Artificial Lift and Mobility Enhancement of Heavy Oil Reservoirs Utilizing a Renewable Energy-Powered Heating Element

The improvement of heavy oil recovery by steam injection or electric heating has been investigated extensively. However, the potential benefit of placing a permanent heating element around the pay zone has not received significant attention. Previously, numerical models were mainly used to investigate improvements in reservoir fluid mobility but rarely when considering the impact of downhole heating on a wellbore's vertical lift performance. In this study, a coupled mass and heat transfer model was developed and applied to a reservoir/wellbore system to investigate the impact of a heating element on recovery improvement. The numerical simulations showed that heat propagation due to the heating element did not exceed 10-15 ft while the reservoir's fluids were being produced. However, much longer distances could be reached through heat conduction under shut-in conditions. It was determined that more than a 40% improvement in the productivity index could be achieved at low production rates. However, no productivity improvement was noticed under convection-dominated heat transfer, which occurs at relatively high production rates. A heating element could also reduce the flowing bottomhole pressure required in a wellbore by more than 200 psi, a result caused by a continuous temperature increase as the fluids flowed into the heated wellbore section.