Increasing Recovery Factor

Soft_Landing · Heavy Crude Joined: May 28, 2004 Posts: 377

This file discusses increasing the recovery factor to 100%. I find it strange that it considers these ideas to be new. It does provide a good introduction for anyone interested in the challenges associated with extracting oil from conventional wells.

Note that there is no discussion of the energy investment required to implement the proposed techniques.

LINK

Devil · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2004 9:14 am Post subject:

Being my own devil's advocate, I understand what he is saying, but I cannot imagine 100% recovery for several reasons:
1. there will be capillary retention of oil in rock pores.
2. hydrogen bonds are very difficult to break and require energy to do so: there will be bonding between the oil and the rock.
3. if there has been emulsification between oil and natural or injected water, micellar bonding, forming a hydrophilic monolayer with high-density van der Waal's packing between HC molecules could occur over the whole rock surface (see Rao's Surface Phenomena). Although molecularly thin, the high density and the massive surface area of the porous rock could retain vast quantities.
4. the experiments were conducted with acrylic beads, to simulate the porous rock, and gear oil. These conditions do not even remotely resemble crude oil in rock, especially as gear oil is not as thixotropic as crude.
5. the patent was applied for 50 years ago, so the technique must now be in the public domain. If it were as effective as the author claims, surely it would be in popular use?
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Devil

Grasshopper · Tar Sands Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 69 Location: Canada

It's a promotional blurb for a small exploration company, published in 2001. They say they intend to acquire properties to test the technology.
It looks like their target properties are selected for reservoir homogeneity and small size with thick oil column (esp. reefs). It would probably work in that kind of reservoir. More complex reservoirs would have more problems; especially maintaining original oil/water interface. Gas injection into an unsaturated reservoir (which a depleted reservoir is likely to be) would likely have to be maintained for some time before much displacement of liquid would take place. New technologies for oil extraction are likely to have lower net energy ratios than earlier ones, unless a real breakthrough occurs (like horizontal drilling in the 1990s). This phase displacement approach may be one, although 100% recovery is unrealistic.
The models are quite simple compared with most reservoirs, so there would still be attic oil left, as mapping of reservoirs is based on widely spaced wells and seismic interpretation, so is inexact. Their strategy of using it in developed reservoirs, where the structure is well known would partially address that problem.
I believe that some of the Alberta reefs have high recovery factors because of pressure maintenance with gas injection (probably what you meant by this being nothing new).
This type of approach will likely increase oil recovery factors in many fields, and will be more common as economic incentive for oil production increases, and so help to make the the other side of the peak less precipitous.