Enhanced recovery
Operators are turning to new gas-lift and nanoparticle-fluid technologies to drive up production rates.
This paper addresses the difficulty in adjusting late-stage production in waterflooded reservoirs and proposes an integrated well-network-design mode for carbon-dioxide enhanced oil recovery and storage.
This work presents the development of fast predictive models and optimization methodologies to evaluate the potential of carbon-dioxide EOR and storage operations quickly in mature oil fields.
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Part of what makes DME an intriguing EOR technology is that it is soluble in both water and oil—with a preference for the latter. Shell’s plan is to add DME to the waterflooding stream to reach a concentration of about 16%, the upper limit of its dissolvability. -
This paper describes a gas-injection pilot that has been implemented in offshore Middle East carbonate reservoirs to assess injectivity, productivity, macroscopic-sweep efficiency, flow assurance, and operational efficiency in a field that has a long water-injection history.
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The operator has initiated a cyclic-steam-stimulation project in the Opal A diatomite of the Sisquoc formation on the Careaga lease in the Orcutt oil field in Santa Barbara County, California. This paper discusses steam-injection step-rate tests (SRTs) for this asset as part of its expansion.
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The polymer-injection project in the Dalia field, one of the main fields of Block 17 in deepwater Angola, represents a world first for both surface and subsurface aspects.
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The Loma Alta Sur (LAS) field is a multilayer fluvial sandstone reservoir in the Neuquén basin of Argentina. Colloidal-dispersion-gel injection was considered a viable strategy to improve oil recovery in the field after early water breakthrough.
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Since 2006, production from gas injection has outstripped that from thermal, and is continuing to grow. Even though industry conditions remain tough, EOR is expected to be increasingly important in the future, with the possibility of further uptake of it linked to the climate-change agenda.
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With the recent drop in oil prices, operators are shifting to optimization of existing assets with minimal costs. For mature floods (water, chemical, and CO2), one low-cost optimization strategy is the intelligent adjustment of well-rate targets.
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Thermal steam stimulation is considered the most effective of current methods for heavy-oil production. However, the method has problems with low coverage by steam injection and decreased efficiency.
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The addition of a hydrocarbon condensate to steam operations in heavy-oil and bitumen reservoirs has emerged as a potential technology to improve not only oil recovery but also energy efficiency.
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Chemical enhanced-oil-recovery methods such as polymer and alkaline/surfactant/polymer (ASP) flooding are generally not considered suitable for oil viscosities greater than 100 or 200 cp.
