Aprés 110 ans d' exploitation il continue de débiter grace à l' injection de vapeur (chauffée donc).
C' est devenu un labo industriel à grande échelle et un démonstrateur pour les ingénieurs du pétrole.
Ca sort encore 79000 barils de pétrole/j , ayant piqué à 140 000 barils de pétrole/j.
Chevron Squeezes New Oil from One of World's Oldest Fields
Chevron Corp. is employing new technologies in hopes of extending the life of one of the world's oldest and most prolific oil fields, a process that is being replicated elsewhere to help the energy industry squeeze more out of aging oil basins.
The Kern River field has produced more than 2 billion barrels of oil in its 110-year history, but Chevron estimates it still holds another 1.5 billion barrels.
Chevron is using the Kern River field as a real-world laboratory, testing enhanced recovery techniques and bringing in engineers from around the world to learn them. "The thing about being in this old oil field," said Chevron engineer Joe Fram, "you can try stuff."
To get as many of those barrels as possible out of the ground -- and do so cheaply enough to turn a profit -- Chevron is deploying high-tech temperature sensors to monitor its production, using three-dimensional computer models to plan its wells and filtering waste water from the fields through walnut shells so it can be re-used.
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To get the oil out of the Kern River field, Chevron injects steam into the ground, which heats the rock and thins out the gooey liquid so that it flows more easily to the surface. The process is far more expensive than conventional oil production, with thin profit margins that can disappear entirely when oil prices drop or costs rise.
It has drilled 660 observation wells equipped with sensors to track the temperature of the reservoir so engineers can see where heat is most needed, and has developed its own equipment to direct the steam there.
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Today, the Kern River field is a sea of pipelines, storage tanks and about 9,000 slowly bobbing pumpjacks that still pull nearly 79,000 barrels of oil a day from the rock below down from 140,000 barrels a day at its peak.