ton ISO-tanks, a standard bulk industry container. The transportation cost for the high %AM product is around 57% of the low %AM product. Additional logistics savings are achievable through manufacturing the product (or part of the product) in country/region, and the logistics cost for high %AM product manufactured near the field can be reduced to 33% of of that for the low %AM product manufactured in the USA. More general learning for EOR projects are: 1.Experience from the wider, bulk chemicals industry can be usefully applied for EOR projects. 2.It is important to align surfactant manufacture/supply logistics with reservoir management and the field life plan as significant lead time is required for supply of large surfactant volumes.