What they didn't teach you in school about miscible floods

You've heard of hydrocarbon miscible flood as a tertiary recovery method. But what comes after that?

Without AppIntel, how would you find field trials of miscible flooding? When you have AppIntel, it is as simple as typing  miscible injection  into the KiP omni box.

One operator is going to sweep a miscible flood with CO2. He claims extra recovery, better areal and vertical conformance and better sweep.

And you'll never guess where he's going to get his CO2. Most CO2 miscible floods get their injectant from chemical plants or existing processing facilities -- limiting where floods can be implemented geographically. But this operator has hit on a portable CO2 source.

In the end, he found it hard to tell how much recovery should be attributed to the CO2 injection trial.

It's all in his AER application documents. Help yourself to his application documents through our secure checkout.

The promise of CO2

CO2 promises great, cheap recovery. CO2 costs per tonne are about a tenth of the cost of natural gas.

CO2 sequestration could make you an environmental hero and add reserves.

If you inject above minimum miscibility pressure, CO2 should theoretically mix and lighten crude oil.

Minimum Miscibility Pressure (MMP)

In order for CO2 to be fully miscible with crude oil, the reservoir pressure needs to be higher than the MMP. This pressure is determined by the PVT behavior of the entire system.

Usually MMP for a CO2 flood is higher than the initial reservoir pressure. But it takes a lab PVT study to be sure.

If this is the first time you've heard of MMP, you really need to call an expert like Proven before you inject gas into the ground.

Proven has worked on 20 miscible floods. Would it surprise you to know that not every miscible flood has a simulation?

If you think a miscible flood expert is expensive, just wait until you hire an amateur

Flooding and especially miscible flooding are not for beginners. There are so few flood engineers that really know what they're doing with miscible floods.

For example, one company I know was operating a miscible flood. I met their sole young flood engineer. He had completed a university project on miscible flooding. He was very inexpensive to hire.

However, there's much more to miscible flood engineering than a school report. Apparently he didn't know how to get the flood to make money.

The company ended up in receivership. We could have saved it.

It's really very costly to hire inexperienced people.

More than injectant

A specialized injectant like CO2 is not magic. It doesn't guarantee great economics success.

The most profitable floods are only partially due to specialized injectant and much more to do with regular flood maintenance. Even floods with exotic injectants can perform very poorly.

Patient, persistent flood maintenance can yield very big dividends.

Tags: Gas Injection, Flood

Granger Low   22 Nov 2022

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