Enhanced Oil Recovery
Omschrijving
On average for the industry the recovery factor of reservoirs produced to date is only around 35% of the oil in place with the remainder trapped in the rock. With current technology further exploitation is either too difficult or too expensive. The world’s demand for energy continues to grow and it becomes increasingly difficult to find new fields that are ‘easy’ to produce. The current efforts in development of alternative energy sources will be insufficient to meet expected demand for the coming decades and hence increasing the recovery factor of currently producing reservoirs is essential to help safeguard the world’s energy supply. An increase in the efficiency of global hydrocarbon recovery of just 1%
would expand conventional oil reserves by 88 billion barrels enough to replace three years of world production at the current rate (27 billion barrels per year), hence a major impact on global production.
Enhanced Oil Recovery is a process that is based on the injection of heat (steam), chemicals or gas to improve the recovery of oil and which requires a high level of tuning for any specific oil reservoir. Challenges are plenty, both from a subsurface and a surface engineering point of view. An overview of Shell's ongoing EOR projects and developments will illustrate the various EOR technologies, application areas and challenges.
In addition, Shell's existing Smart Field technology efforts are being extended to EOR.
Promising techniques include the use of sniffing sensors to detect chemical components in wells in combination with advanced computer models to control and optimise the process of subsurface oil and gas extraction. Another example of innovative technology is the combination of measurements from several data sources including fibre optic sensors along the length of oil wells, permanent seismic sensors buried in the ground or resting at the bottom of the ocean, and even satellite sensors that remotely measure minute deformations of the Earth’s surface. Combining these different pieces of information into a mathematical model, instead of using only one or two of the individual measurement methods, provides better insight on the oil recovery processes, and allows improving them.
Spreker(s)
Jeroen Regtien, Vice President Hydrocarbon Recovery Technologies Shell
From 1994-2001 he had a variety of roles in Brunei and Australia including technology planning, petroleum engineering study team lead, chief RE, asset manager and development manager. In 2001 he became head of the Shell Geothermal Energy unit, followed by an appointment as the head of strategy and planning for the newly created EP Technology organisation in 2003.
In 2005, he was seconded to Petroleum Development Oman as the petroleum engineering manager for South Oman where he was responsible for a large portfolio of primary, secondary and enhanced oil recovery projects as well as the well and reservoir management for the producing fields. He returned in 2008 to The Netherlands as the technical manager R&D for hydrocarbon recovery in Shell’s upstream technology organisation. In 2010 he was appointed as the Vice President for Hydrocarbon Recovery Technologies covering improved and enhanced oil recovery, reservoir surveillance, next generation smart fields and CO2 storage.
Locatie
Prinsessegracht 23, 2514 AP Den Haag
Organisator
Olie- en Gastechnologie
Naam en contactgegevens voor informatie
Voor meer informatie kunt u contact opnemen met Govert Baak