Enhanced Oil Recovery

EOR Introduction
EOR is a method that use to recover the oil content when the general oil production method no longer efficient

Oil recovery methods

1. Primary recovery: a. When the natural reservoir energy has been depleted, it becomes necessary to augment the natural energy with an external source. 2. Secondary recovery a. When water injection is the secondary recovery process, the process is referred to as waterooding. The main purpose of either a natural gas or a water injection process is to repressurize the reservoir and then to maintain the reservoir at a high pressure. Hence the term pressure maintenance is sometimes used to describe a secondary recovery process. b. When gas is used as the pressure maintenance agent, it is usually injected into a zone of free gas (i.e., a gas cap) to maximize recovery by gravity drainage. The injected gas is usually natural gas produced from the reservoir in question. This, of course, defers the sale of that gas until the secondary operation is completed and the gas can be recovered by depletion.

c. No compositional or temperature changes take place in the reservoir except pressure and displacement d. Its suitable for light oil, low viscosity oil and low pressure reservoirs

3. Tertiary recovery or EOR a. The term enhanced oil recovery (EOR) was introduced and has become popular in referring to, in general, any recovery process that enhances the recovery of oil beyond what primary and secondary production would normally be expected to yield. b. Appropriate selection and design are important. c. Sometimes Tertiary Recovery Methods called EOR Methods. But this does not mean that EOR Methods have to be applied after Secondary Recovery. In some cases, EOR Methods could be applied after Primary or even at discovery.

Typical Recovery Factors:

Natural or Primary Methods: o Heavy oil o Light oil: solution gas drive water drive, gas cap gravity drainage Secondary Methods o Water flood o Immiscible Gas flood Tertiary or EOR Methods o Laboratory tests o Field applications 05 - 15% 10 - 25% 20 - 40% 30 - 45%

20 - 45% 15 - 40%

70 - 90% 45 - 75%

EOR Technical Concepts:

EOR is the recovery method technic to improving the performance of existing oil fields, also to access reserves that were previously unattainable due to geology or expense. EOR is chiefly concerned with affecting the mobility of the oil, primarily by injecting fluids either a natural gas or water. These processes can result in 30-60 % or more of the reservoirs original oil being extracted, compared to just 20-40% using primary or secondary recovery methods. The overall recovery efciency E of any uid displacement process is given by the product of the volumetric (macroscopic), displacement efciency Ev, and the microscopic displacement efciency Ed. The macroscopic (volumetric) displacement efciency is a measure of how well the displacing uid has come in contact with the oil-bearing parts of the reservoir. The macroscopic (volumetric) displacement efciency is made up of two other terms, the areal, Es and vertical Ei, Sweep efciencies: Ev = Es . Ei When using water, consideration of the mobility of the fluids is an important factor when determining the area and vertical sweep efficiencies. This would help to determine the mobility ratio. The microscopic displacement efciency is a measure of how well the displacing uid mobilizes the residual oil once the uid has come in contact with the oil. If M is less than one (M<1), then oil is capable of travelling at a rate equivalent to the water. An increase in the viscosity of the oil would mean that M would increase and this would lead to the injected fluid moving around the oil. This would also make it harder for the oil to penetrate the pore. To improve this ratio, the viscosity of the water has to be increased. When M is greater than one (M>1), the displacing fluid has greater mobility than the displaced fluid. Also the position of the water injection and the flooding patterns would go a long way to determining the recovery patterns. The oil recovery is to direct the injection wells around the production well. As the mobility ratio increases, the sweep efficiency decreases. Once a channel of water exists between the injector and the producer, then little additional oil would be recovered. Permeability varies in a vertically direction can create an irregular vertical fluid front and this is as a result of the differing permeability and the mobility ratio. Displacement efficiency is the fraction of oil that is swept from unit volume of reservoir upon injection. This depends on the mobility ratio, the wettability of the rock and the pore geometry.

The wettability is determined by the absorption of the grains to oil over water.

Enhanced oil recovery processes can be classied into four categories:

1. Miscible ooding processes:

Miscible displacement includes:-

Single contact and Multiple-contact miscible processes.

2. Chemical ooding processes Polymer, Micellarpolymer, and Alkaline ooding. 3. Thermal ooding processes Hot water, steam cycling, steam drive, and In-situ combustion. 4. Microbial ooding processes In general, thermal processes are applicable in reservoirs containing heavy crude oils, whereas chemical and miscible displacement processes are used in reservoirs containing light crude oils. Microbial processes use microorganisms to assist in oil recovery.