Indonesia, like many other countries, is also a producer of heavy oil. An example is from Duri Field which has begun producing oil successfully by steam-injection since 1985. However, the relatively shallow and unconsolidated formations have been causing noticeable and sometimes significant sand problems (up to 500 cubic meters per day) resulting in excessive workover operations and loss in production. Delaying production due to workover in a steam-assisted production method is costly, because over time the viscosity of the movable oil will increase again due to the temperature drop. This condition will make the oil even harder to produce when the well is reopened. Thus, an inexpensive but effective solution is needed to remedy this problem. This paper proposes a new and cost-effective method for improving the efficiency of the steam injection methods for fields similar to Duri by using EM-heated proppant as gravel pack/frac-pack material in the production well. Installing an EM field generator in the wellbore and using EM-heated proppant will have a dual advantage over the conventional method by being more resistant to flow and being able to heat the near-wellbore region of the production well. By heating the near-wellbore region of the production well, the lowered-viscosity of the steam-contacted oil will be maintained as it enters the wellbore. From results of simple calculations, backed up with laboratory observation, heated-proppant is intended to transfer and sustain heat as well as other thermal stimulation methods. Production increment is predicted to be small due to smaller heated radius; however the increased well longevity before a workover schedule and hands-free operation should provide a more cost-efficient well for producing heavy oils, in-time covering the installation cost of the EM Generator.

The ZH field located in Kazakhstan is comprised of shallow, unconsolidated sandstone reservoir that is being produced medium sandy oil by the help of progressive cavity pumps (PCP). The nature of unconsolidated reservoir makes overall production inefficient; due to sand production being a major concern in the field. High frequency of workover operations and limited productivity of wells were caused by sand production. Moreover, pump seizure happens more often because of the low fluid velocity, there is sand inside the production wells can not move up to the surface.The goal of this study is to increase oil production by optimizing the progressive cavity pumps operation. Improving production requires minimizing workover frequency, therefore sand should be lifted out of the well continuously with the fluid. This can be achieved by controlling the ratio of the actual fluid velocity to the sand settling velocity. The fluid velocity in the tubing should be enough to lift most of the produced sand particles from the bottomhole of a well.The statistics showed that production wells with fluid velocities of 75% of sand settling velocity or less were likely to have pump seizure with the lack of sand carrying capacity in the tubing. By increasing pump size, modifying tubing size, and increasing pump rotation per minute (RPM), PCP performance was significantly improved. This paper shows the significance of the parameters stated above.Field cases in PCP optimization are summarized. The successful cases highlight an incremental oil production of 126 m 3 /d with seldom workover. Unsuccessful cases were characterized by often and sudden pump seizures with increased watercut. This study has shown that maintaining production rate through PCP operation coupled with continuous sand lifting is more beneficial than controlling the sand production such as installing gravel packs.

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