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Collaborating Authors
Results
ABSTRACT Conventional primary and secondary operations are expected to recover on the average only one-third of the oil which is discovered. The remaining oil, two-thirds of our proven original oil-in-place, or about 304 billion barrels in the United States, is the target for tertiary recovery operations. Estimates of additional recovery potentials and the status of the major processes are discussed. Emphasis is placed on the inadequacy of current price incentives and on a proposed solution. INTRODUCTION It is clear to this audience that the United States is seriously and increasingly dependent on other nations for needed crude oil supplies. A real concern is that any of several, very possible scenarios such as world oil demand surpassing world oil capacity ( ), an Arab-Israeli conflict, or another oil embargo, could put us in a calamitous energy situation within the next decade. To avoid this dilemma we, both in the United States and world-wide, must engage in energy conservation, develop alternate fuels, such as coal, find and develop new oil fields, and recover a higher percentage of the oil we have already found. Unfortunately, U. S. conservation efforts are not moving very fast. U. S. coal development is hindered by increasing environmental restraints, labor problems, and transportation limitations. There is no evidence of a world-wide emphasis, to develop coal. Needed domestic exploration programs are held up by environmental laws, such as the recent Amendment to the Clean Air Act, by the threatened passage of a bill to amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and delays in planned offshore lease sales. International exploration has slowed dramatically with increasing taxation and nationalization policies of host countries. All these areas are worthy of discussion, but I want to address the potential problems of increasing recovery from existing discoveries. THE TARGET According to the API(), as of the end of 1976, we have discovered in the United States an estimated 446 billion barrels of oil, of which we have produced about 111 billion barrels and have remaining proved reserves of about 31 billion barrels. Thus, we expect to leave unrecovered an estimated 304 billion barrels or 68% of what we discovered. This is not a very satisfactory result. These 304 billion barrels should be our target. Certainly we cannot produce all of this, but only 25% of it would equal the current reserves of the Western Hemisphere, and only 10% of it would approximate the current reserves of the United States. I do not mean to imply that our industry has done a poor job of oil production. These 304 billion barrels will be neither easy nor inexpensive to recover. For the most part, they are being left as residual saturations to water drives and waterfloods. Much of this oil is trapped in low permeability rock and in reservoir heterogeneities where it is almost impossible to contact by currently known processes. Also being left is an appreciable amount of heavy oil which is very viscous and is in reservoirs which have little natural energy. The cost of producing this oil will be high. However, some portion of it can be recovered for a price less than that required for the development of alternate fuels. This target of potentially recoverable oil beyond that which can be economically recoverable by conventional primary and secondary methods is referred to here as " tertiary oil " and elsewhere as "enhanced oil".
- North America > United States > Texas (0.49)
- North America > United States > New Mexico (0.29)
- Government > Regional Government > North America Government > United States Government (1.00)
- Energy > Oil & Gas > Upstream (1.00)
- North America > United States > Texas > Permian Basin > Yeso Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Permian Basin > Yates Formation (0.99)
- North America > United States > Texas > Permian Basin > Wolfcamp Formation (0.99)
- (22 more...)
ABSTRACT The National Petroleum Council, at the request of the Department of the Interior, analyzed the potentia1 for enhanced oil recovery from known fields in the United States during the period 1976 to 2000. Their report, entitled y**, was published by the NPC in December 1976, and this paper is based upon that report. The paper describes the basis for the analysis, the analysis methods, the economic assumptions considered, the potential incremental ultimate recovery, and producing rate. The very large uncertainties in the analysis are described and the uncertainty in results is shown graphically, Comments are included on the effect of Government policies on the potential for enhanced oil recovery. INTRODUCTION The material for this presentation is based upon a report, y, prepared by the National Petroleum Council in December 1976. The National Petroleum Council was asked by the Department of the Interior to assess the state of the art of enhanced recovery for oil and gas from known oil and gas reserves ...(appraise) the probable ranges of volumetric outcomes based on alternative economic conditions ...(recommend) how public policy can improve the out look. The Council agreed to undertake the study and, with approval of the Department of the Interior, established a Committee on Enhanced Recovery Techniques for Oil and Gas in the United States. A Coordinating Subcommittee and two Task Groups assisted the Committee In preparing the report. In selecting the membership of the Committee and the working groups, an attempt was made to appoint individuals who represented the various divergent views on enhanced recovery. The estimates from the study thus represent a consensus from a spectrum of views ranging from optimistic to pessimistic. The Council agreed to examine known enhanced recovery methods and the recovery potential from known oil fields in the United States from the present to the year 2000. This report does not consider the impact on future supply of oil fields discovered after December 31, 1975, nor does it consider the possible application of EOR processes to those fields. The Council did not estimate potential enhanced recovery from producing gas fields, since the opportunity for improving total gas recovery through non-conventional or enhanced recovery processes in these fields is limited. The major potential for non-conventional gas recovery is from low-permeability, presently economic reservoirs. The magnitude of this potential is unknown, but may represent a substantial contribution to the nation's future energy supply. However, very little information is available specifying reservoir volume, location, reservoir geologic characteristics, or other data required to analyze potential recovery and producing rates. Therefore, estimates of possible enhanced gas recovery were not made. The NPC study presents estimates of what could happen under certain technical and economic circumstances and is not intended to represent a forecast of what will occur. Other recent studies on enhanced recovery were used as references when appropriate and their results are compared with the results of this study. The possible environmental impacts of enhanced oil recovery operations are considered in the report.