SPE-179095-MS

The Use of Coiled Tubing for Deployment of Electrical Heaters in

Downhole Applications
Chet Sandberg, C L Sandberg & Associates; Keith Thomas, MCAAA Heater Cables; Scott Penny, Petrospec

Copyright 2016, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE/ICoTA Coiled Tubing & Well Intervention Conference & Exhibition held in Houston, Texas, USA, 22–23 March
2016.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents
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Abstract
Electrical heaters are being used in numerous down-hole applications including flow assurance, viscosity
reduction, steam replacement (Cyclic Steam Stimulation and Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) and a
process called Insitu Conversion Process (ICP). These applications are described in SPE-165323-MS and
SPE-170146-MS. Historically the heater has been attached to a pipe string with clamps. This has proven
the technology works on short lengths but is labor intensive at the well site and not suitable for commercial
application. This paper will describe an alternative method using coiled tubing for electrical heater
deployment.
Historically, long high power, high temperature, Mineral Insulated (MI) Cable heaters (over 300 feet)
had to be fabricated with splices that increased the diameter about three times at the location of the splice.
Recently an improved ceramic material technology has allowed the heaters to operate at higher voltages.
This allows an increase in total heater length and the ability to insert into coiled tubing. Along with the
increase in voltage, a new fabrication technique allows ⬙spliceless heaters⬙ to be manufactured in
continuous lengths to over 10,000 feet. Given this new manufacturing technology, trials have been
performed to place the heater and instrumentation in coiled tubing and deployed with conventional coiled
tubing technology.
This paper reviews the improvements in the heater technology that allows spliceless fabrication and
medium voltage operation. A review of initial deployment pilots is presented including a 2000 foot heated
section installation by Shell in the Grosmont reservoir in Alberta Canada. The initial insertion of the heater
in coiled tubing was done on an airstrip in Texas and then the coiled tubing was transported to Alberta
Canada for deployment. Numerous pictures and installation caveats are included in the paper.
This system of using coiled tubing for deployment has taken much of the labor from the well site to
an off-site manufacturing location, reducing cost and streamlining the deployment at the well site. This
process moves deployment of electrical heaters in downhole applications from a one-off pilot installation
system to a commercially viable system with greatly improved economics and reliability. While the
Grosmont installation used 4.5 inch coiled tubing, new heater designs make it possible to use 2.875 inch
coiled tubing with the power and temperature characteristics necessary for technically functional appli-
cation.
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Introduction
Electrical heaters have been used in downhole applications for many years for mostly flow assurance1.
The heaters mitigate the formation of hydrates and waxes as well as keeping the viscosity in acceptable
pumping range. Now these heater technologies are being used for more applications. Figure 1 shows the
range of applications and temperature requirements.

Figure 1—

Flow Assurance was the first application for electrical heating. Both polymer insulated and mineral
insulated cables were used in initial applications. Operational power was low and either type of heater
could be used, however, a remelt after a power shutdown could require higher power densities provided
by MI cable. MI cable was only available with splices because of manufacturing limitations. Because of
deployment issues with splices, longer heaters with no external splices were considered a significant
improvement. Asphaltenes, waxy crudes and paraffin crudes may all require some sort of flow assurance.
Electrical heating is a good option when compared to hot oiling and diluent introduction.
Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) Electric Heating is a relatively new option for MI Cable heaters. This
is used in central California for reactivation of low production wells. Data has shown up to an average of
four times increase in oil production over a twelve well statistical data base. An unintended consequence
is there is little or no produced water. Conventional MI cable for this application require serpentining
cable in the heated sections because of low watt density available in current MI cable constructions.
Splices are also an issue for deployment in these applications in confined areas in the well.
Viscosity Reduction of heavy oil is dependent on reservoir initial temperature. Reservoir temperature
in Alberta is typically 10° C. As seen in Figure 2, various bitumens will have high viscosity at reservoir
temperatures, but raising the temperature 100° C will reduce the viscosity and permit standard pumping
technology to produce the crude. Here both higher voltage and longer circuit lengths are needed to both
conserve energy and make the horizontal well construction economic.
SPE-179095-MS 3

Figure 2—(from Dusseault 20062)

Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) Electric Preheat and Production Heat is a relatively new
application just entering the pilot stage at a number of locations. A back of the envelope calculation shows
the possibility of a 50% water reduction if the reservoir is heated to about 100° C before steam is
introduced. In some cases, 7 barrels of water are produced for every barrel of oil. This could be reduced
to less than 4 barrels when the formation is preheated with electrical heating. The ultimate in this
application is to completely replace ⬙steam heat⬙ with electrical heat. A drawback from total ⬙steam heat⬙
could be the lack of the steam drive mechanism produced in classical SADG deployments. An installation
method using coiled tubing instead of strapping the heater to the production string makes the deployment
more economic as will be discussed later in the paper.

Insitu Upgrading and Conversion Process

In Colorado there are over 2 trillion equivalent barrels of oil in the Green River oil shale formations in
the Piceance basin. Major oil companies have been experimenting with different processing techniques for
many years. Most processes require mining and retort processing at temperature as high as 800° C. Shell
Oil has patented a process using electrical heaters to provide an ⬙Insitu Conversion Process⬙ (ICP)6 that
converts the oil shale into high grade crude oil. This process can be thought of as ⬙a virtual refinery⬙ in
the reservoir. Approximately 320° C formation temperature is needed to complete this process. MI Cable
heaters have been used for the initial pilot and estimates for commercialization require longer heater at
higher heat output.
The Grosmont Area of Alberta has significant proven reserves. Shell E&P has carried out a pilot to test
proprietary in situ technology5. The In situ Upgrading Process (IUP) is a bitumen enhancement technol-
ogy developed by Shell that heats the reservoir with electrical heaters to convert the bitumen into lighter
crude oil and gas while still underground.
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Current Deployment technology for Downhole Heaters

The current method of deployment of electrical heaters requires strapping the heater to a production string
as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3—

This method is slow and expensive because it is preformed over the well on site. Extra protective
clamps must be used over production pipe string joints. The use of a ⬙factory⬙ fabricated coiled tubing
system simplifies this process significantly.
Coiled Tubing Design Requirements
As mentioned before, historical MI cable electrical technology was limited to 600 volts and the
manufacturing capacity limited the lengths to about 250 feet. Anything longer than 250 feet needs to be
spliced and the splice increased the diameter by about a factor of three. Also, the need to increase
operational voltage to provide less ⬙ohmic heating⬙ was necessary. Losses in the overburden for high
power heaters could reach 50% at 600 volts. At 4160 Volts the losses could be reduced to about 11%3
From 2000 to 2012, work was done (MCAAA Heater Cables, Ltd) on both increasing the voltage
capability of MI cable and developing a manufacturing process that would eliminate the splices This effort
has been successful and now long spliceless MI cable is available that can operate reliability at 4160 volts
and can be manufactured in long lengths.4 5
Operational Criteria
The near well bore thermal environment controls power and heating capabilities. The question is usually:
⬙how fast can heat be introduced into the formation?⬙ The constraining variable is usually the ability of
the formation to accept the heat. The thermal diffusivity of the near well bore will determine the
SPE-179095-MS 5

acceptance rate of heating. For Alberta heavy oil, this acceptance rate has been between 500 watts/meter
and 1200 watts/meter. There is still some disagreement on the maximum rates to prevent coaking or insitu
conversion (a patented process by a major oil company6). Some reservoir models are limited in near
wellbore modeling and separate modeling tools can be used to understand the thermal criteria for heat
injection.

Electric Heating Elements packaged in Coiled Tubing

Packaging heating elements inside of coiled tubing offers many advantages including ease of deployment,
reusability, and ease of integrating temperature and pressure monitoring. Perhaps most importantly
however, the coiled tubing distributes the heat over a larger surface area which helps reduce coking and
thermal runaway failures compared to clamping exposed heating elements to casing. Additionally,
utilizing coiled tubing allows for integrated injection lines for injecting solvents or other fluids from one
or many ports along the wellbore. Preferably the package will include DTS fiber optics for temperature
monitoring and heater control. The fiber optics provide continuous distributed monitoring that is immune
to the electrical noise of the heater operation, that, for instance, MI thermocouples would be susceptible
to. This gives the operator full control and ensures that hot spots don’t develop and that heater operation
can be tuned to the application. Successfully packaging the heating elements and instrumentation are
critical to the reliability of the downhole heating systgem system. Ideally the integration will occur at a
facility that is secure, adequately sized, with a long, level, straight paved section.

Fabrication of coiled tubing with heaters and instrumentation

Two methods have been used for insertion of heaters in cooiled tubing. One is laying out the tubing on
an airport runway and pulling in the heaters and instrumentation. The other is using a vertical well and
inserting the coiled tubing and then inserting the heater and instrumentation. This paper describes the
⬙airport runway⬙ method, used in fabrication of a number of coiled tubing heater assemblie including the
one mentioned in reference5.
Figure 4 shows the fabrication airstrip for a 1200 meter coiled tubing heater fabrication. The heater
system was subsequently coiled onto a drum (Figure 5) for shipment to the installation site in northern
Alberta.

Figure 4 —(Reference 5)
6 SPE-179095-MS

Figure 5—(Reference 5)

Figure 6 —(Reference 5)
SPE-179095-MS 7

Surface Power and Control Package

Typically one heater control skid is utilized for each heater installation. Each control skid includes a main
power disconnect, an input line reactor, an SCR drive for heater power control, a power step-up
transformer, a power conditioning panel and a heater interface panel. All of the equipment is packaged and
mounted in a skid configuration for easy shipping to location and for ease of reusability within the project
area, if, or when, the heating elements are moved from well to well.
The heater interface panel monitors three phase voltages and currents using potential and current
transformers. The controller also provides a backlit display and keypad so that the operator can check all
down-hole and skid sensors and heater related readings. Local adjustment of all operational parameters
can be field adjusted. A viewable onboard log keeps a record of setting adjustments and operational
activity. Data and operational parameters retrieval can be achieved via a number of communication
protocols. Heater control algorithms include ramp up and ramp down of heater power reducing thermal
stress induced heater failures as well as power modulation to prevent overcurrent and overheat conditions.
Conclusion
Medium voltage coupled with coiled tubing deployment provides a new tool for the downhole well
engineer. The restrictions of the past, splices in MI cable, unacceptable heat generation in the overburden
and on site well fabrication of the heater system have all been overcome by recent advances. The medium
voltage MI cable is now available in lengths up to 3000 meters, operation at medium voltage has both
reduced heat generation in the overburden and allows increased horizontal well length. Remote fabrication
of the heater system in coiled tubing reduces onsiste labor and provides the ability to proof test the heater
system before deployment. This technique provides an economic and reliable method for installation of
electrical heater systems in both vertical and horizontal wells for a number of varied applications for oil
and gas production.

References:
1. Chet Sandberg,, Arthur Hale, Anthony R. Kovscek, SPE, History and Application of Resistance Electrical Heaters in
Downhole Oil Field Applications, SPE Number SPE Western Regional & AAPG Pacific Section Meeting, 2013 Joint
Technical Conference held in Monterey, California, USA, 19⫺25 April 2013
2. Dusseault, M. B. (12–14 June 2001). ⬙Comparing Venezuelan and Canadian heavy oil and tar sands⬙. Proceedings of
Petroleum Society’s Canadian International Conference. 2001-061: 20p
3. Sandberg, Chet, Thomas Keith, Hale, Arthur Advances in Electrical Heating Technology for Heavy Oil Production,
SPE-170146-MS Heavy Oil Conference Calgary Alberta Canada 2014
4. Alan Burnham, Chet Sandberg, Keith Thomas, Vincent Reiling, John Faull, Lee Bourgeois, Jeremy Huffman, Leonard
Switzer, Qualification of high-power-density mineral-insulated electric heater cables, 35th Oil Shale Symposium, Salt
Lake City, Utah, October 5– 6, 2015
5. David Burns, Dave, de St Remey, Edward, Sandberg, Chet, Advances in MI Cable Capabilities for Downhole and
Offshore Applications, PCIC Europe, London, June 8, 2015
6. Thomas D. Fowler, SPE and Harold J. Vinegar, SPE 121164 Oil Shale ICP – Colorado Field Pilots SPE, 2009