rockdoc123 wrote:Also, it is true that I didn’t ‘venture to guess’ how recovery factors might be raised to 35% in an op-ed article in a newspaper, but it’s hard to believe anyone with experience in the industry would challenge that.
I guess one would have to look at oil production and remaining reserves on a production/reserve weighted basis in order to come up with a reasonable ulitmate recovery number.
How about using the recovery factor distribution based on the USGS studying reserve growth in the US? It is argued that even this estimate is a bit pessimistic, particularly without accounting for changes in technology dependent upon price.
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20155091
The EIA has shown they have people capable of applying not just the idea as written up by the USGS, but can expand beyond those estimates of recoverability with changes in price or technology, up to the endowment size, which is far more geologically based then a geologists take on "technically recoverable".
https://www.eia.gov/workingpapers/pdf/trr.pdf
rocdoc123 wrote:As an example Aramco is now indicating they feel confident of getting 70% recovery from all of their fields. On the other hand the heavy oil fields which have high viscosities will be stuggling with recovery factors in the low teens. The shales are similarily challenged with recovery factors hovering below the 10% level. Not an easy calculation I'm afraid.
I've seen a few estimates that are higher than 10%, particularly in the areas with better deliverabiity and higher well densities.