Until recent years, heavy oil was rejected as an energy resource for the inconvenience and costs associated with its production, but today, with the gradual depletion of deposits of light oil, its reserves have attracted the interest of oil companies and governments around the world. Estimated reserves of heavy oil in the world equal to three times the combined reserves of conventional oil and gas exist and are the safest source of energy in the immediate future of humanity. One of the major drawbacks in the production of heavy oil in mature fields, is the low efficiency of artificial lifting systems, which is presented by the high frictional pressure losses that are handled by the system (subsurface equipment and recollection facilities), which occurs as a result of the high viscosity and / or direct emulsions (water in oil) of the produced fluids (viscosities above 500 cp.). As an alternative to improve the efficiency of artificial lifting systems in the production of heavy oil in Colombia, from reducing viscosity of the produced fluids, was visualized the selection, evaluation and application in surface facilities of the technology of electrical heating., to ensure adequate conditions of extraction and recollection that will maintain optimal levels of production and release of lower-producing areas with higher API gravity. This study presents a detailed technical and economic evaluation of the application of electric heating in surface facilities to optimize the efficiency of artificial lift systems in the production of heavy oil in fields operated by Ecopetrol in Colombia, including: nodal analysis to determine incremental production, evaluation of technical and economic benefits (net present value). This paper presents the application results in the Tisquirama field. Finally, the main findings, conclusions, recommendations and field results obtained in this study are presented and among which are: Increased of the efficiency of the artificial lifting system in 100%.Increased of oil production in 100%.Unlock and producing of lower zones of high API gravity.

Sand production is a critical problem that causes the industry spending over $3.0 Billion U.S. per year (70% of the wells worldwide have this problem). To mitigate the impact, many operators choose the option of deploying technologies to exclude the sand, and usually reduce the benefits for decrease a risk not quantified. Currently the reservoirs trending to sand production contain an increasing percentage of the world's hydrocarbon reserves. Many of the wells that exploit these resources are producing beyond the limits of their originally estimated useful life, which can result in weak formations. Consequently, it is required being more demanding in the profit margins of the projects of Management and / or sand control achieved at these reservoirs, so it requires a probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) in them, taking into account that the risk and uncertainty are two factors that are often present. This analysis facilitates decision making and allows determine the best Completion and production strategy of the formations sensitive at sand production. Based on the above, this work focuses on developing a methodology for probabilistic risk analysis to evaluate management alternatives and / or exclusion of sand using Monte Carlo simulation. The methodology includes six phases: (1) Selection of alternatives to evaluate and definition of the conditions of production of each one, (2) Structuring the deterministic model of each alternative (3) identification of most impacting variables on the level of production of each alternative and determination of its range of typical behavior (4) Estimation of probability distributions of production for each variable, (5) Monte Carlo simulation for risk assessment of each alternative and selecting the best choice. The methodology was applied to evaluate management alternatives and / or exclusion of sand in the formations sensitive to sand production of the fields: Lisama, Llanito, Galan, Brisas and Yarigui-Cantagallo in Colombia and was compared with the results of the evaluation when using deterministic models. In this paper is present the Application cases in the wells: Lisama 171 and Yarigui 168. Finally, the main findings, conclusions and recommendations obtained in this study are shown.