Enhanced Oil Recovery with Downhole Vibration Stimulation

This Final Report covers the entire project from July 13, 2000 to June 30, 2003. The report summarizes the details of the work done on the project entitled “Enhanced Oil Recovery with Downhole Vibration Stimulation in Osage County Oklahoma” under DOE Contract Number DE-FG26-00BC15191. The project was divided into nine separate tasks. This report is written in an effort to document the lessons learned during the completion of each task. Therefore each task will be discussed as the work evolved for that task throughout the duration of the project. Most of the tasks are being worked on simultaneously, but certain tasks were dependent on earlier tasks being completed. During the three years of project activities, twelve quarterly technical reports were submitted for the project. Many individual topic and task specific reports were included as appendices in the quarterly reports. Ten of these reports have been included as appendices to this final report. Two technical papers, which were written and accepted by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, have also been included as appendices. The three primary goals of the project were to build a downhole vibration tool (DHVT) to be installed in seven inch casing, conduct a field test of vibration stimulation in a mature waterflooded field and evaluate the effects of the vibration on both the produced fluid characteristics and injection well performance. The field test results are as follows: In Phase I of the field test the DHVT performed exceeding well, generating strong clean signals on command and as designed. During this phase Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory had installed downhole geophones and hydrophones to monitor the signal generated by the downhole vibrator. The signals recorded were strong and clear. Phase II was planned to be ninety-day reservoir stimulation field test. This portion of the field tests was abruptly ended after one week of operations, when the DHVT became stuck in the well during a routine removal activity. The tool cannot operate in this condition and remains in the well. There was no response measured during or afterwards to either the produced fluids from the five production wells or in the injection characteristics of the two injection wells in the pilot test area. Monitoring the pilot area injection and production wells ceased when the field test was terminated March 14, 2003. Thus, a key goal of this project, which was to determine the effects of vibration stimulation on improving oil recovery from a mature waterflood, was not obtained. While there was no improved oil recovery effect measured, there was insufficient vibration stimulation time to expect a change to occur. No conclusion can be drawn about the effectiveness of vibration stimulation in this test. The project was closed June 30, 2003.