Editorial
SHARP IOR Views is edited on behalf of the DTI Licensing and Consents Unit by David Hughes (david.hughes@senergyltd.com), a Principal Reservoir Engineer with Senergy Ltd in Aberdeen.
Welcome to Issue 9 of SHARP IOR Views.
New Name OG-MRP
As indicated in Tissa's editorial, the DTI has renamed SHARP to OG-MRP (Oil & Gas- Maximising Recovery Programme). This means that both the SHARP and IOR Views websites will be undergoing some rebranding over the next month or so.
Media Interest in EOR
The media has shown an interest in enhanced oil recovery in recent months - possibly spurred by the high oil price. A number of us have been approached for our views. There was an article in Nature in June 2004 and Reuters published a piece in August 2004. We have also heard that BBC Radio 4 are considering commissioning a programme on the subject.
New in This Issue
Thank you to the authors who have provided the content for this issue.
We have articles covering CO2 injection (including emission reduction/carbon capture issues and optimising WAG ratio), modelling of nitrate or nitrite treatments to prevent souring, streamline simulation of miscible displacement, reservoir fluid characterisation, long term temperature changes arising from water injection and trials of seismic stimulation.
Under "People and Projects" we look back on the career of Prof. John Fayers who retired recently, and this time the "Talking Point" considers whether the higher oil price in the second half of 2004 will spur an increased interest in EOR on the UKCS.
Please provide us with your views. There is a feedback box to do this at the end of every article.
There are also reports on DTI Seminar on Maximising Hydrocarbon Recovery from the UKCS held in June 2004, the IEA Collaborative Project on EOR Annual Workshop and Symposium held in Stavanger in September 2004, the DTI Workshop Addressing Issues Associated with Converting Offshore Wells and Facilities for Use with CO2 Injection held in November 2004 and DTI Heavy Oil Seminar held in November 2004.
Future of IOR Views
DTI along with ACHARR (the committee with representatives from industry and the academic sector that advises the DTI on the SHARP programme) are considering the future of IOR Views. If you have ideas on how you would like to see IOR Views evolve, please use the feedback box below, or email them directly to me (david.hughes@senergyltd.com). Your input is appreciated.
It is interesting to look back over the eight previous issues. The table below shows a breakdown of the contributed articles by source. There has been a steady flow of articles from most sources (particularly SMEs) although only a very limited contribution from operating companies. Perhaps surprisingly, more recently there has been less of a contribution from the traditional petroleum engineering universities. Each issue it is a struggle to source articles with a fair reluctance from anyone to commit to providing an article even when given sufficient notice. It is particularly difficult to get people to meet deadlines. On a number of occasions I have ended up "ghost writing" articles rather than them being original contributions from the authors.
| Issue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Total |
| DTI | 2 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 28 |
| Other PSFBs | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 21 |
| Universities | 9 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 38 |
| SMEs | 6 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 50 |
| Operators | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| Report on Past Events | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 16 |
| Total | 24 | 23 | 26 | 28 | 19 | 26 | 25 | 26 | 197 |
IOR Views (formerly IOR eNewsletter) - Source of Contributions by Issue
Most people who read the articles enjoy being able to access the material and like the online format. They are often forthcoming in their praise. Each article receives 200 or more visits suggesting that there is a fairly wide readership (surely more that a typical journal or conference paper). However, there does appear to be a reluctance to get involved either providing feedback or in providing unsolicited articles. I think I only received one feedback email relating to Issues 1 to 4. From Issue 5 onwards we introduced a feedback box at the end of each article. There have probably been around ten feedback communications per issue - so at least there is some progress - but this seems well short of an active, dynamic IOR community!
The articles have covered a wide range of topics; CO2 for EOR and sequestration and 4D seismic are probably the leading topics. Others include miscible gas, air injection, chemical and microbial EOR, production facilities optimisation, gas condensate reservoirs, relative permeabilities, performance prediction, depressurisation, stratigraphic traps, flow simulation software etc, etc.
A new home page for the newsletter was developed in late 2003 which sets out the purpose of the IOR Views and with instructions on how to participate. There is also an ability to do searches of the archive of articles from all issues.
A point I think worth making is that although university research departments are judged on the conference and journal papers they publish, people who wish to investigate a particular topic tend to interrogate the internet first. Writing short articles for inclusion in IOR Views is a way of introducing people to the substantive papers which are not readily available online. The articles can also be written in a way which can introduce the subject matter to people from a wider background.
It is likely that in future there will only be two issues per year of IOR Views. In which case the next issue will be in May 2005.
Statistics Relating to Issue 8
During the nearly six month period from 27 May - 22 November 2004, IOR Views has received over 165,000 hits. Again we have exceeded 100,000 hits on the site during the period between issues - although on this occasion this has been slightly longer than usual. There were 21,000 visits from 7700 unique visitors. Of course 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 ten technical articles from Issue 8. In addition to the technical articles, sections such as "Introduction" and "Editorial" also received over 200 visits.
As noted above, all previous issues are available for viewing at all times. During the last six months one article in particular has received over 500 visits. This is Malcolm Greaves article from Issue 2 "Air Injection Processes" which has resumed its place at the top after being pushed into second place last time! The top five articles from earlier issues accessed during the last six months are shown below.
| No | Issue | Title | Visits | Time viewed (min:sec) |
| 1 | 2 | Air Injection Processes: Heavy Oil Recovery and In-situ Upgrading;Light Oil Recovery | 532 | 4:37 |
| 2 | 4 | Future Paths of the European Power-Plant Infrastructure - A Newly Established Project with Emphasis on Carbon Sequestration | 409 | 2:31 |
| 3 | 1 | Light Oil Recovery via Air Injection Technology | 408 | 4:35 |
| 4 | 5 | UKCS: The Future is Stratigraphic! | 404 | 3:28 |
| 5 | 4 | Forties CO2 EOR Evaluation Integrating Finite Difference and Streamline Simulation Techniques | 377 | 2:15 |
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Tissa for his support at the DTI and to Chris McLeod in the IT department at RML for his efforts constructing the webpage versions of the articles.