16 October 2007 Outline of This Presentation • Reasons for supporting tertiary oil recovery • Primary Oil Recovery • Secondary Oil Recovery • Tertiary Oil Recovery - Thermal Processes - Miscible Processes - Chemical Processes - Biological Processes Why are we doing this?? $86 per barrel of crude oil Primary oil recovery – can only recover 10 percent of a reservoir’s original oil in place Secondary oil recovery – 20 to 40 percent Tertiary oil recovery – 30 to 60 percent Undeveloped domestic oil resources still in the ground total more than 430 billion barrels. Primary Oil Recovery • The initial stage of producing oil from a reservoir • Use natural forces such as - expansion of oil, gas or both - displacement by naturally pressurized water - drainage from a reservoir in high elevation to a well in lower elevation - artificial techniques (pumps) Secondary Oil Recovery • Injection of fluids in a series of wells to force oil into another series of wells (essentially augmenting the natural forces used in primary methods) • Waterflooding Thermal Processes • Viscosity is a measure of a liquid’s ability to flow • High viscosity of oil makes it difficult to flow • Reduce the viscosity with high temperature • Steam Injection - Cyclic steam injection - Steam drive Cyclic Steam Injection • High pressure of steam (or steam and hot water) injected into well for days/weeks • Injection is stopped and the reservoir is “soaked” • Well is then allowed to backflow to surface • Condensed steam/ hot water vaporizes to drive oil out • When production is low, process is repeated • “Huff and Puff” method Steam Drive • “Steam flooding” • Same method as water flooding • Continuous injection of steam (or steam and hot water) • A reservoir is developed with interlocking patterns of injection and production wells • Series of zones developed as the fluids move from injection wells to production wells Miscible Processes • Injected fluid dissolves the oil that it contacts • Variety of fluid: - Alcohol - Carbon dioxide - Petroleum hydrocarbons (propane, propane-butane) - Petroleum gasses (ethane, propane, butane, pentane) • Fluid selectivity depends on the type of reservoir and crude oil • Expensive fluid (supplementary process to recover fluid or use it sparingly) • “Slug” – 5% to 50% of reservoir volume pushed through by gas/water brine or chemically treated brine CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery • All the petroleum hydrocarbons are expensive (not viable in economic sense) • CO2 is cheap and widely available (mostly use natural CO2 deposits) • Complete mixing depends on reservoir temperature, pressure, chemical nature and density of oil • Generally, it’s deeper than 1200m and oil lighter than 220 API • CO2 is stable in supercritical state (6.9 MPa and 310C) • Injected CO2 will diminish the interfacial tension between itself and the crude oil Chemical Processes • Involved the usage of surfactant/polymer, polymer, alkaline flooding • Surfactant/polymer flooding: - microemulsion/micellar flooding - detergent-like material injected to modify the oil interactions with its surroundings - emulsify/partly dissolve oil - high cost, small volume • Polymer flooding - a chemically augmented waterflood - polyacrylamides/polysaccharides - increase effectiveness of water in displacing oil • Alkaline flooding - sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate, sodium carbonate - react with constituents in the crude oil or rock/crude oil interface - detergent-like material to reduce the ability of the formation to retain oil Biological Processes • Utilize microbes to enhance oil recovery • Occupy pore spaces to release trapped oil and reduce water cut • Microbial response: - larger - shrink - oleophilic - attach and surround oil droplets - deform droplets to form smaller droplets - smaller droplets able to escape pore spaces - byproduct of metabolism (CO2 and biomass) - biosurfactants (slimy substances – exopolysaccharides) - Xanthomans campestris bacteria (Xantan) • Reservoir response: - microbes attached to water and oil droplets move faster through high permeable sections of the field (thief zones). This combination and fast flow creates a natural emulsion only in the thief zones. - thief zones are temporarily blocked - water is diverted to unswept areas of the field, thus increasing sweeping efficiency Case Study: Beatrice Field, North Sea, England • The Beatrice Field is in a steep North Sea production decline • Scheduled to be abandoned in 1995-96 • Applied the microbial enhanced oil recovery (Titan Process) from 1992-95 • Oil production scheduled to decline to 5000 bopd (now producing 12000 bopd) • 5.5 million barrels of excess oil was produced REFERENCES • http://www.titanoilrecovery.com/pdfs/TitanBrochure.pdf • http://www.biobasics.gc.ca/english/View.asp?x=793 • http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/index.ht ml • Enhanced Oil Recovery Potential in the United States, Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment, January 1978, #PB-276594 • Enhanced Oil Recovery Scoping Study, A. Amamath, 1999 THANK YOU!!