ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY

The intent of enhanced oil recovery is to increase the effectiveness of oil removal from pore of
the rock (displacement) and to increase the volume of the rock.

Contracted by injecting fluids (SWEEP efficiency) EOR processes use the thermal, chemical or
fluids phase behaviour effects to reduce or eliminate capillary forces that trap oil within pores, to
thin the oil or otherwise improve its mobility, or to alter the mobility of the displacing fluids. In
some cases, the effect of gravity forces, which ordinarily cause vertical segregation of fluids of
different densities, can be minimized or even used to advantage.

The degree to which EOR methods are applicable in the future will depend on development of
improved process technology; on improved understanding of fluid chemistry, phase behaviour,
and physical properties; and on the accuracy of geology and reservoir engineering in
characterizing the physical nature of individual reservoirs.

Enhanced Oil Recovery involves the introduction of artificial forces or energy into the reservoir
system for providing or supplementing the mature forces inherent to the reservoir system. “EOR
and Improved Oil Recovery are synonymous”.

Primary recovery
Primary recovery of oil depends upon the natural energy to drive oil through complex network
of pore to producing well.
The driving energy may be derived from the expansion of liquid and evolution of dissolved gas
from oil as reservoir pressure is lowered during the production, expansion of free gas or gas cap,
influx of natural water, gravity or combination of these effects.
The recovery efficiency of primary production is generally low when liquid expansion and
solution gas are the driving mechanism.
Much higher recoveries are associated with reservoir when gravity promotes the drainage
of oil from the rock pores

Primary Recovery ( around 10%)

Natural flow of energy of reservoir
• The primary recovery depends on the conditions encountered in the fields.
• Water Drive (70 to 80%)
• Solution gas drive (10 to 30%)
 • Gas Cap Drive
• Gravity Drainage
• Fluid and Rock Expansion
• Gas Drive:

A primary recovery mechanism for oil wells containing dissolved and free gas, whereby
the energy of the expanding gas is used to drive the oil from the reservoir formation into
the wellbore.

• Gas cap drive:

A type of reservoir-drive mechanism in which the energy for the transport and production
of reservoir fluids is provided by the expansion of gas either in the gas cap or inside the
oil phase.

Primary Oil Recovery

• Optimum Production Rate
• Maximum Recovery Factor
• Pressure decline under control
• Gas Injection
• Water Injection
• production under stabilized conditions
• Monitoring WOR & GOR
• Reservoir Management

Secondary oil recovery

Secondary oil recovery involves the introduction of energy in to reservoir by injecting gas or
water under pressure.
Separate wells are usually drilled for injection and production .

The injected fluid maintain the reservoir pressure or re pressure the reservoir after primary
depletion, and displaced remaining crude to production well.

Water logging is the principal secondary recovery method and currently accounts for a very
large part of oil production.

Limited use of gas injection of high market value.

Secondary Recovery 15 TO 60%

• To produce more oil, the pressure in the reservoir must be maintained by injecting
another fluid.
- Water injection
- Gas injection
• Small oil field:
- Water into the aquifer
- Gas into the gas cap
• Large field: Fluid injection must be distributed through the reservoir

Tertiary Recovery
• Producing the oil that remain in the part of the reservoir already swept by the displacing.
• A) Increasing the displacement efficiency (Part of the reservoir that was already swept in
secondary recovery).
 • B) Increasing the sweep efficiency (producing oil that remains in the part of the
reservoir not swept by displacing fluid)
• C) Increasing both displacement and sweep efficiencies

Efficiency of conventional recovery methods

Through the conventional recovery process (primary & secondary) it has been expected that
about the one third of original discovered oil can be produced.
Recovery from the individual reservoirs can be ranges from 5% to 80% (orginal oil at place).
This broad range of recovery efficiency is the result of variation in specific properties of specific
rock, fluid from reservoir to reservoir as well as kind of energy that drives the oil to producing
well.

Remaining oil
The oil remaining after conventional recovery operations is retained in the pore space of
reservoir rock at a lower concentration than originally existed. The produced oil is replaced by
gas and/or water in the pores.

In the portion of reservoirs that have been contacted or swept by the injection fluid, the residual
oil remains as droplets (or ganglia) trapped in either individual pores or clusters of pores. It may
also remain as film partly coating the pore walls. Entrapment of this residual oil is predominantly
due to capillary and surface forces, and to pore geometry.

In the pores of those volumes of reservoir rock that were not swept by displacing fluids, the oil
continues to exist at higher concentrations and may exist as a continuous phase. This
macroscopic bypassing of the oil occurs because of reservoir heterogeneity, the placement of
wells, and the effects of gravity, and viscous capillary forces, which act simultaneously in the
reservoir. The resultant effect depends upon conditions at individual locations. The higher the
mobility of the displacing fluid relative to that of the oil, the higher the mobility ratio, the greater
the propensity for the displacing fluid to bypass oil. Due to fluid density differences, gravity
forces cause vertical segregation of the fluid in the reservoir so that water tends to under-run, and
gas to override, the oil-containing rock. These mechanisms can be controlled or utilized to only a
limited extent in primary and secondary recovery operations.

EOR methods include:

• Water flooding
• Thermal methods: steam stimulation, steam flooding, hot water drive, and in-situ
combustion
• Chemicalmethods:polymer,surfactant,caustic,and miscellar /polymer flooding.
 • Miscible methods: hydrocarbon gas,CO2,and nitrogen (flue gas and partial
miscible/immiscible gas injection may also be considered)
• Unconventional EOR Process

Where to Apply
These EOR techniques are applied in the fluids having:
(a) Oil of moderate viscosity
(b) Heavy/highly viscous oil and
(c) Fluid already depleted where no energy within the reservoir is left.

Water flooding

Description
Water flooding consist of injecting water into the reservoir. It is the most post-primary recovery
method. Water is injected in patterns or along the periphery of the reservoir
Mechanisms That Improve Recovery Efficiency

Water Drive
Increase pressure
Limitations
High oil viscosities result in higher mobility ratios.
Some heterogeneity is acceptable, but avoid extensive fractures

Compatibility between the injected water and the reservoir may cause formation damage

Chemical flooding

Objectives of chemical flooding

 Increase the Capillary Number Nc to mobilize residual oil
 Decrease the Mobility Ratio M for better sweep
 Emulsification of oil to facilitate production
General limitations
 Cost of chemicals
 Excessive chemical loss: adsorption, reactions with clay and brines, dilution
 Gravity segregation
 Lack of control in large well spacing
 Geology is unforgiving!
 Great variation in the process mechanism, both areal and cross-sectional
Polymer Flooding
Conventional water flooding can be improved by addition of polymers to injection water.
This improves (decrease) the mobility ratio between the injected & in-place fluids. The polymer
solution affects the relative flow rates of oil & water and sweeps a larger fraction of reservoir
than water alone, thus contacting more of the oil and moving it to production wells.
Polymer flooding is advantageous in heterogeneous reservoirs and those that contain moderate
amounts of viscous oil. Oil reservoirs with adverse water-flood mobility ratios have potential for
increased oil recovery through better areal sweep efficiency. Heterogeneous reservoir may
respond favourably as a result of improved vertical sweep efficiency.

Currently polymer flooding is being used in significant number of commercial field

projects. The process may be used to recover the oils of highest viscosity.

Surfactant Flooding

It is a multiple slug process involving addition of surface active chemicals to water. These
chemicals reduce the capillary forces that trap the oil in pores of the rock. Surfactant slug thus
helps in displacing the majority of the oil from the reservoir. The principal factors that influence
the surfactant slug design are inter-facial properties, slug mobility in relation to the mobility of
the oil/water bank, the persistence of acceptable slug properties and slug integrity in the reservoir
and cost.

The surfactant slug is followed by a slug of water containing polymer in solution. The polymer
solution is injected to preserve the integrity of the more costly surfactant slug and to improve the
sweep efficiency.
Both of these goals are achieved by adjusting the polymer solution viscosity, in relation to the
viscosity of the surfactant slug, in order to obtain a favourable mobility ratio. The polymer
solution is then followed by injection of drive water, which continues until the project is
completed.

Alkaline Flooding

In this method, inorganic alkaline chemicals such as sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate or
ortho-silicates are added to flood water to enhance oil recovery. This method is helpful &
applicable primarily to the recovery of moderately viscous, low API gravity, naphthenic crudes

Miscible Flooding 10
Among methods of enhanced oil recovery, CO2 miscible flooding has the greatest potential. It
has a moderate cost and miscibility characteristics that are often favourable compared to other
gases.
There are notable exceptions where hydrocarbon or nitrogen are more miscible solvents. CO2
some time be used as immiscible drive agent.
Reservoir operating pressure must be kept at a high enough level to develop & maintain a
mixture of CO2 extracted hydrocarbons that at reservoir temperature will be miscible with crude
oil.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) flooding is a process whereby carbon dioxide is injected into an oil
reservoir in order to increase output when extracting oil. When a reservoir’s pressure is depleted
through primary and secondary production, Carbon Dioxide flooding can be an ideal tertiary
recovery method.
It is particularly effective in reservoirs deeper than 2,000 ft., where CO2 will be in
a supercritical state, with API oil gravity greater than 22–25º and remaining oil saturations
greater than 20%.
It should also be noted that Carbon dioxide flooding is not affected by the lithology of the
reservoir area but simply by the reservoir characteristics. Carbon dioxide flooding works on the
premise that by injecting CO2 into the reservoir, the viscosity of any hydrocarbon will be reduced
and hence will be easier to sweep to the production well.