The Intersection of Environment and EOR: How Carbon Capture is Changing Tertiary Recovery

Increasing interest by governments worldwide on reducing CO₂ released into the atmosphere form a nexus of opportunity with enhanced oil recovery which could benefit mature oil fields in nearly every country. Overall approximately two-thirds of original oil in place (OOIP) in mature conventional oil fields remains after primary or primary/secondary recovery efforts have taken place. CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (CO₂ EOR) has an excellent record of revitalizing these mature plays and can dramatically increase ultimate recovery. Since the first commercial CO₂ EOR project was initiated in 1972, more than 160 additional projects have been put into operation around the world, with about two-thirds of projects located in the Permian basin and Gulf coast regions of the United States. While these regions have favorable geologic and reservoir conditions for CO₂ EOR, they are also located near large natural sources of CO₂.

In recent years an increasing number of projects have been developed in areas without natural supplies, and have instead utilized captured CO₂ from a variety of anthropogenic sources including gas processing plants, ethanol plants, cement plants, and fertilizer plants. Today approximately 36% of active CO2 EOR projects utilize gas that would otherwise be vented to the atmosphere. Interest world-wide has increased, including projects in Canada, Brazil, Norway, Turkey, Trinidad, and more recently, and perhaps most significantly, in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. About 80% of all energy used in the world comes from fossil fuels, and many industrial and manufacturing processes generate CO₂ that can be captured and used for EOR. In this paper, a brief history of CO₂ EOR is provided, implications for utilizing captured carbon are discussed, and a demonstration project is introduced with an overview of characterization, modeling, simulation, and monitoring activities taking place during injection of more than a million metric tons (~19 Bcf) of anthropogenic CO₂ into a mature waterflood.