CCS for PAR
Crude oil production in U.S. oil fields frequently includes three distinct phases: primary, secondary, and tertiary (or enhanced recovery). During the primary recovery phase, gravity, natural reservoir pressure and artificial lifting techniques are used to push the oil into the well. This initial phase generally allows only about 10% of the initial oil in place (OOIP) to be recovered. Secondary recovery techniques are used to extend the productive life of a field by injecting water or gas to move the oil and direct it to a production well, thereby generally allows you to recover 20 to 40% of the OOIP.
However, much of the easy-to-produce oil has already been extracted from U.S. oil fields, forcing producers to turn to several tertiary recovery, or reclamation, techniques. Enhanced oil recovery (RAP). RAP technologies offer prospects of final production of 30 to 60%, or even more, of the OOIP of a reservoir.
Three major categories of RAP have proven to be commercially successful: gas injection, chemical injection, and thermal recovery. Gas injection is the most common RAP technology in the United States, accounting for nearly 60% of RAP production in the country. Gas injection uses gases like CO2, natural gas or nitrogen that expand in a reservoir to push more oil toward a production well, while other gases dissolve in the oil and help reduce its viscosity and improve its flow. CO2 injection has been used successfully in the Permian Basin of west Texas and eastern New Mexico, as well as in Kansas, Mississippi, Wyoming, in Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Alaska and Pennsylvania.
Source: DoE
The United States Department of Energy is currently conducting research into innovative techniques that could significantly improve economic performance and expand the applicability of fuel injection. CO2 to a larger group of tanks. The DoE estimates that the next generation of CO2 RAP has the potential to produce more than 60 billion barrels of oil that would otherwise remain trapped in rocks.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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