Journal of Petroleum & Environmental Biotechnology

The use of direct current treatment of paraffin plugging in oil wells: A case study

World Congress on Petrochemistry and Chemical Engineering

November 18-20, 2013 Hilton San Antonio Airport, TX, USA

J. Kenneth Wittle

Keynote: J Pet Environ Biotechnol

Abstract:

The use of Direct Current to enhanced oil production has a number of advantages over other oil recovery processes, EOR. These advantages are joule heating created by the electrical resistance of the formation, Electro-Kinetic transport, and Cold Cracking or Electrochemical upgrading which changes the molecular structure of the oil. The majority of our work in the field and laboratory focused on the use of the EEOR TM process in heavy oil. In this presentation we will briefly discuss heavy oil but will concentrate on the application to light oil containing paraffin in a low permeability formation with paraffin production issues. In our presentation we will review the process used in designing this project including the use of electrical field modeling to efficiently locate the electrode in the formation. Core floods of formation rock were conducted in the laboratory to assess the effectiveness of EK to sweep of the light oil from the formation. A field demonstration was conducted which demonstrated that the EEOR TM process increased the temperature around the well bore. This heating increased the paraffin although the production of total fluids were not increased significantly. Subsequent modeling of the formation including an EK module suggested that the process did in fact not run long enough for the EK pressure front to reach the producing well, even though the impact of heat to the wellbore was effective in the removal of paraffin from the well. We propose to discuss how the DC may play a significant role in freeing paraffin to improve other wells having paraffin production issues

Biography :

Kenneth Wittle has a B.A. in Chemistry from Franklin and Marshall College, a Ph.D. in chemistry from Purdue University, and attended the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. He spent several years at General Electric, where he directed th e development and testing of organic and inorganic materials used in low-, medium-, and high-voltage transformers and relays. At GE, he was on a team that developed the use of direct current in commercial applications, which was the genesis of the EEOR ? Elect rically Enhanced Oil Recovery SM process at EPI. He then joined EPI in 1979. Kenneth Wittle along with several other partners, founded Electro-Pyrolysis in 1983 and holds the patents for a DC arc furnace for the destruction of hazardous and municipal solid waste through ultra-high temperature pyrolysis. Ken has written 46 technical papers and holds 26 U.S. and foreign patents.