Video Transcript | April 2010

Steamflooding Extends the Life of Oil Fields

Jeff Hatlen, Petroleum Engineer
Were standing just outside of Bakersfield, California, in the Kern River Oil Field. Its a heavy oil field at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. A field like Kern River that was peaked and way in decline has been revitalized by technology called steamflooding. Theres plenty of oil left in Kern River, and the challenge is whats the new technology that will get the remainder? Production in the Kern River Field began in 1899. Thousands of wells were drilled. Production peaked and went into decline. The end of the life of the field was in view. The interesting thing about this field is that much of the oil is still in the field. Its in the field because the oil is heavy; its like molasses. It takes a lot of energy to get heavy oil out of a field.

Jim Swartz, Reservoir Manager

Im standing on an outcrop of the Kern River formation. The layers below me are a series of sands and shales that form the Kern River Oil Field. The oil that you see being pumped around us is trapped in similar sands but at depths from 500 feet to 1,500 feet below us. What were looking at is an outcrop of the reservoir that the oil is trapped in. The key thing to take away from this is that this is the reservoir; its not a big pit or big cavern underneath the ground, but the oil is really trapped in the sand, and it takes the steam into the sand to release it to come out.

Jeff Hatlen
So were at one of several steam generator sites here in the Kern River Field. Steam generators are where we are taking natural gas, combusting it with air and generating steam. That steam leaves this generator. Its distributed in pipelines across 20 square miles. Steam at high pressure 500 F is moving through this pipe, entering this well bore and being delivered 1,000 feet down into the ground. Through holes in the pipe, it enters the specific sand layer that has this heavy oil. The steam is entering the sand, heating the oil reducing its viscosity from molasses to water consistency. As that steam moves out through that sand, the oil being mobile moves to our producing wells and is lifted to the surface. The producing well has rods going to a pump all the way at the bottom. That pump is lifting the fluid. This equipment is operating that pump. Its moving that fluid all the way to a plant that separates the oil from the water. Sometimes we talk about Kern River as being a technology laboratory. So the process of injecting steam that Chevron uses here in Kern River is highly exportable. We use these technologies and have developed and exported them to Indonesia and, lately, to the Partitioned Zone in the Middle East. Here at Kern River, it takes a lot of work to lift a barrel of oil out of the field, but Im really proud of what we do. And its fun to see this stuff leave the field and go on and become the products were familiar with.

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