Development status and prospect of deep-water heavy oil production technology

Deep-water heavy oil is an important marine petroleum resource. Due to the low temperature in deep water, the mobility of the heavy oil is low, leading to difficult development. Based on the development situation of the heavy oil industry in China and the experience of the successful cases of deep-water heavy oil development overseas, the paper summarizes the main developing technology and method of the deep-water heavy oil development in aspects of key facility, artificial lift equipment, drilling completion technology and flow assurance method, and analyses the experience of Petrobras in developing Campos Basin deep-water heavy oil field. The conclusion is that by using reasonable secondary recovery, artificial lift and flow assurance technology, the deep-water heavy oil projects can be beneficial and promising. The paper gives some exploratory viewpoint and suggestions, which is of important value to exploit the deep-water heavy oil development technology.