COURSE OVERVIEW

 This hands-on, highly-interactive course includes real-life case studies where participants will be engaged in a series of interactive small groups and class workshops. 

Crude oil development and production can include up to three distinct phases: primary, secondary, and tertiary (or enhanced) recovery. During primary recovery, the natural pressure of the reservoir or gravity drive oil into the wellbore, combined with artificial lift techniques (such as pumps) which bring the oil to the surface. But only about 10 percent of a reservoir's original oil in place is typically produced during primary recovery. Secondary recovery techniques to the field's productive life generally by injecting water or gas to displace oil and drive it to a production wellbore, resulting in the recovery of 20 to 40 percent of the original oil in place. 

 

The Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) includes polymer flooding, surfactant flooding, alkaline-surfactant-polymer flooding, wettability alteration, mobility control using foam and low salinity water flooding. Major advances in chemical EOR have greatly extended the range of reservoir conditions and types, reduced the cost of recovering the oil and increased the process robustness. 

 

This course is designed to provide an overview of oil recovery process that involve the use of polymer, surfactant, alkali, gel and a combination of them. It reviews reservoir engineering fundamentals and describes the principles for a variety of chemical enhanced oil recovery processes. Examples of laboratory and field performances are presented. Simulation exercises are used for each process. 

 

The course provides important case studies related to various chemical EOR pilot and field applications in a variety of oil fields. These case studies focus on practical problems, underlying theoretical and modelling methods, operational parameters (e.g., injected chemical concentration, slug sizes, flooding schemes and well spacing), solutions and sensitivity studies, and performance optimization strategies.