Steam Oil Production has signed an agreement to explore the potential of integrating FluidOil’s Viscositor Heavy-to-Light (VHTL) oil upgrading technology into an offshore steamflooding project.
Currently, Steam Oil is working on plans for the offshore project.
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The company holds multiple licences of heavy oil reservoirs in the UK Western Platform, 140km east of Aberdeen. These licences are expected to contain approximately 650 million barrels of oil.
Steam Oil CEO Steve Brown said: “Steamflooding is the most effective recovery mechanism for heavy oil and we expect to see recovery factors of between 50% and 80% when we steamflood these reservoirs.
“To do that, we will need a lot of steam and the steam produced as a by-product of FluidOil’s upgrading process will significantly reduce our fuel costs.
“In addition, the VHTL process does not demand a stringent water-in-oil content specification so we can simplify our process requirements.”
As the first step towards the development, Steam Oil is set to construct a steamflood demonstration project on part of the pilot field.
FluidOil’s VHTL technology can generate significant volumes of high-pressure steam and its integration with the Western Platform Steamflood project is expected to reduce separation, steam generation and associated fuel requirements.
Under the agreement, both Steam Oil and FluidOil will evaluate the potentiality to determine the plant configuration for optimal process synergy.
Image: 3D rendering of a potential application of HTL technology on an offshore facility. Photo: © FluidOil Ltd.
