What We Know About EOR Today

I was EOR before EOR was cool

The Wyoming Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute

2008 Wyoming EOR/IOR Conference

Larry W. Lake
The University of Texas at Austin
Larry_Lake@mail.utexas.edu
 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is…
• Oil recovery by injection of fluids not normally
present in reservoir
• Excludes pressure maintenance or waterflooding
• Not necessarily tertiary recovery

Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) is…

• EOR plus additional technologies dealing with drilling,
production, operations, and reservoir characterization
• An attempt to avoid negative connotation of EOR
 Recovery Mechanisms...

Primary
Recovery
Artificial Lift
Natural Flow
Pump - Gas Lift - Etc.
Conventional
Recovery
Secondary
Recovery
Pressure
Waterflood Maintenance
Water - Gas Reinjection

Tertiary
Recovery
Thermal Chemical Enhanced
Recovery
Solvent Other

Source: Adapted from the Oil & Gas Journal, Apr. 23, 1990
 Producing Phases...
Primary Secondary Tertiary

0.10
Oil Rate 0.25
0.10
EL

_ Inj.
P
P Prod.
Lim

Ave. So

Time
 EOR Observations….

• But still it moves

-The EOR target
Field Results...
Slaughter Estate Unit
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
Beware the MOC (my son)...
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag

• Don't bank on it
 Size and Ultimate Recovery…
1.0
MP Tests
Thermal
0.8 Air-Spg.
SEAR
ISCO

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
10-5 10-3 10-1 101 103 105 107
Rock Volume, cubic m
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
• Don't bank on it
• Size matters
- More (wells) is better
Reinecke Unit Results

Also...

•Weeks Island

•Hawkins

•Wellman Unit

•W. Hackberry

•Cantarell
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
• Don't bank on it
• Size matters
• Gravity is our friend
 Predicted vs. Actual...
20
Actual Incremental Oil Recovery,

From Christensen, et al.

From Holstein pers. comm.

15
% of OOIP

WAG Solvent
10

0
0 5 10 15 20
Predicted Incremental Oil Recovery, % of OOIP
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
• Don't bank on it
• Size is important
• Gravity is our friend
• Predicting is tough…
Especially about the future
 Daqing Polymerflood….
100

250 m
80 Water Cut
Oil Production (t/d)

500 m
Water Cut (%)

60
750 m
750 m
40 500 m

Oil Production 250 m

20

0
0 40 80 120 160 200 240 280
Amount of Polymer Injected (PV mg/L)
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
• Don't bank on it
• Size is important
• Gravity is our friend
• Predicting is tough
• Size is important II
- The more you inject, the
more you get
Lost Soldier Tensleep Tertiary Project...
From Brokmeyer et al., 1996
100,000

Infil and Pattern

Waterflood
Barrels/Day 10,000

Water-
Primary flood
CO 2
1,000
Flood

100
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
60
Percent of OOIP Recovered

CO 2 Tertiary 130 MMBO

50
54.2% OOIP
Pattern 106.3 MMBO
40 Waterflood 44.3% OOIP

30 Peripheral 86.1 MMBO

Waterflood 35.6% OOIP
20
47.8 MMBO
10
Primary 19.9% OOIP

0
1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
• Don't bank on it
• Size is important
• Gravity is our friend
• Predicting is tough
• Size is important II
• Not at any (great) rate
 Stabilized Decline

Undulating Plateau U.S. Production,

vs. Peak Oil Hubbert vs. Actual

From Jackson (JPT, 2007)

 The Bottom Line….
EOR in combination with …
More wells
Improved reservoir characterization
Intelligent wells
Real time monitoring
Decision analysis procedures
Other simulation technologies

And (of course) a high oil price

Will make ultimate recoveries of

65% possible and even routine
 EOR Observations….
• But still it moves
• EOR is a drag
• Don't bank on it
• Size is important
• Gravity is our friend
• Predicting is tough
• The more you inject, the
more you get
• Not at any (great) rate
• We’ll be seeing you
What We Know About EOR Today
I was EOR before EOR was cool

The Wyoming Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute

2008 Wyoming EOR/IOR Conference

Larry W. Lake
The University of Texas at Austin
Larry_Lake@mail.utexas.edu
 West Texas Pre CO2 Flood...
4.0

3.5
WF Decline
Oil Rate, MMStb/mo

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0
Start CO2
0.5

0.0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Cumulative Oil Recovered Since WF, MMStb
 The Success of History Matching
(Bos, 2002)…
Worst
6 forecast

5 No simple
relationship
Forecasting, rms

Best match

0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4
History Matching, rms