Indonesia has been producing oil since 19th century and started producing 2 types of Unconventional Resources (UR) which are heavy oil since 1958 and Coal Bed Methane (CBM) since this year (2012). The concept of resource triangle was introduced by Masters and Gray in 1979 to describe the huge reserves of UR and its difficulty to be produced. A modified version had been done with a scale to exactly describe the amount of oil or gas reserve of UR. It is then linked with the stimulation techniques needed to produce them. To recover the heavy oil, thermal stimulation or recovery technique is needed to reduce its very high viscosity. Similarly, Coal Bed Methane (CBM) is also categorized as unconventional reservoirs (UR) because of its low permeability and can only be produced economically at commercial flow rates with special recovery processes or well-stimulation treatment. This paper will give a comparison study of producing CBM with and without hydraulic fracturing, a type of well-stimulation technology. The optimization procedure to select the type of water frac fluid and propping agent size and type that technically and economically suitable for CBM reservoir. The process was done using fracturing simulator and reservoir simulator for dual porosity system (CMG GEM). Fracturing simulator predicted the amount of fluid and propping agent and the resulting fracturing conductivity. Afterwards, the post-fracturing results will then be transferred to CMG-GEM, by which, using Warren and Root equation, the gas production profile is predicted and compared with its pre-fracturing results. From this study, optimum hydraulic fracture treatments is found by having the connected permeability around 5-10 Darcy. This can be accomplished by pumping enough volumes of proppant at low concentrations (6 ppa) into the fracture using less expensive fluids and distribute it uniformly.

Oil production is highly depend on its viscosity which varies with temperature and pressure. Chemically, the viscosity had tight relationship with asphaltene content. The higher the asphaltene content as in the heavy oil, the higher the viscosity is and the more difficult to be produced. A brief review of Saturates, Aromatics, Resins and Asphaltenes (SARA) fractions of oil and how they are extracted and analysed followed by how asphaltene related with viscosity then its theoretical models and its precipitation mechanism, is given. The paper then expose the viscosity vs temperature behavior of Indonesian heavy oil and relates with its SARA measurement.

The use of iron oxide nanoparticles in electromagnetic heating application has been proven through several investigations to increase the electromagnetic absorption properties of reservoir, then, significantly increase the generated temperature. A factor that affects the temperature build-up is nanoparticles transport mechanism. When the nanoparticles carrier fluid is in contact with oil, it is possible for mass transfer to occur. Thus, nanoparticles can diffuse from its carrier fluid to oil in the reservoir. This mechanism is advantageous in increasing the oil temperature because it reduces the heat loss. In this study, we investigate the diffusion mechanism of iron oxide nanoparticles from brine to oil. We used 1% NaCl solution as the brine and nanoparticles carrier. The experiments are done with variation of the type of oil, nanoparticles concentration and sonication time. Heavy and asphaltic oil creates barrier for nanoparticles to diffuse, therefore, diffusion of nanoparticles from brine to oil is very small. Increase in nanoparticles concentration and sonication time provides more driving force for nanoparticles to move to oil. However, it is not always as ideal as those conditions, interaction among nanoparticles, such as aggregation creates various unpredictable results in the experiments.

No abstract

No abstract