Towards an Economically Viable (A)SP Flooding Project in West Salym
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Chemical flooding is one of the classical EOR methods, together with thermal methods and gas injection. It is not a new method; indeed, the first polymer flood field pilots date back to the 1950s while the first surfactant-based pilots can be traced back to the 1960s. However, while both gas injection and thermal methods have long been recognised as field proven and are being used at a large scale in multiple fields, it is not the case for chemical EOR. Although there have been over 500 polymer flood pilots recorded, and almost 100 surfactant-based field tests, large scale field applications are few and far between. This situation seems to be evolving however, as more and more large scale chemical projects get underway. This paper proposes to review the status of chemical EOR worldwide to determine whether it is finally coming of age. The status of chemical EOR projects worldwide will be reviewed, focusing on recent and current large-scale field developments. This will allow to establish what is working and where the industry is still encountering difficulties. This review will cover North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It is clear that polymer flooding is now indeed becoming a well-established process, with many large-scale projects ongoing or in the early stages of implementation in particular in Canada, Argentina, India, Albania and Oman in addition to China. Strangely enough, the US lags behind with no ongoing large-scale polymer flood. The situation is more complex for surfactant-based processes. At the moment, large-scale projects can only be found in China and – although to a lesser extent – in Canada. The situation appears on the brink of changing however, with some large developments in the early stages in Oman, India and Russia. Still, the economics of surfactant-based processes are still challenging and there is some disagreement between the various actors as to whether surfactant-polymer or alkali-surfactant polymer is the way to go. This review will demonstrate that polymer flooding is now a mature technology that has finally made it to very large-scale field applications. Surfactant-based processes however, are lagging behind due in part to technical issues but even more to challenging economics. Still there is light at the end of the tunnel and the coming years may well be a turning point for this technology.
Chemical flooding is one of the classical EOR methods, together with thermal methods and gas injection. It is not a new method; indeed, the first polymer flood field pilots date back to the 1950s while the first surfactant-based pilots can be traced back to the 1960s. However, while both gas injection and thermal methods have long been recognised as field proven and are being used at a large scale in multiple fields, it is not the case for chemical EOR. Although there have been over 500 polymer flood pilots recorded, and almost 100 surfactant-based field tests, large scale field applications are few and far between. This situation seems to be evolving however, as more and more large scale chemical projects get underway. This paper proposes to review the status of chemical EOR worldwide to determine whether it is finally coming of age. The status of chemical EOR projects worldwide will be reviewed, focusing on recent and current large-scale field developments. This will allow to establish what is working and where the industry is still encountering difficulties. This review will cover North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It is clear that polymer flooding is now indeed becoming a well-established process, with many large-scale projects ongoing or in the early stages of implementation in particular in Canada, Argentina, India, Albania and Oman in addition to China. Strangely enough, the US lags behind with no ongoing large-scale polymer flood. The situation is more complex for surfactant-based processes. At the moment, large-scale projects can only be found in China and – although to a lesser extent – in Canada. The situation appears on the brink of changing however, with some large developments in the early stages in Oman, India and Russia. Still, the economics of surfactant-based processes are still challenging and there is some disagreement between the various actors as to whether surfactant-polymer or alkali-surfactant polymer is the way to go. This review will demonstrate that polymer flooding is now a mature technology that has finally made it to very large-scale field applications. Surfactant-based processes however, are lagging behind due in part to technical issues but even more to challenging economics. Still there is light at the end of the tunnel and the coming years may well be a turning point for this technology.
Integrating ASP Flooding into Mature Polymer Flooding in Marmul Field in Southern Oman
The Marmul field is a medium-large mature oil field situated in the Southern part of Oman. Due to the relatively high viscosity of Marmul crude (~90 cP at reservoir conditions), polymer and ASP flooding were selected as the technology to improve the oil recovery beyond that of waterflooding. The commercial-scale polymer flooding in Marmul has been ongoing since 2010 and recently further expansions plans were announced. ASP flooding was extensively studies through the laboratory tests and field trials. Two field trials (Pilot and Phase-1A) with different ASP formulations and targeting different target reservoir intervals indicated a potential of 20-30% incremental oil recovery due to ASP injection after the water flooding. In the ongoing ASP field trial (Phase-1B project), the ASP solution is being injected in the quaternary mode to test the post-polymer performance of ASP flooding under field conditions. Post the technical success of the ASP Phase-1B project, the task was to identify the optimal concept for the ASP flooding in the Marmul field. A hybrid approach based on numerical modeling and data-driven capacitance-resistance modeling was proposed to calculate the incremental oil recovery due to ASP flooding for the well patterns. Moreover, this publication presents the approach to integrating the ASP flooding into the mature polymer flooding in the Marmul oil covering both subsurface and surface aspects. Marmul well patterns are both water and polymer flooded; hence an attempt was made to evaluate the efficiency of ASP flooding for both post-polymer and post-water injection conditions. Data from core flooding experiments and field trials were used to forecast the efficiency of ASP flooding post-water and post-polymer flooding. Moreover, to take into account the properties variation across the field a set of field parameters such as reservoir heterogeneity and mineralogy, remaining oil saturation and its distribution, well performance, etc., was used to forecast the performance of ASP flooding in different well patterns. Resulting pattern-specific oil recovery was used in an economic evaluation to select the optimal concept for the commercial-scale ASP flooding project in Marmul.
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