W I R E L I N E
- I S S U E 3 0 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 5
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The promise of enhanced oil recovery
Cutting-edge technology continues to play a key role in the UK Continental Shelf’s
success story.
Wireline
catches up with Trevor Garlick of BP, who leads the
PILOT Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Work Group, to gain an insight into the
promise of EOR.
“T
he enhanced oil recovery
(EOR) technologies are
out there, but they need to
be either implemented at the start of a
development or in some way retrofitted
before it’s too late. The longer you
leave it, the harder it gets,” says Trevor
Garlick, regional president of the North
Sea business at BP, who is leading the
government-industry forum PILOT’s
EOR Work Group.
BP has had its own EOR programme
since the 1940s. And no wonder,
given the rewards. EOR techniques
can increase the recovery of reserves
from existing and new fields (see fact
box overleaf), with the main focus on
improving two factors in oil production
– pore scale displacement and reservoir
sweep. In essence, any EOR technology
involves modifying the injected water
or gas to make it more effective in
recovering the oil trapped in the rock
pores or to improve the movement of the
gas or water to ‘sweep’ more of the oil to
the production well.
BP’s scientists discovered that reducing the salinity of the
water injected into a sandstone reservoir increases the
molecules of oil that are released. Pictured is an oil droplet
tethered to a clay surface being released by BP’s LoSal
®
enhanced oil recovery technique
ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY
TECHNOLOGY
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