Enhanced oil recovery comes to the fore

27 January 2018
Falling costs and improved efficiencies are making EOR a more practical option

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is nothing new in the oil industry. For many years, the world’s leading oil companies have been investing in the development of cutting-edge mechanical, thermal or chemical technologies to enable them to squeeze out every last drop of oil from their ageing or difficult-to-access oil wells.

Aside from Oman, whose unique geology makes hydrocarbon reserves more difficult to access than elsewhere in the region, EOR has not received that much focus in the past from the Gulf’s state oil companies.

Until now, the abundance of low-cost, easy-access oil has limited the Gulf’s need to invest in expensive enhanced recovery techniques, and EOR technology has only been widely utilised on ageing or complex oil reservoirs, where lower-cost conventional production is no longer possible.

But the growing focus on economic efficiency that has accompanied the tightening of fiscal management in the region is encouraging oil companies to look at how EOR techniques can be used to improve output.

Additionally, the falling costs and improved efficiency of tertiary production technologies, as well as the benefits offered by the digitalisation of oil reservoir management, are helping to make EOR a much more commercially attractive option.

And, even as oil price forecasts are rising, potentially easing the squeeze on margins and national finances, it is clear that the Gulf’s producers must become more competitive in the face of growing pressure from unconventional sources and non-Opec producers, including the US oil shale producers.

In short, EOR is a technology that’s time has come.

AGENDA:

Optimising value from oil assets with tertiary recovery

Enhanced oil recovery comes of age through big data

 

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