Published by the DTI Oil & Gas Directorate for the reservoir engineering and IOR community in the UK.
Send comments on this issue and contributions for next issue to iornewsletter@senergyltd.com by 15 December 2002.

Introduction

Welcome once again to another issue of our IOR eNewsletter – the third one. As evidenced by David Hughes’ report in the ‘Editorial’ section, the number of visits made to the site is reasonably high and the newsletter is proving to be a popular means for communication within the IOR community. The intention is to have three issues a year, so this is the last one for this year.

The newsletter is of course a team effort by the folk who produce it as well as the various contributors of articles. It is hoped that the very current topics that form the contents will encourage lively discussions. Responses may be made through the next issue (by emailing to iornewsletter@senergyltd.com) or if urgent by direct dialogue with the author of an article.

The Atlantic margin areas have come into focus lately, mainly because of the current low exploration activity in this area. Our geoscientist covering this area is Nick Loizou, and he has been quite vocal about the potential for this area. He strongly believes that the success rate can be significantly improved. Nick has now put pen to paper (or to be precise 'fingers to keyboard') and his article is included under ‘Articles’. Then we have Prof. Anton Ziolkowski (under 'Talking point’) continuing to sound the clarion call for more Government funds to be channeled towards seismic research for this area, particularly sub-basalt imaging. As his views are put in rather strong terms this time, the DTI will need to respond convincingly – look out for this in the next issue.

Then we have the subject of CO₂ injection into mature oilfields for IOR and sequestration being pushed from various quarters. The drive for this stems from the need to adhere to the commitments made to the Kyoto protocol by the developed countries, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Geological storage appears to be the key practical option for putting away large quantities of CO₂. It is hoped that CO₂ EOR will give the initial 'kick start' to this type of storage by providing an additional cash flow stream through incremental oil. It needs to be borne in mind that CO₂ EOR has not been done in an offshore environment anywhere in the world as yet, and only a fraction of the CO₂ generated in Europe can be sequestered together with EOR. Moreover the window of opportunity, at least in the UKCS, is going to be somewhat limited for the implementation of this technology as the bigger fields approach the end of field life.

The DTI (and formerly, the Department of Energy) has been conducting studies on the use of CO₂ for improving oil recovery since the early 1980s as a part of its ongoing EOR programme. Of course during those early years sequestration was not a key driver. We have collected the reports from these studies and have made them available to the public on the SHARP website - you may access these rapidly by going to: http://www.dti-SHARP.co.uk -select 'Dissemination', click on 'CO₂ Knowledge Dissemination'.

We also have a section in this issue devoted to CO2 EOR and sequestration. This is no doubt going to be an evolving topic and we will see more of it in future issues of this newsletter.

The next issue will be out in January 2003, and we hope to see you back in good spirits after the Christmas and New Year season.

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