The ongoing changes in the global energy sector require a thorough analysis and an adequate response from Russia, the world leader in hydrocarbon production. With the right and timely actions, they open up an opportunity for leadership through the consolidation of industry, science, business with the oil and gas industry, which is vital for the country, and which will be in demand for decades.
It is no secret that when oil is extracted, over 70% of its reserves remain in the subsurface. But it is necessary to maintain production, for this new fields are being developed, wells are being drilled. But the limit is coming, and the light oil resources that the world community uses are running out. And there remain hard-to-recover reserves, which make up the majority of all world oil reserves.
And here we already need technologies and equipment that will help us continue producing – but already “difficult” oil.
As an example, we can cite the “shale revolution” in oil production in the United States, which will turn from the largest buyer of oil into its exporter. The technology of hydraulic fracturing, when several thousand tons of water with a mixture of chemical components are pumped in literally hours, and allowed the United States to become a world leader in oil production. But this is not a very good example to follow.
A huge number of new wells, poor ecology, environmental damage are not the whole list of negative consequences of heavy oil extraction technology, which is prohibited for use in some countries.
Today, the breakthrough technology is the generation and injection of supercritical water (SCW) into the well, which makes it possible to efficiently extract hard–to-recover oil reserves, with a depth of over 1000 meters, up to 7000 meters or more, affecting the reservoir with a temperature of up to 500℃. The complex of equipment of our own production will allow us to overcome the reduction in the level of oil and gas production in Russia.
From October 5-8, 2021, the St. Petersburg International Gas Forum was held, at which, at the stand of the Russian Gas Society – RGS, which is the initiator of the Hard-To-Recover oil production project, a new development of the company was presented – the Block-modular mobile complex SCW-TRIZ.
The complex produces up to 240 tons of supercritical water per day, with temperatures up to 500℃, and delivers heat carrier to the well to a depth of 7000 meters, surpassing all other existing technologies, allowing to increase the Oil Recovery Coefficient to 50% and more, providing a significant increase in oil and associated gas production, significantly reducing a production costs. The equipment allows oil production to be carried out on previously developed or conserved wells, instead of drilling new ones.
For the full implementation of the National Bazhen Project alone, it is planned to manufacture 500 units of complexes by 2030, which will create more than 5,000 new jobs in their production and operation.
The use of the export potential of the complex in the global market will increase the volume of exports of Russian high-tech equipment, and increase the prestige of Russian technologies and solutions in the world.
The ecological purity of the complex, which uses chemically pure water as a heat carrier, without additives and impurities, is also important. The equipment makes it possible to eliminate flaring of associated petroleum gas and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, and underground modify heavy oil into light oil, reducing the sulfur content, dispose of oil sludge and oiled soils, remove asphalt-resin-paraffin deposits, implementing closed-cycle technology.
The equipment is most relevant for oil producing companies, for the extraction of heavy, high-viscosity, paraffin oil at their own fields, as well as oilfield service companies providing equipment operation services.
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Industrial operation of hard-to-recover oil production equipment
