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

Overview

It had been some time since my last visit to this event in 1990. Then it was held in the downtown convention centre; now it is self-contained in the Renaissance Tulsa Hotel in South Tulsa. My impression was that the numbers were smaller than a decade or so ago, but the event was interesting nevertheless with many high quality papers.

Perhaps disappointingly, there was only one paper directly related to the North Sea with Statoil presenting their evaluation of CO2 injection in Gullfaks (see article in Issue 7). But to be fair there are a number of other, alternating, events in Europe where North Sea IOR and EOR has a higher profile.

Although not directly related to the North Sea, BP had papers on two of its recent research topics; “low salinity” waterflooding (SPE 89379) and “Bright Water” (SPE 89391).

Convention Center: A Tornado Warning Required Everyone to Assemble and Wait in the Ballroom Until it Had Passed

Chemical Processes

I was expecting a fair number of presentations on CO2 injection and sequestration, and on thermal processes applied to heavy oil fields. The apparent onward march of streamline simulation was also expected. I was, however, surprised by the number of papers and exhibition stands devoted to chemical and microbial processes. There has been recent activity related to MEOR in the North Sea (for example Statoil’s development of Norne), but there has been little recent consideration of polymer or surfactant flooding. To my knowledge, in the main these processes in relation to the UKCS were parked in the 1980s as they were found not to increase recovery in the light oil reservoirs, the chemicals were not stable at reservoir conditions, particularly the elevated temperature, or else were too expensive to apply following the oil price crash.

Perhaps the time is now right to look again at the myriad of chemical processes on offer. Demin Wang, deputy director of R&D at Daqing Oil Co Ltd, in his plenary session presentation gave a wide ranging review of the successes they had had at Daqing with polymers and surfactants. China, he said, was producing around 500 Mstb/d of incremental oil mainly from chemical processes. This compares to the latest reported EOR production from US fields of 663 Mstb/d, which derives mainly from thermal methods. In particular Demin Wang mentioned that polymer flooding had produced significant waterflood residual oil, in some floods a similar amount to surfactant flooding, but at a lower cost. He said that the key to this appeared to be the elastic component of the polymer solution viscosity. The higher this was the lower the apparent residual oil saturation. This was a particularly interesting point as traditionally it is not considered that polymer flooding improves the microscopic sweep, although it may do if there is a change in wettability. Also the apparent residual saturation may appear lower with the consequent change in mobility ratio. It would be interesting to consider whether polymer solutions with a high elastic content might be appropriate for UKCS application. The currently very high oil price (May 2004) is perhaps a further spur to looking again at chemical processes in relation to the UKCS. Although, as usual, the requirement to operate from platforms with their space and weight restrictions, the large distance between wells and the generally thick oil columns will make application significantly more problematic that in onshore fields.

Exhibiters Were Mainly Promoting Chemical and Microbial EOR Processes

Plenary Session

Other plenary speakers were Kate H Baker, 2004 SPE President, James Slutz from the US DOE, Bob Tippee, Editor of the Oil & Gas Journal and Tim Bradley, President of Kinder Morgan CO2 LP Company.

Bob Tippee launched the Oil & Gas Journal’s biennial EOR survey (in issue dated 12 April 2004). In the US there has been a decrease in the amount recovered from thermal techniques and an increase in production from CO2 injection. Overall US EOR production has decreased slightly over the last two years from 669 Mstb/d to 663.5 Mstb/d. Most EOR in Canada relates to heavy oil fields and oil sands. There has been a rapid expansion in the application of steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). Tippee said that the Oil & Gas Journal’s data for the rest of the world is less complete, but there is significant activity in China, Indonesia and Venezuela. No projects are recorded for the UK or Norway. It’s a pity that the flagship UK project in Magnus (see article in Issue 6) is not recorded. Also Statoil’s development of Norne using microbial EOR is not listed. Tippee appealed to the EOR community to provide the Oil & Gas Journal with data, not just at the time of the EOR surveys but at any time (send to guntism@ogjonline.com). Tim Bradley reviewed Kinder Morgan’s growth in the CO2 business. CO2 for EOR is very successful, but although they know how to sequestrate CO2 but don’t know how to make money out of doing it!

Brits

I didn’t bump into any other Brits who had travelled from the UK to attend the Symposium (sorry if you were there but I didn’t get to meet you). It was nice, however, to meet two ex-pats who have made their lives and careers in the US. Dr Norman Morrow, originally from the North of England, is Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Wyoming and an expert in the surface chemistry of adsorption and wetting, and therefore extremely knowledgeable on chemical EOR techniques. Dr Gavin Longmuir is a consultant with International Petroleum Consultants Association, Inc. He is originally from Scotland and has worked in a variety of technical and commercial functions with British Petroleum, Sohio Petroleum, and Occidental Petroleum. Gavin presented a poster at Tulsa “Pre-Darcy Flow – A Missing Piece of the IOR Puzzle” (SPE 89433) and has also written an article for this issue of IOR Views.

Gavin Longmuir Discusses His Poster With a Fellow Delegate

Awards

A recognition luncheon was held to honour three new IOR Pioneers. Philip J Closmann, Harry Surkalo and G Paul Willhite were added to SPE’s IOR Hall of Fame. Each has getting on for a half a century of experience in the business. Their main contributions have been in the areas of thermal recovery, chemical recovery and waterflooding respectively. Klaus Potsch from OMV in Austria gave an amusing after lunch talk on the subject of “Indoor IOR”. It soon became apparent that what he was referring to is how company managements use staff to increase oil recovery. The principal recovery mechanism he identified was “pressure”.

Final Comment

The symposium has added around 110 new papers to the literature (and I need to find the time to read them!). As the presentations were in five parallel sessions (with a sixth specifically for exhibitors), I found it difficult to attend as many presentations as I would have wished. It was also a problem when switching between sessions that the timetable was not strictly adhered to. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable event and I found it very useful from a networking point of view, which is probably the best feature of these symposia anyway.

Seen Parked Outside the Symposium Venue: Some Geologists Take Life Too Seriously!