Microwave heating for wax precipitation prevention and near wellbore conformance control

摘要

Production from heavy paraffinic oil reservoirs is not a new challenge for scientists and engineers. The wax precipitation in and around wellbores is quite a common phenomenon in such reservoirs. If precipitation occurs it will reduce the productivity of the well and this reduction will diminish the total profit.;Application of microwave energy is a new technique among near wellbore conformance control methods. This method can be used in oil reservoirs to prevent and/or remove wax depositions in near the wellbore region. This will increase the production rate and at the same time decrease the pressure gradient needed for production.;In order to have a better understanding of the effects of microwave heating on porous media, a mathematical model in the form of a partial differential equation is developed. The model is solved analytically by two methods, and the solution is used to simulate the heating effects of microwaves in porous media. The effects of frequency, fractional flow, injection fluid salinity, microwave power, injection temperature, and injection rate are investigated with the mathematical model. The results of the mathematical model are later used to design the experiments, in order to examine and validate the results of mathematical model study. Based on the results obtained from the mathematical model, incident powers between 15 and 30 watts and injection rates of 5 to 15 ml/min with 0 to 1 wt% salinity were chosen for the laboratory experiments.;The experimental part of the investigation confirmed the validity of the mathematical simulation results.