The goal of this project is to develop a full-featured, user friendly, carbon dioxide (CO2) enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and sequestration planning software system that will allow small- to mid-sized field operators to design and optimize CO2 EOR and sequestration operations in a short time frame. The objective is to develop a tool that includes all the significant physical and chemical factors that impact the flow and recovery of reservoir fluids, yet make the process fast enough so that an integrated feasibility study can be completed in less than one month at a small cost.
NITEC LLC, Denver, Colorado 80202
Among the 582 lower forty-eight onshore fields in the United States that can be identified as economical CO2 EOR prospects, 151 of them are estimated to hold 70 percent of the total economic resource potential. The remaining 431 fields (~75 percent) comprise 30 percent of total economic resource potential and are on average smaller than the 295 million barrels original-oil-in-place economic CO2EOR threshold, though this classification varies by region. To date, these smaller fields have been exploited through primary and secondary recovery techniques, and due to their marginal value most of them are presently owned by small- and mid-sized operators. Given their operational budgets, these operators typically cannot afford to commission technically sophisticated integrated studies to assess the feasibility of CO2 injection, nor can they hire the staff needed to properly study the topic in-house.
A software tool that will accelerate CO2 injection technical studies (for EOR and sequestration purposes) for small- to mid-sized oil field operators in the U.S. is needed because the existing public domain and commercial solutions are either too simplistic to be used for development planning and economic analysis purposes, or too complex (compositional), time consuming (in excess of six months), and unaffordable (in excess of $0.5 million) to be used by all but the major oil companies and largest independents.
This project will advance the development of simulation and visualization tools and processes in order to assist the industry in enhancing the production of domestic resources by CO2-EOR. It will result in field-ready applications, with the executable (exe) code (along with user-friendly documentation) made available to the public. The integrated solution will enable the design and operation of advanced CO2-EOR technologies.
This integrated and simple-to-use solution may enable the completion of a CO2-EOR study within one month compared to the current minimum of six months required for more complex approaches; thus, it is reasonable to expect savings of $250,000 per study. For the 431 fields owned by small- and mid-sized operators, the cumulative savings could be in excess of $100 million. Finally, it should be noted that significant volumes of anthropogenic CO2 are generated in the Northeast, where the number of major oil fields with CO2-EOR potential is limited. The use of locally available smaller fields for CO2-EOR —which this project facilitates—may accelerate the implementation EOR in these fields.
NITEC LLC completed the project tasks and the project has ended.
$1,239,952
$313,341
NETL – William Fincham (william.fincham@netl.doe.gov or 304-285-4268)
NITEC – Chet Ozgen (cozgen@nitecllc.com or 303-292-9595)
COZView/COZSim downloads [external site]