EOR Screening Criteria Revisited—Part 2: Applications and Impact of Oil Prices

Abstract

Screening criteria are useful for cursory examination of many candidate reservoirs before expensive reservoir descriptions and economic evaluations are done. We have used our C02 screening criteria to estimate the total quantity of C02 that might be needed for the oil reservoirs of the world. If only depth and oil gravity are considered, it appears that about 80% of the world's reservoirs could qualify for some type of C02 injection. Because the decisions on future EOR projects are based more on economics than on screening criteria, future oil prices are important. Therefore, we examined the impact of oil prices on EOR activities by comparing the actual EOR oil production to that predicted by earlier Natl. Petroleum Council (NPC) reports. Although the lower prices since 1986 have reduced the number of EOR projects, the actual incremental production has been very close to that predicted for U.S. $20/bbl in the 1984 NPC report. Incremental oil production from C02 flooding continues to increase, and now actually exceeds the predictions made for U.S. $20 oil in the NPC report, even though oil prices have been at approximately that level for some time. Utilization of Screening Guides With the reservoir management practices of today, engineers consider the various IOIUEOR options much earlier in the productive life of a field. For many fields, the decision is not whether, but when, to inject something. Obviously, economics always play the major role in "goho-go" decisions for expensive injection projects, but a cursory examination with the technical criteria (Tables 1 through 7) is helpful to rule out the less-likely candidates. The criteria are also useful for surveys of a large number of fields to determine whether specific gases or liquids could be used for oil recovery if an injectant was available at a low cost. This application of the C02 screening criteria is described in the next section. Estimation of the Worldwide Quantity of C 0 2 That Could Be Used for Oil Recovery. The miscible and immiscible screening criteria for C02 flooding in Table 3 of this paper and in Table 3 of Ref. 1 were used to make a rough estimate of the total quantity of C02 that would be needed to recover oil from qualified oil reservoirs throughout the world. The estimate was made for the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Program as part of their ongoing search for ways to store or dispose of very large amounts of C02 in case that becomes necessary to avert global warming. The potential for either miscible or immiscible C02 flooding for almost 1,000 oil fields was estimated by use of depth and oil-gravity data published in a recent survey.2 The percent of the fields in each country that met the criteria in Table 3 for either miscible or immiscible C02 flooding was determined and combined with that country's oil reserves to estimate the incremental oil recovery and C02 requirements. Assuming that one-half of the potential new miscible projects would be carried out as more-efficient enhanced secondary operations, an average recovery factor of 22% origi...

A pilot numerical simulation case study for chemical EOR feasibility evaluation

“…The main parameter limits for chemical flooding are summarized according to actual field applications survey, which is very useful for the following pilot design and risk assessment (Al-Adasani and Bai 2010; Alvarado and Manrique 2010;Li et al 2008;Taber et al 1997). Then the parameters of main oil zones are compared with the technical limit (Table 1).…”

Prospects for CO2 carbonation and storage in Upper Miocene sandstone of Sava Depression, Croatia

“…Mis ci ble con di tions com pletely over come cap il lary forces that re tain re sid ual oil in the pore space. Es tab lish ment of the mis ci ble zone de pends on pres sure, tem per a ture, res er voir rock, and crude oil com po si tion (e.g., Taber et al, 1997). Results of such lab o ra tory tests (Goriènik and Domitroviae, 2003;Periae and Kovaè, 2003) Sim plest ap proach, suit able for feedstock car bon ated in a sin gle pro cess step or for min er ali sa tion into subsurface Pro cess is di vided into two steps: -re ac tive com po nent (Mg or Ca) are first ex tracted from the feedstock (as ox ide or hy drox ide); -it is re acted with car bon di ox ide to form the de sired car bon ates CO 2 and an al ter na tion of CO 2 and wa ter in jec tion (wa ter al ternate gas, WAG) un der ini tial con di tions.…”

Screening and PVT Analysis on Explored-Not-Productive Southern Iranian Oilfields

“…The main tool for screening of EOR techniques is generally based on the criteria presented in a variety of tables and graphs given in the literature. The most efficient tool was proposed by Taber et al [16]- [18] and Goodlett et al [20] established the technical screening criteria of each EOR method. In recent years, simulation methods, artificial intelligence and neural networks have improved the EOR screening methods.…”