Improved Oil Recovery Techniques and Their Role in Energy Efficiency and Reducing CO2 Footprint of Oil Production

Abstract

AbstractThe energy intensity (and potentially CO2 intensity) of the production of hydrocarbons increases with the lifetime of the oil fields. This is related to the large volumes of gas and water that need to be handled for producing the oil. There are two potential methods to reduce CO2 emissions from the aging fields: (1) use a low-carbon energy source and/or (2) reduce the volumes of the non-hydrocarbon produced/injected fluids. The first solution requires detailed analysis considering the availability of the infrastructure and carbon tax/credit economics and is largely influenced by the cost of the CO2 capture technologies and renewable power. The second solution utilizes improved/enhanced oil recovery methods (I/EOR) aimed at injecting materials to increase the fraction of oil in the producers.In this paper, we use the production data from a field in the Middle East and show the high-level economics associated with switching the field operating energy demand to solar energy. We begin the analysis by first investigating the energy requirement of different stages in the life cycle of oil production and quantifying the CO2 emission and energy loss that can be avoided in each stage. We also utilize the concept of exergy to identify process steps that require lower energy quality and thus are the main targets for optimization. The analysis indicates that preventing CO2 emission is economically more attractive than utilizing mitigation methods, i.e., to capture the emitted CO2 and store it at later stages. Moreover, we show quantitatively how I/EOR techniques can be designed to reduce the CO2 intensity (kgCO2/bbl oil) of oil production. The energy efficiency of any oil production system depends on the injectant utilization factor, i.e., the volume of produced oil per mass or volume of the injectant.