Page 216 - Primer on Enhanced Oil Recovery

EOR economics
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Abstract

Contemporary oil recovery faces with three choices to find new oil fields, to improve
recovery factors from the well-developed fields and to progress in recovery from heavy
oil fields. It proves increasingly difficult to find new easily (e.g. cheaply) recoverable oil.
It is estimated that only below one third of all existing oil can be counted as light and is
relatively easy to recover. More and more attention is diverted to further development of
already used fields or to develop heavy oil reservoirs.

Contemporary oil recovery faces with three choices to find new oil fields, to
improve recovery factors from the well-developed fields and to progress in recovery
from heavy oil fields. It proves increasingly difficult to find new easily (e.g.
cheaply) recoverable oil. It is estimated that only below one third of all existing oil
can be counted as light and is relatively easy to recover. More and more attention is
diverted to further development of already used fields or to develop heavy oil
reservoirs.
Oil recovery is well established activity in majority of technical and financial
aspects. Enhanced Oil recovery is but a stage of oil recovery in general.
Implementation and exploitation of EOR are associated with an additional field
development and financial outlay. It can be viewed as an integral or a separate stage
of oil recovery from a field.
During EOR implementation the old injection wells might need to be converted
for the new types of injection. New wells might be required. Solution preparation,
additional liquid/gas distribution network, new injection equipment and monitoring
infrastructure will be needed. Supply chains need to be established and necessary
chemicals purchased and supplied. Produced oil might need additional separation
with bigger capacity and special treatments. Higher volumes of connate water
should be handled and, probably, re-injected. The later by itself might need more
injection wells and pumping capacity. All separated from oil materials need to be
carefully assessed and re-used if possible. At the later stages of the field exploration
a recycling of the used equipment and infrastructure will be required to satisfy the
environmental protection. Many activities will necessitate more site personnel. The
site operation and maintenance will be more complex and require more manage-
ment and additional financial outlay. This is not the full list of everything what is
needed but it paints the seen.
The financial package is relatively complex and includes many components. It is
strongly advisable to gather as much information as attainable about the reservoir,
Primer on Enhanced Oil Recovery. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817632-0.00017-7
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