SPE-185736-MS

Finite Element Modeling of Reservoir Heating By An Electrical Cable

M. M. Medizade, Professor, California Polytechnic State University; J. T. Summers, YESSSOIL

Copyright 2017, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 2017 SPE Western Regional Meeting held in Bakersfield, California, USA, 23 April 2017.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Heat, mostly in terms of steam latent heat of vaporization, has been injected into heavy or extra heavy
reservoirs worldwide to assist producing the in-situ oils. More recently, heat has been introduced directly
into the reservoir by means of placing an electrical cable at the middle of the well in front of the target
interval. Design of these electrical cables which supply a specific amount of heat energy per cable length,
W/m, when placed in front of the target zone, have been evolving from manufacturing point of view to
benefit oil operations worldwide in many ways. The purpose of this study is to investigate the heat transfer
effects from the electric cable into stagnant gases of the wellbore media, casing, and reservoir porous media
which are surrounding the electric cable. Two types of wells, vertical and horizontal have been studied. The
objective is to calculate heat requirement to establish desired temperature distribution beyond the sandface.
The mathematical model used to study the heat transfer effects were built by a finite element model
software package. In case of cased hole, the heat transfer from the cable propagates through stagnant gases
and enters the casing before entering the porous media. In case of open -hole completion, the heat from the
cable is transferred to stagnant gases in the wellbore before entering the porous media. Effects of different
heating amounts in W/m on the sand-face temperature and deep into the porous media have been investigated
for vertical and horizontal well configurations at different energy input conditions. Finite element model
results were compared with other similar studies.
Results of the finite element modeling show that for all cases including vertical and horizontal wells, the
sand-face quickly heats up. As time goes on, a distance into the porous media is also heated up which in
return assists oil recovery from a larger vicinity from the well. Heating via electric cables can be beneficial
in wellbore cleaning from paraffin, wax and hydrate build ups thus initiating oil recovery from near wellbore
area. Total reservoir heating can provide In-situ upgrading of the heavy and extra heavy oils.

INTRODUCTION
For many years, the Oil industry has used electrical heating by cables for multiple applications both
onshore and offshore. Applications of such heating to prevent hydrate and wax buildup in pipelines and
steel riser have been reported by Norwegian oil companies1. Beside pipelines, well tubing, and risers
considerations have been given to applications of electric heating for heating of the reservoir containing
extra or heavy crude oils. The experimental tests and numerical simulations have confirmed the feasibility
of such applications2. Other simulation works using different heating rates caused reduction of the viscosity
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near wellbore and increased the bottom hole pressure avoiding gas liberation near the well causing favorable
relative permeability to oil3. Candidate reservoirs, such as extra heavy oil reservoir of Orinoco Oil belt
showed noticeable drop in viscosity over a small range of temperature increase4. More recently the
application voltage range has increased over 1000 V using medium voltage for electric heating on platforms
and downhole5.
This study investigates use of finite element modeling to investigate heat transfer from the center of the
well to the reservoir porous medium as heat gets conducted away into the target zone. The results of the
finite element modeling can then be used to select proper energy density (W/m) heating requirement from
the electric cable.

ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRICAL HEATING MODELING

Wellbore Heating
The wellbore and tubing are considered as the conduits between the reservoir and surface which will be
used for many years to come. Managing the operation temperature between two given limits will prevent
formation of paraffin, wax, hydrates, emulsions, liquid drop outs (gas wells) and solid precipitations. All
of these adverse effects can cause extra pressure drops and lower available flow energy in the downhole
fluids. Electrical heating modeling can optimize the heating requirements of the wellbore. Oil and gas wells
on-shore and offshore can benefit from such application. The heat requirement for the electrical cable must
be designed in a way to provide the desired temperature range.

Near Wellbore Heating

Regardless of using a vertical or a horizontal well in an extra heavy or heavy oil production operation,
fluids lose most of their flow energy due to flow path geometry near the wellbore. These losses are more
pronounced for vertical wells (radial drainage) than horizontal wells. These effects are more pronounced as
pressure and temperature drop and fluids move from reservoir to the surface encountering possible paraffin,
asphaltene, wax and hydrate drop outs. The temperature drop also severely causes increase of viscosity of
these oils. Electrical heating modeling of the near wellbore area can predict the temperature distributions
needed to bring about reduction in viscosity, reduction of wax drop out, and reduce hydrate formation,
etc. In long horizontal lateral applications, electrical heating of formation can bring about increased life
expectancy of pump systems, lower skin factor, longer effective production length, less water coning from
the bottom due to more balanced fluid drawdown preventing excessive water production.

Heating of Entire Reservoir

A typical steam chest, the key success to most stemdrives, takes time to get established in the reservoir.
So, heat application of any reservoir is a long-term process. For extra heavy and heavy oil heterogeneous
reservoirs, fractured reservoirs with low recovery factor, source rocks with wide range of liquid content,
an In-Situ Upgrading Process (IUP) has been proposed6. The process includes gradually heating the entire
reservoir. This will cause thermal cracking of the heavy oils. The coke remains in subsurface and the high
gravity oil produced with recovery factors of as high as 75%. Electrical heating modeling can show how
heat is transferred from the heat source placed at the center of the well deep into the reservoir and help
estimation of the heat requirements.

FINITE ELEMENT MODELING

Following studies have been published regarding analytical modeling of heat movement in the wellbore or
wellbore and the reservoir7,8,9.
Moini and Edmounds10 solved the following partial differential equation for r,z, θ coordinate system:
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In the above equation, T is the temperature, Z is the cylinder direction, r is the distance from cylinder
axis, Θ is the local angle in the plane perpendicular to the cylinder axis, α is the heat diffusivity, t is time,
and H is the term for constant heat source energy inside the cylinder per unit time per unit volume.
The following data were used:

• heat diffusivity factor, α, is 8 times 10−7 m2/s

• reservoir porosity is 30%,

• heat of conduction, K, is 1.73 j/m.s.K,

• oil saturation is 80%,

• volumetric heat capacity, ρc, is 2.16 times 106 j/m3 K

Results obtained using the Finite Element Model were identical with results reported in above study
using above parameters.

Cable and well system, Top View

Figure 1, shows the electric cable installed at the center of the well.

Figure 1—The cable with .01m diameter at the center of the well with 0.089m diameter.

Cable and Reservoir Payzone, Vertical View

Figure 2, shows the electric cable placed in front of a 30m payzone.
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Figure 2—shows the electric cable placed in front of a 30m payzone.

Material Properties
Reservoir Data. Heat conductivity, K = 1.73 J/m.s.K = 1.73 × 86400s/day = 149472 J/m.d.K
Density (of sand porosity 30%) = 2100 kg/m^3
Specific heat capacity = 1028 J/kg.K
Air between electrical wire and well. We assume that atmosphere air (at 40°C) is medium between well
and electrical wire
Heat conductivity, K = .0271 J/m.s.K = .0271 J/m.s.K *86400s/day = 2341.44 J/m.d.K
Density (air at 30°C) = 1.127 kg/m^3
Specific heat capacity = 1005 J/kg.K

RESULTS
In order to test results of the model, same inputs parameters used in other mathematical models were used
in the FEM, similar temperature distributions were obtained as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3—The FEM model predicts similar results with published data10.
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The following Figures have obtained from the FEM. Figure 4. Shows heating of a vertical well with a
400 w/m for a period of 120 days. The heat distributions are shown at different distances from of 1, 1.5,
2, and 2.5 into the zone.

Figure 4—Temperature distributions at different locations as a function of time.

Figure 5 shows the same but using a 1000 w/m heating cable.

Figure 5—Temperature distributions at different locations as a function of time.

Long term heating of a vertical well using 100 w/m and 1000 w/m are shown in Figures 6 and 7.
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Figure 6—Temperature distributions at three locations as a function of time for a vertical well.

Figure 7—Temperature distributions at three different locations as a function of time for a vertical well.

The temperature distributions for horizontal well are given in Figures 8, and 9 for same distances and
same cable length.
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Figure 8—Temperature distributions at three locations as a function of time for a horizontal well.

Figure 9—Temperature distributions at three locations as a function of time for a horizontal well.

CALIFORNIA INSTALLATIONS
As the heating technology evolved and matured over last ten years, some California wells got the benefit
of heating using these electric cables. The field results of near wellbore enhancements are shown in Tables
1 and 2.
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Table 1—Heater and Well Details for California Installations

Table 2—Comparisons of Productions Before and After Installations

DISCUSSIONS
The Finite Element Modeling, FEM, provides fast calculations of estimation of temperature distributions
as a function of time on the well sandface and at points away from the wellbore into the reservoir when
reservoir is heated via an electric cable. The model assumes only conduction heat transfer and for the runs
reported here the medium inside the well is air and no other gases. Other gases also can be modeled. One
important thing is that as the area around the wellbore gets heated, some fluids could move into and/or moved
SPE-185736-MS 9

away from the wellbore. These convection heat transfer effects have not been modeled here. As a result of
that such studies will be more accurate at early times. Heat loses to over and under-burden sections of the
reservoir have not been accounted for and similarly the heat loses in the vertical section of the wellbore.
Similar results have been obtained for horizontal wells. These results can be used to estimate the amount of
heating needed for a desired temperature distribution at the sandface and into the reservoir.

CONCLUSIONS
• FEM can provide temperature distributions at sandface and away from the well into the reservoir for
vertical as well as horizontal wells. Results are similar with other published mathematical models.
• Since conduction heat transfer is only being modeled, the results obtained are more valid during
early times of project start up.
• Heat requirements of the cable can be estimated when input data from target reservoir is used in
the model.
• Heating by electric cable, can benefit wellbore, near well area, and the reservoir as discussed in
the paper.
• Technology has helped California operators to enhance oil production from California heavy oil
reservoirs.

REFERENCES
1. Halvorsen, V. H, Lervik, J. K, "Hydrate and Wax Prevention of Risers by Electric Heating",
International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers, The Tenth International Offshore and
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2. Yuan, J. Y and Huang, H., Mintz, R., Wang, X, Jossy, C., and Tunney, C., "Wet Electric Heating
for Starting Up SAGD/VAPEX", Petroleum society of Canada, Canadian International Petroleum
Conference, 8-10 June, Calgary, Alberta, 2004.
3. Gasbarri, S, Diaz, A, Guzman, M. "Evaluation of Electric heating on Recovery Factors in
Extra Heavy Oil Reservoirs", Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE Heavy Oil Conference and
Exhibitions, 12-14 December, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2011.
4. Quintero, E., Quezade, A., Romero, I., "Technical- Economic Evaluation of Downhole Electric
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6. Salamander Advanced Heater Solutions website, http://www.salamandersolutions.com/ 2017.
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Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1959.
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427–435, SPE-96-PA, 1962.
9. Bahonar, M., Azaiez, J., and Chen, Z., "A semi-Unsteady State Wellbore Steam/Water Flow
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10. Moini, B., Edmounds, N., "Quantifying Heat Requirements for SAGD Startup Phase: Steam
Injection, Electrical Heating", SPE Journal of Canadian Technology, 89-94, March 2013.