The Potential Of Enhanced Oil Recovery Processes

Abstract

American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc. Abstract The results of three successive surveys of industrial and cooperative federal/industry field testing of Enhanced Oil Recovery methods are summarized. Included are industry's forecasts of potential domestic EOR production and reserves and of the relative production and reserves and of the relative potential of the various major EOR potential of the various major EOR processes. processes. OVERVIEW OF EOR POTENTIAL Any discussion of the "Potential of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Processes" must emphasize the word "Potential". The dictionary definition of "potential" is: "possible, but not yet realized; or, capable of being, but not yet in existence". This definition accurately describes the status of EOR processes at this time. While there is little disagreement that EOR processes promise to be an important factor in crude oil production, there is equally little production, there is equally little disagreement that this has yet to be demonstrated. EOR technology is not yet developed to the point of permitting accurate prediction of performance and risk prediction of performance and risk assessment. Therefore, it is not ready for production-scale application. For this reason, any projection of the Ultimate Recovery or of the time frame for a given level of Annual Production to be realized from EOR processes must be based solely on informed engineering opinion. It follows, then, that projections of production costs for EOR projections of production costs for EOR crude oil cannot be made except as very approximate ranges of cost for hypothetical successful operations. Finally, a prediction of the production vs time profile and of the incremental increase profile and of the incremental increase in recovery for a specific EOR process as applied to a specific reservoir in advance of large scale field test completion may be even more suspect than projections of total domestic projections of total domestic production, since statistical averages do not production, since statistical averages do not apply. There is, then, considerable uncertainty regarding both the technical and the economic feasibility of EOR, especially as applied to a specific reservoir.