Tenth Annual CO2 Conference and Second Annual Carbon Management Workshop, December 2004, Midland, Texas, USA
Steve Melzer (Melzerls@aol.com) is a consulting engineer in Midland, Texas, and has been the director of the annual CO2 Flooding Conference since it began in 1995. He conducts studies for clients on CO2 flooding and how the CO2 business might fit into a changing corporate strategy. Here he reports on the Tenth Annual CO2 Conference and Second Annual Carbon Management Workshop which were held 7-10 December 2004 in Midland, Texas. The presentations used at the Workshop are downloadable from the conference website at: http://www.spe-pb.org/en/art/?23.
Carbon Management Workshop
The 10th Annual and CO2 Conference in Midland, Texas began with the 2nd Annual EOR Carbon Management Workshop. The new wing of the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum offered an ideal venue for the 130 person audience present to hear about the on going chase after the CO2 EOR prize. The audience provided a unique mix of CO2 flooding professionals and those working the expanding field of CO2 sequestration.
The existing and potential CO2 EOR climates in Texas, the Gulf Coast Region and Wyoming were of special interest as Scott Tinker, Director of the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology outlined the Texas prize while Vello Kuuskraa of Advanced Resources International described the Gulf Coast CO2 EOR potential and Bryan Hargrove of ExxonMobil outlined the current excitement in Wyoming. Two of the key environmental organizations made their voices heard with the National Resources Defense Council emphasizing the immediate need for curbing CO2 emissions and their support of CO2 EOR playing an important role. Scott Anderson represented Environmental Defense and described some of the challenges the industry will face as it expands its activities to respond to the need to capture industrial CO2.
The day’s presentations were followed by an evening reception held at the Commemorative Airforce Museum.
Shortcourses and Field Visit
The second day witnessed three concurrent morning sessions. The Workshop continued at the Museum while the Conference had two simultaneous shortcourses at the downtown Midland Center. The Surveillance and Monitoring shortcourse was the most popular with 130 in attendance to hear how industry assures that injected CO2 is at work within the reservoir. Pattern balance techniques and logging techniques were featured with well-experienced speakers.
The second shortcourse was entitled Health and Safety of CO2 Operations. Procedures developed over the course of the thirty plus years of CO2 handling were reviewed from procedural and regulatory points of view. Direct experience of CO2 operators were also provided for the attendees.
Manuals for both shortcourses are available from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin's Center for Energy and Economic Diversification (USA 432-552-2430).
In the afternoon, 170 attendees participated in a tour of ChevronTexaco’s Mabee Field CO2 flood north of Midland.
Case Histories
However, the backbone of the conference each year is the presentations on CO2 flood case histories and new technologies (days 3 and 4). Several innovations were featured at this year’s conference, including a new technique using glycerol (glycerin) to dehydrate CO2 above critical pressure at Denbury’s Mississippi facilities, and a new coriolis meter for helping solve many of the challenges of measuring two- and three-phase flow (gas, water and/or oil).
EnCana’s Patty Morris highlighted key operational conclusions and the evolution of producing well design at the Weyburn Field CO2 flood, and Paul Willhite from the University of Kansas provided an update on the new DOE-sponsored CO2 pilot in Kansas. Sylvia Barnes delivered a featured luncheon address on PetrieParkman’s perspective of the changing environment for oil prices, and outlined the company’s rationale for high average prices in the future.
Economically challenged reservoirs can hold potentially large rewards for effective CO2 flooding. One session was devoted to the industry’s experience in “unconventional” (immiscible and/or vertical) CO2 floods. Jim Johnson of Lawrence Livermore National Labs provided a review of projects, including immiscibles, while Denbury Resources’ Tracy Evans detailed a near-miscible CO2 pilot at the Eucutta Field in eastern Mississippi.
CO2 EOR Has a Dramatic Impact on Reversing the Decline of Oil Production in Mississippi (Total Cumulative Oil is 2.359 Billion Barrels)
KinderMorgan’s Paul Button and Chris Peterson then presented a review of the company’s Yates Field CO2 flood. The field produces from an uplifted and fractured San Andres carbonate at 1,500-1,800 feet beneath the surface, and is the largest of the giant West Texas fields with an estimated 5 billion barrels of original oil in place. Although the San Andres is too shallow for conventional miscible CO2 flooding, the speakers projected a healthy future for the field using CO2-assisted gravity drainage.
The final session was devoted to miscible pattern flooding and featured case studies of four projects, the first of which presented the flood response and a chronicle of re-entry challenges and solutions for reactivating long-abandoned wells at Denbury Resources’ 10,000-foot deep West Mallalieu CO2 flood in Mississippi. Teresa Brady from ExxonMobil detailed the reservoir continuity issues that challenged effective CO2 utilisation at the Means Field flood. Brady noted the feasibility of developing the reservoir deeper, and assessed the commercial nature of the residual oil zone beneath the main payzone at the Means Field.
Carbon dioxide flooding is rapidly expanding in Wyoming, and Anadarko Petroleum’s Tom Thurmond and Paul Geiger updated the performance of the Salt Creek flood. This 1.6-billion barrel (original oil in place) field is seeing a new life today after the CO2 flooding phase was initiated in late 2003. Finally, Tom Beebe of Oxy Permian presented results, performance anomalies and challenges at its Cedar Lake Unit flood in Dawson County, Texas. Development began at Cedar Lake in 1994 in the relatively slow-processing (3-10 millidarcy) San Andres formation, averaging one flood expansion project a year. Cedar Lake has grown today to have 86 CO2 injector wells, with two more expansions planned.
Concluding Remarks
The 2004 CO2 Flooding Conference attracted more than 330 attendees representing six countries and 116 organisations, including 35 oil and gas producing companies. Overall, attendees included representatives of all the major flooding companies of North America and most of the service companies. On a percentage basis, of the companies with personnel in attendance, 32% were oil and gas producers, 18% were oil service companies, and the remaining 50% included a variety of companies and organisations representing the sequestration and flooding industries, as well as government and academia. The mixture of companies and backgrounds provided both a cross-fertilisation of ideas and the opportunity for business venture development.
With the rapid maturity of producing oil fields in the United States and around the world, CO2 EOR technology is emerging just in time. Only a decade ago, the majors had almost exclusive access to this tightly held technology, but CO2 technology and expertise is now being shared across the industry. In addition, a number of commercial products and services are now available to assist operators in designing and implementing CO2 floods, and the industry’s experience base continues to expand each year.
When access to CO2 EOR technology and experience are brought together with today’s strong oil price environment and growing concerns over atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide, CO2 EOR is truly win-win solution.