Study of economic viability of steam injection for oil recovery in fields of high viscosity

Abstract

In this work we measured economic return for use of the method of steam injection wells in high viscosity since their production requires the use of further thermal sources to make feasible production of the heavy oil. In this context, economic simulations were performed to evaluate the economic return, considering the production of steam for two sources of different water supply (water extracted from wells and the water itself produced in oil wells), obtaining the sensitivity of the indicators TIR , NPV and Payback, as the level of plant utilization idealized. The results show that the holding of mature fields with the introduction of systems using the water's own production fields produced for the generation of steam, to assist in increasing productivity, are feasible. However, the economic return occurs in production levels near rated capacity plant designed. Considering scenarios with high production curves declines can have inversion of the viability of the project, as economic indicators (NPV, IRR and Payback) of the cases analyzed, demonstrated to be at high levels of production. The NPV and IRR proved to be the best indicators showed positive results and the scenarios, with good levels of attractiveness for the proposed model, having values greater than the standards adopted by Brazilian development institutions.