[shakespear1]

I suspect, but cann't be sure, but many people on this web site may not realize that when an oil field is developed and abandoned, there is still PLENTY of oil/gas left in it. Even more than was produced after the last well was shut in. That is the Good News

The bad news is that we do not know how to economically extract the rest

This is because the typical recovery for an oil field is only around 30% of the oil in the ground. In very good situations we can get to 60% but this is not the norm. I will not get into the details why as am simply intersted to raise the awarness.

That is why we need a Tesla or a Graham Bell to figure out this puzzle of how to economically maximize this Recovery because as you see by the percentages, we leave a hell of a lot it in the ground.

The first Major oil company that I worked for was ARCO Oil and Gas. ARCO had a large laboratory in Plano, Texas. Then with time as ARCO's sorry ass ability to find new oil got it in trouble, the lab was slowly reduced and finally taken completely out of research work. The same trend was going on with the other oil companies. Get out of Research.

To increase this recovery should have been a National Priority had we had people in a gov. with the forsight to do this instead of trying to develop a Star Wars System.

Perhaps we need to set a prize such as the X-Prize which would give people the drive to innovate as in the business environment innovation is frequently mentioned on management slides but not encouraged amongst the troops if it doesn't immediately show results.

Leaving 70 - 40 % of the oil in the ground is a Big Prize

Is Mr/Mrs Graham ready to pickup their prize?

[khebab]

I'm glad you're asking! I tried to raise the issue before (What about enhanced oil recovery (EOR)?) but without much success. The comon belief on this website is that everything has been tried and no new recovery techniques is expected.

I'm not a specialist, in fact you are the one that could enlight us on what to expect on the recovery rate in the future.

[Carlhole]

Well, it's EROEI all over again. There is plenty on the site written about it. You're not telling anyone anything new.

Kenneth Deffeyes, author of Hubbert's Peak and Beyond Oil, has recommended that if new coal-fired powerplants are to be built that they recover their CO2 and inject it into old oil wells since that technique has got a darn good record of recovering previously unrecoverable oil.

It's certain that people will continue to innovate in extracting more oil from existing reservoirs. That innovation is regularly factored into various Peak Oil estimates.

[Such]

The laws of physics is what makes it difficult to extract the oil left behind. Eventually the pressure differential in the field dies... or you are left with viscous oil, or the reserviour source rock collapses... or the water drive surface tension causes the water oil minicus to break and the water bypasses the oil, moving preferentially to the well heads... or the dissolved gases begin to dissociate.

Lots of things have been tried to increase extraction rates of this oil left behind... more wells (vertical, horizontal, MRC, etc.), steam, more water, CO2, methane, detergents and chemicals, refracturing, mechanical lift.... I've even read academic papers by companies that tried to use vibrations to break the internal surface tension, explosions, acids, polymers, waxes. Each of these have varying degrees of success depending on the materials easily available and the conditions in the reserviour.

Most of these things have been used / tried for decades already.

[RonMN]

I'm sure that they could harness the force of the water being pumped into a well to pump the oil out of the well...

I think the "wangenstein suction machine" worked on this principle...although that was a medical device. (not sure if that's the correct spelling of wangenstein).

[rockdoc123]

seems to me increasing recovery factor is a complicated problem. There is not just one reason for poor recovery factors....oil wet reservoirs, adverse mobility ratios, gas coning, water coning, fines migration and pore throat plugging..etc. Not sure there is anyone technological leap that would impact recovery efficiency across the board. But of course I might be wrong.
That being said high oil prices are likely to help some. Most reservoirs are abandoned at the point operating costs exceed receipts (the so-called economic limit of a field). So with higher oil prices it might be possible to say continue to produce a field at 95% water cut whereas at a lower price that would have been uneconomic. Of course some fields just give up the ghost regardless.
Interesting point about the research centres. I suspect they are now only around at places like BP, Chevron, Shell, Total. There are some independent ones like the Petroleum Research Centre but there doesn't seem to be any great leaps being made. Might be interesting to look at a recent copy of the SPE bulletin and try to figure out where the authors work...I suspect a lot of them are at Universities.

[spot5050]

The first Major oil company that I worked for was ARCO Oil and Gas. ARCO had a large laboratory in Plano, Texas.

Hi shakespear1. Please feel free to tell me to get lost if you think I'm being nosey, but I would love to know...

...are you still working in the industry? Do/did people in the oil industry know about PO?.. talk about it?
How did you find out about PO? What would your workmates/ex workmates think about PO if they knew?

A neighbour of mine works for BP and her boyfriend is transport manager for a haulage company. They hadn't heard about PO but when I talked about it, strangle they weren't really bothered. They both just shrugged their shouders in a resigned "yup, i getchya" sort of way. I didn't expect that at all.

[FatherOfTwo]

A neighbour of mine works for BP and her boyfriend is transport manager for a haulage company. They hadn't heard about PO but when I talked about it, strangle they weren't really bothered. They both just shrugged their shouders in a resigned "yup, i getchya" sort of way. I didn't expect that at all.

My neighbor used to work for BP Canada and is now retired. I don't know what his job was but I'm waiting for the right time to bring PO up and see what his reaction is...

[khebab]

Interesting point about the research centres. I suspect they are now only around at places like BP, Chevron, Shell, Total. There are some independent ones like the Petroleum Research Centre but there doesn't seem to be any great leaps being made. Might be interesting to look at a recent copy of the SPE bulletin and try to figure out where the authors work...I suspect a lot of them are at Universities.

Apparently, the R&D effot is manly within small service companies (called "indies") such as Halliburton. The number of patents is twice the amount coming from big companies.

[MD]

Oil mining?
Go down with pick and shovel and carry the stuff that weeps from the walls out in buckets?
Use slave labor?

[nth]

Yeah, actually, people here are saying the advance technics only marginally increase recovery and is more a tool to prolong peak production than overall recovery.

The examples I see are oil fields that experts deemed bad management.

What I also find troubling is some fields are doing a lot better than expected, but then, they go and increase the size of the oil field. I am talking about oil fields like Kern field in California.

So what does all this mean?

[rockdoc123]

What I also find troubling is some fields are doing a lot better than expected, but then, they go and increase the size of the oil field. I am talking about oil fields like Kern field in California.

In almost every case where I have seen this happen it can be explained simply that the original oil in place calculation was too low. How can this happen...well remember that even in mature fields where well density is high our actual sampling of the reservoir is pretty low. It is pretty easy to figure out ultimate recovery in fields that do not have strong water drives by doing a material balance calculation, but if you have a strong water drive you are pretty much limited to betting on your volumetric calculations. I'm not very familiar with Kern county but often for fields where the size ends up being bigger than originally thought it is due to the reservoir not being conventional (eg. fractured etc.). It might also be that changes in technology suddenly make more reserves recoverable...I believe a lot of the fields in Kern County are produced using steam cogen which might explain it.

[Hawkcreek]

--

[MicroHydro]

Oil mining?
Go down with pick and shovel and carry the stuff that weeps from the walls out in buckets?
Use slave labor?

Something like that was done near Baku in the 19th century in a shallow oil seep. Unfortunately, oil is typically a couple of km underground. Gold mining has been done at that depth, but you have to remove a lot of overburden, line the shafts, operate elevators, ventilators, and pumps. I am not sure if this could be done profitably even with slave labor. The slaves will be busy in the coal mines and sugar cane fields anyway.

[shakespear1]

I am aware of all the arguments WHY we are stuck with these low recoveries and looking at some of the responses so are others here. But STILL I think that a PRIZE needs to be placed out there to motivate others to look. What do we have to lose???

When I was in Russia in 1992 I met a scientist who told me that his institute developed an additive that repairs micro damage on metal parts which are in contact due to metal to metal contact under high loads such as bearings. Sounded fantastic but he showed me results and they were planning more testing with an institute in Poland. Innovative solution was possible and someone found it.

The point of this is that people are clever and there maybe someone out there able to look at the problem in a different way and thus achieve a breakthrough. Use of neural networks in computation came from medical research!!!

But something is needed to motivate people to look at this problem. knowing oil companies as I do this is not going to happen there. Universities require grants this depends strongly on faculty background and EOR was never the biggest magnet for this. So you are left with the tinkers in my opinion. However I don't think many people are aware of this problem or perhaps I am wrong.

[RG73]

But STILL I think that a PRIZE needs to be placed out there to motivate others to look.

$58.60/barrel is the prize. There is plenty of economic incentive to solve the problem. Billions and billions of dollars of incentive. Even with improved recovery, price is not likely to ever decrease that much in the future--so increased recovery will simply mean that companies make more money for longer.

Sometimes there is no solution. Just look at fusion. Again, plenty of incentive. Plenty of brilliant people working at it. Doesn't amount to squat. Too much hubris makes us think we can throw more money, more technology and more brain power at problems and they will go away (even when said problems have not been wanting for funding, technology, nor brains). The oil is staying in the ground--it sucks, but that is life.

The money and brains and tech need to go into figuring out what to do when we can't get at the oil anymore, not trying to figure out how to squeeze every last ounce of it from the ground so we can drive our SUVs and have big agriculture for another decade.

[0mar]

7 trillion barrels of OIIP.

2 trillion barrels of oil economically recoverable.

[hotsacks]

There's no telling what lengths we'll go to to get at those 2 trillion barrels when the price is $100/bbl.. or higher. It will become the greatest treasure hunt in history. 2 klics down?...no problem Houston,we're on it .What did it cost sending Robert Ballard down to find some old ship?How many souls are out there right now dragging the sea floor for quadroons and doubloons?
Threat...Quest...Salvation,all the great romantic themes are in place for a new century,a new spirit,a new man to replace these sad,jaded cassandras wailing the analytical dirge science taught them.
Sorry to ruin the party and sound hopeful...

[khebab]

7 trillion barrels of OIIP.

2 trillion barrels of oil economically recoverable.

That's it! after reflexion, I think that EOR doe not really matter anymore, our consumption is just too high . Reaching a production 38Gb in 2014 would mean triple the URR (6 trillions). Check pup55's simulations in the following thread (Updated Verhulst model.

[Antimatter]

What about in situ combustion? This was tried a long time ago with poor results, but with modern reservior modeling, horizontal wells etc it could have a lot more potential. See the THAI (toe to heel air injection) process being developed for the tar sands:

http://www.petrobank.com/ops/html/cnt_heavy_faqs.html

Could this process also be used in conventional oil fields?