Enhanced oil recovery projects

World Oil, April, 2002 by Perry A. Fischer

Nearly two-thirds of the original oil discovered in the U.S remains in the ground after conventional recovery operations. This oil--about 200 billion bbl--could be recovered if new technologies can be developed. The Department of Energy's Fossil Energy research program is adding three new EOR projects to be carried out by three of the Nation's top petroleum engineering universities.

Louisiana State University will receive $1.2 million to develop a new gas-injection EOR process. The goal is to effectively recover trapped oil by boring a producing well horizontally near the bottom of the oil-bearing formation, then injecting gas through vertical wells to create a gas zone that will force the oil to drain into the producer well.

University of Houston will receive nearly $1.2 million to develop an inexpensive surfactant--a soap-like chemical--that can free oil trapped in carbonate formations. Carbonate formations hold perhaps 20 billion bbl of unrecovered oil in three major Texas regions alone, but they pose difficult challenges for producers. Surfactants were developed for sandstone reservoirs, now University of Houston researchers want to determine if, under the right conditions, they can be effective in carbonate reservoirs.

Oklahoma University will receive nearly $1.5 million to focus on microbial enhanced oil recovery. University researchers are developing more effective and cost-efficient. Biosurfactants--microbial organisms that behave like detergents to sweep oil from a reservoir.

These EOR projects are geared more toward smaller independent oil producers who conduct virtually no research on their own. Most unrecovered oil in the U.S. resides in fields operated by independent producers, and they produce 50% of domestic petroleum in the Lower 48.