Oil & Gas - Maximising Recovery Programme (formerly SHARP) IOR Views

Welcome to Issue 11 of OG-MRP IOR Views, our second and final issue of 2005.

Thank you to the individual authors who have contributed articles.  We are always looking for new articles for IOR Views - the next issue is scheduled for June 2006 (with a deadline for submissions of 26 May 2006).  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@senergyltd.com).  Instructions for authors can be found on the IOR Views home page (http://ior.rml.co.uk/).

New in This Issue

In this issue we have articles on the rejuvenation of high watercut fields and downhole hydrogen production in light-oil reservoirs.  Also articles on a variety of research proposals that have received support from ACHARR covering: characterisation of remobilised deepwater sandstone reservoirs, seismic and production history matching, outcrop characterisation of transgressive sandstone reservoirs, improved simulation of fractured reservoirs and a fractured reservoir 3D Digital Atlas.

A special thank you to Professor Alex Kemp of Aberdeen University for providing the “Talking Point” article which considers the impact of high oil prices on North Sea activity levels.  If you have a view on this - please provide your feedback using the feedback box at the end of the article.

There are also reports on the IEA Collaborative Project on EOR 26th Annual Workshop and Symposium held in Chiba, Japan in September 2005, the SPE Applied Technical Workshop on CO2 Sequestration, held in Galveston, Texas during November 2005 and the DTI Workshop on UKCS Chalk – Are the Challenges Worth Overcoming? held in Aberdeen also during November 2005.

We welcome your views on any of the articles- please provide your feedback box provided. For matters not directly related to any individual article use the feedback box at the bottom of this Editorial.

EOR in the North Sea

There have been two significant EOR-related events affecting the North Sea over the last six months.

Firstly the announcement made on 30 June 2005 by BP, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Scottish and Southern that they are planning the world’s first industrial scale project to generate “carbon-free” electricity from hydrocarbon.  This involves building a power station at Peterhead with carbon capture, and using the CO2 for EOR and eventual storage in the Miller field.  Nigel Brealey of Senergy looks into this further under “People and Projects” (LINK).

Offshore Europe 2005: Panel for round table discussion covering novel opportunities arising from mature production.

Secondly there was a useful session and round table on IOR technologies and processes at the Offshore Europe Exhibition and Conference on 8 September 2005, at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre.  There were three new SPE papers on North Sea EOR projects in Statfjord (SPE 96403), Brent (SPE 96797) and Magnus (SPE 96292).  Also a useful round table discussion covering novel opportunities arising from mature production chaired by David White of Schlumberger and Leo Roodhart of Shell International Exploration Production.

Offshore Europe 2005: Francois Kalaydjian, Deputy Director, Sustainable Development Division at Institut Français du Petrole leads the round table discussion on polymer flooding.

Statistics Relating to Issue 10

I’m afraid that because of hardware problems earlier in the year we don’t have any statistics relating to the readership of the IOR Views site during the last six months.  Nevertheless, the site continues to receive a significant number of hits and feedback submitted through the feedback boxes at the end of each article.

Acknowledgements

As Tissa notes in his Introduction, this is his last issue of IOR Views.  I have enjoyed working with Tissa tremendously over the years, and in particular over the last four years through the trials and tribulations of putting together all eleven issues of IOR Views so far - thanks Tissa.  I wish Tissa well in his retirement from the DTI, although I understand he has some plans to continue to be active in the Industry, but in warmer climes!

Thanks also to Chris McLeod in the IT department at Senergy for his efforts constructing the webpages.