Editorial
OG-MRP IOR Views is edited on behalf of the Energy Resources Development Unit (ERDU) at DTI by David Hughes (davidavid.hughes@senergyrml.com), a principal reservoir engineer with Senergy Ltd in Aberdeen.
With the new timetable of only two issues per year it does seem a long time since the previous issue in November 2004. Nevertheless, welcome to Issue 10 of OG-MRP IOR Views. I hope you haven’t forgotten us!
New in This Issue
In this issue we have articles covering the PILOT Brownfields challenge and the new Stewardship initiative, the latest on Brent depressurisation, the interpretation of AVO anomalies west of Shetlands, CO2 injection and storage in the North Sea, experimental and numerical investigations of secondary WAG, criteria for below-bubble point production and a proposal to investigate wettability modifiers to mitigate condensate banking.
The “Talking Point” provided by UKOOA considers the considerable technical, regulatory and cost barriers to storing CO2 in North Sea oil and gas fields. Under “People and Projects” we note the successful launch of MTEM Ltd, a company spun out of the University of Edinburgh that is applying multi transient electromagnetic survey technology to the direct detection of hydrocarbons.
There are also reports on the Tenth Annual CO2 Conference and Second Annual Carbon Management Workshop held in December 2004 in Midland, Texas, DTI Improved Oil Recovery Research Dissemination Seminar held in May 2005 as part of DEVEX 2005 and the Heavy Oil Workshop also held as part of DEVEX 2005.
We welcome your views - please provide your feedback using the box at the end of every article. For matters not directly related to any individual article use the feedback box at the bottom of this Editorial.
A special thank you to the companies that have contributed articles, and the individual authors. We are always looking for articles for IOR Views - the next issue is scheduled for November 2005 (with a deadline for submissions of 21 October 2005). If you have or are able to write an article that you think will be of interest to IOR Views readers please let me know (davidavid.hughes@senergyrml.com). Instructions for authors can be found on the IOR Views home page (http://ior.rml.co.uk/).
CO2 Emissions Reductions and the North Sea Oil Industry
There seems to be some momentum gathering around evaluating the use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and storage in North Sea oil reservoirs - spurred by the UK’s requirement to reduce atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases in general, and CO2 in particular.
In February 2005 the Westminster Energy Forum held a meeting on the subject of identifying the incentives and mechanisms needed to accelerate global carbon sequestration together with enhanced oil recovery – to which I was kindly invited. The programme and presentations used on the day can be downloaded from the Westminster Energy Forum website (see under 10 February 2005 - Global Carbon Sequestration Via Enhanced Oil Recovery).
Also, articles in the Observer on 24 April 2005 and Sunday Telegraph on 1 May 2005 refer to a plan that BP are discussing with DTI to use the Miller field for a first CO2 EOR project in the North Sea.
In the Times on 16 May 2005, it was reported that DTI will soon be announcing its carbon abatement strategy.
Although momentum is gathering, it is important not to forget the challenges involved (see for example the UKOOA view in this issue of IOR Views).
Statistics Relating to Issue 9
During the six month period from 26 November 2004 when Issue 9 went live on the website to 2 June 2005, IOR Views has received over 254,000 hits. This is a new milestone – over a quarter of a million hits between issues. There were 38,210 visits from 11,949 unique visitors. All the previous issues are available for viewing on the website and these statistics cover all issues.
The table below shows the statistics relating to the top nine technical articles from Issue 9.
| No. | Title | Visits | Time viewed (min:sec) |
| 1 | Trials of Seismic Stimulation | 579 | 03:48 |
| 2 | Modelling of H2S Souring Treatments Using Nitrate or Nitrite | 542 | 04:03 |
| 3 | EOR on the UK Continental Shelf - Part of a Bigger Picture? | 523 | 03:24 |
| 4 | Streamline Based Flow Simulation for Miscible Displacements | 419 | 03:38 |
| 5 | EOR in the High Oil Price Environment | 369 | 03:08 |
| 6 | Seminar and Dinner Mark Retirement of Professor John Fayers | 343 | 03:53 |
| 7 | DTI Workshop Addressing Issues Associated with Converting Wells and Facilities of Use with CO2 Injection, November 2004, Aberdeen | 332 | 05:00 |
| 8 | Research Proposal: Effective Reservoir Fluid Characterisation | 326 | 03:56 |
| 9 | DTI Seminar on Maximising Hydrocarbon Recovery from the UKCS 2004, June 2004, Aberdeen | 325 | 03:11 |
As noted above, all previous issues are available for viewing at all times. During the last six months eight articles from Issues 1 to 8 received over 500 visits – these are shown in the table below.
| No | Issue | Title | Visits | Time viewed (min:sec) |
| 1 | 5 | UKCS: The Future is Stratigraphic! | 658 | 04:14 |
| 2 | 4 | Future Paths of the European Power-Plant Infrastructure – A Newly Established Project with Emphasis on Carbon Sequestration | 649 | 02:35 |
| 3 | 2 | Air Injection Processes: Heavy Oil Recovery and In-situ Upgrading; Light Oil Recovery | 601 | 04:09 |
| 4 | 6 | THAI (Toe-To-Heel Air Injection) About To Break New Ground in Alberta | 552 | 02:52 |
| 5 | 7 | Evaluation of IOR by CO2 Injection in Gullfaks | 549 | 04:09 |
| 6 | 6 | Magnus Miscible WAG EOR Project | 538 | 05:09 |
| 7 | 7 | Construction and Validation of an Integrated 3D Reservoir Characterisation Geomodel for Reservoir Management at Seminole San Andres Unit | 525 | 03:54 |
| 8 | 7 | CO2 for EOR in the North Sea (CENS) - Update on Project Status | 510 | 02:57 |
Just before I write the editorial for each issue, Chris McLeod of RML who constructs the pages and maintains the IOR Views website, supplies me with the statistics from which the above tables have been compiled. The breadth and depth of the data available from the analysis provided never ceases to amaze me. For example the top five phrases used in searches that find links in IOR Views (over the last six months) are: microbial enhanced oil recovery (and meor), ior, toe to heel air injection (and toe-to-heel air injection), superficial velocity and applied seismic research corporation. The top ten countries accessing the site are United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Norway, Brazil, and Venezuela.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tissa for his support at the DTI and to Chris McLeod in the IT department at RML for his efforts constructing the webpages.