A review of gas enhanced oil recovery schemes used in the North Sea

Abstract

The rate of replacement of produced oil and gas reserves by new discoveries is in a state of steady decline. Instead of searching for rare new oil fields, it is more economically justified to improve production from the existing and known fields. This is often achieved using enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies. The application of EOR in the North Sea dates to the mid-1970's with most of the fields being flooded with gas due to their light oils. Following a critical review of relevant published literature, the EOR methods in the past five decades are: water alternating gas (WAG), miscible gas injection (MGI), foam assisted water alternating gas (FAWAG), simultaneous water and gas (SWAG), and microbial enhanced oil recovery. The first part of this paper explores the advantages and limitations of the field implementation of gas EOR methods in North Sea oil fields. In the second part, new screening criteria of WAG, SWAG, MGI and FAWAG were developed by performing statistical analysis of the data from the past field experiences, especially in the North Sea. The screening criteria of the future methods are clearly documented in the literature and therefore not covered in this study. From the screening criteria, it has been identified that most North Sea fields qualify for WAG. This explains why WAG has been the most common scheme in the North Sea. FAWAG should also be implemented either after WAG or SWAG when the residual oil saturation is < 20%.

An overview of chemical enhanced oil recovery: recent advances and prospects

“…Equation (4) shows that, at favourable intermediate contact angles (between 60° and 90°), the detachment energy will be very large. The particles will be strongly…”

“…The processes of oil recovery are majorly in three stages namely: primary, secondary and tertiary (EOR) stage. After the application of primary and secondary oil recovery techniques, two-third of the original oil in place (OOIP) remains in the reservoir [3,4]. This is either because the oil is trapped by capillary forces (residual oil) or bypassed in some other way.…”

“…To enhance the overall oil displacement efficiency, numerous EOR methods have been devised and utilized [4,[6][7][8][9]. During oil recovery, the overall oil displacement efficiency is a combination of macroscopic (volumetric sweep) and microscopic (pore scale) displacement efficiency.…”

Experimental Evaluation of the Mobility Profile of Enhanced Oil Recovery Gases

“…One of the key objectives of reservoir engineering is to identify which Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) process is capable of displacing and producing the most oil. For over 6 decades, gases such as CO 2 , CH 4 , N 2 , and Air have been injected into reservoirs to displace trapped oil ( [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]). However, different gases may exhibit certain flow pressure, volume, temperature (PVT) behaviour that could improve or inhibit their EOR potential and efficiency.…”

Nanotechnology Application in Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery: Current Opinion and Recent Advances

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