Oil and gas companies are always trying to find new clean and cost effective means of testing their wells. New research done by Francesca Versa and Vera Rocca in Torino may have found processes that could reduce the cost while increasing environmental cleanliness and safety of testing hydrocarbon wells.
The process of testing potential wells normally consists of drilling a test line that runs down to the well. Off of this, it can be determined what the content of the well is, and the pressure it will exert. This is seen as a negative process, all the fluid used to test the well has to be burned off creating a lot of carbon emissions that are bad for the atmosphere and the workers that are doing the burning process. This entire process is un cost productive due to the amount of hydrocarbons that are wasted in this process as well as the cost of a flaring (the igniting of hydrocarbons to burn them off safely) and the environmental taxes that will be placed on the site. All this cost can run around 4 million dollars, and that is just to test the well, this is part of what causes a barrel of oil to cost so much.
In the Journal article that was submitted by these researchers, they looked at 4 possible replacements that have already started to be implemented in the industry. It is the hopes of many that these processes will bring about a change in how well testing is done, and solve many of the problems that oil and gas companies have today.
The first process that is looked at is the closed chamber test. This is where a large chamber with a known volume is attached to the well. When the Hydrocarbons start flooding in it is possible to calculate the pressure the well exerts, however it is not as easy to figure out which hydrocarbons are actually present in the container, if any at all. This is a safe process because no hydrocarbons are released, and safety is never a concern.
The second system is called a Wire line Test. In this process a pump with applies a pressure equal to the pressure being exerted by the well. This allows for an easy calculation of the pressure of the well, and data can be drawn that tells what hydrocarbons are present.
The final two tests are called Injection, and Production reinjection. In Injection, a salt water is pumped down the well, and it is measured to see how much pressure is exerted against the water. With this they can test calculate pressure of the well, however they can only guess at the contents of the well using this process. Production reinjection however is a different process here, the Hydrocarbons are allowed to come up a pipe, where samples can be taken, and pressure can be measures. From here however the hydrocarbons filter into another pipe where they are pumped back into the earth above the main well. This way the re injected hydrocarbons can be re accessed later as the well is being tapped.
The conclusions that were drawn from this research is mixed at best. It was concluded that not one of these processes would be perfect. However with a combination of these processes it is however seen that with the use of two or more of these techniques would be quite efficient at getting information. However at this time, there is no way of combining any of these processes and you instead would have to drill 2 test holes once again increasing cost. However it is hoped that with this information known that in the future a technique can be produced that incorporate aspects of all of these tests to prefect the process. This creates a clean, cheap and safe way of reducing the production cost of Hydrocarbons. And with this reduction in cost, should come a reduction of cost for oil, meaning that everyone will be able to have lower gas prices.
Verga, F. And Rocca, V. 2010. Green methodologies to test hydrocarbon reservoirs. American Journal of Environmental Sciences, 6(1): 1-10.
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