How can you use the latest enhanced oil recovery methods to improve your oil and gas production?

Surfactants and polymers, primarily through foam EOR, are pivotal chemical methods. Selection hinges on cost, reservoir heterogeneity, and wettability alteration. Surfactants reduce interfacial tension, enhancing oil mobilization, especially in mixed-wet systems. Polymers increase water viscosity, improving sweep efficiency. The choice is influenced by factors like formation compatibility, injection strategy, and environmental impact. Advanced surfactants are being developed for harsher conditions, and polymer flooding is evolving with biopolymers for eco-friendliness and efficiency.

Microbial EOR involves the use of microorganisms and the products of their metabolism for oil recovery through degradation of heavy oil fractions, production of acids, solvents and gases, production of gases, selective plugging amongst others. Several mechanisms are responsible for the enhancement of the oil recovery through microbial action that include: - viscosity reduction by gas production or degradation - oil viscosity reduction - wettability alteration and reduction of oil/water interfacial tension - improvement of rock absolute permeability Pilot cases has been realized in conventional and unconventional reservois (paper: Field Pilots of Unconventional Shale EOR in the Permian Basin. URTEC-2019-506-MS)

Beside the effects that nanoparticles can have on the oil recovery, in unconsolidated sandstone formations, contact of LSW with the rock surface could lead to a sand production phenomenon. The sand particles may obstruct some fluid paths, thereby reducing reservoir permeability and causing formation damage. Charged nanoparticles can readily adsorb onto the surface minerals of the rock due to their ultra-small specific surface area. This coverage on the rock surface can accelerate the wettability alteration process of the reservoir rock towards greater water wetness, preventing any contact between low salinity water and cement/rock surface minerals. This process can stabilize the sand particles and impede subsequent formation damages.

nanoparticle EOR is an improved waterflooding assissted by nanoparticles dispersed in the injection water. Is it considered a potentially EOR mechanism because have special characteristics which contribute to additional oil recovery. There are several worldwide research and laboratory studies that employed various nanoparticles materials such as silicon dioxide (silica), aluminum oxide, iron oxide. Among these kinds of materials, the most often studied one is silica. Mechanisms associated to the Nanoparticle EOR are wettability alteration, structural disjoining pressure, pore channel plugging and interfacial tension reduction. Pilot case was conducted in Colombia, in a oil field

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques mainly focus on increasing either reservoir volumetric sweep efficiency or displacement efficiency. In order to improve the expected ultimate recovery (EUR), it is possible to use thermal, miscible or chemical methods.