Page 10 - Primer on Enhanced Oil Recovery

Introduction
1

Abstract

Crude oil is a vital natural resource for civilization. Traditional oil extraction is a complex
process and on the industrial scale complete extraction of oil from a reservoir is impossi-
ble. Less than half of reservoir oil, even in the best case scenario of light oil, can be
extracted “relatively” easily. High viscosity crudes are almost unextractable by the tradi-
tional methods. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is a set of technologies and methods to
extract more oil and progress extraction up to 80% and beyond. This book is an introduc-
tion to EOR. It covers all basic processes and concepts at the beginning and then intro-
duces all EOR traditional and newly used techniques, including a brief on renewable
energy utilisation in EOR. The presented material is very condensed and full subject
understanding is only possible on the basis of many other texts, original publications and
practical experience.
Crude oil extraction is complicated and is stretched-in-time business. Big profits and
losses can be easily made. Good understanding of processes and careful, both technologi-
cal and business, planning are essential. The book only marks the boundaries of this
highly professional field.
The book does not require any prior knowledge in oil extraction and is intended for a
wide audience.
Oil was, is and will be for long time an essential natural resource for the human
civilization. Oil has been and is used as an energy source and as a chemical com-
modity. It is estimated that currently every day we consume almost 100 thousand
barrels of oil. It is said that burning oil and all it derivatives supplies approximate a
third of all energy used by the humanity. While our estimates for oil reserves vary
wildly and depend on accounting for different types of oil and different extraction
methods, two points remind the same. Oil is not a renewable resource eventually
we will use majority of it and we urgently need to seek other energy sources for
our activities. Secondly, burning oil and other hydrocarbons releases very high
amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide capture, while
developing rapidly, most likely would not capture all produced carbon dioxide and
this greenhouse gas will accumulate in the atmosphere with all disastrous conse-
quences of global warming. On both accounts, it will be prudent to limit and reduce
oil use for energy generation. However, the forecast in oil consumption rather pre-
dicts an increase in global oil usage.
Oil is produced by extraction from predominantly underground reserves. We
more and more extinguish easily reachable reservoirs and we need to involve more
and more advanced technology to get oil for the refineries and other chemical
plants. Market oil price is a very complex composite and is dictated by many
Primer on Enhanced Oil Recovery. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817632-0.00001-3
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