Team:ITB INDONESIA/humprac/eor-study

RhamCOLIpid

Engineered E. coli producing rhamnolipid for green enhanced oil recovery

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As ITB_Indonesia project involved with EOR, the human practice team investigated and did a brief study about EOR to provide an educational tool. Hopefully, this brief study could provide the fellow iGEM teams or other teams in the future a brief and general knowledge about EOR in Indonesia and the world.

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Study

Fig. 1 Typical injection oil wells^[4]

One of the main source of energy in the world is the utilization of oil and gas. Thus, many efforts have been taken to increase the production of oil and gas by many companies. There are three phases in oil recovery, primary, secondary, and tertiary (enhanced) recovery. Firstly, the companies would use the primary and secondary recovery the oil field. However, the utilization of tertiary recovery is inevitable in the future^[1]. In the US, however, producers have attempted several Enhance Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques to increase the production of oil, from 30 to 60 percent, or more, of the reservoir’s original oil in place, higher than primary and secondary recovery^[2]. EOR technologies could be grouped into the following categories^[3]

Thermal EOR (TEOR)
This method utilizes cyclis steam and hot water injection, steam and hot water flooding, and (rarely) the in-situ combustion of hydrocarbons. The principle of TEOR is to reduces the viscosity of the oil sufficiently by heat to enable it to be recovered.

CO2-EOR
This method was more recently applied compared to the TEOR and is also the fastes growing EOR application.

Other gas EOR
The other gas used for this method is the hydrocarbon and nitrogen. Generally, this method is not cost-effective in the U.S. and is expected to continue to decline over the next decade.

Chemical/Microbial EOR
This method involves the addition of chemical or microbial agents to the reservoir to modify the fluid properties, thus the oil recovery is more favorable. The principal chemical EOR methods include injection of polymers, alkaline chemicals, or surfactants.

References:
[1] http://www.chinaoilfieldtech.com/oilrecovery.html
[2] http://energy.gov/fe/science-innovation/oil-gas-research/enhanced-oil-recovery
[3] Enhanced Oil Recovery Scoping Study, EPRI, Palo Alto, CA: 1999. TR-113836
[4] US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC – “Underground Injection Control Program: Typical Injection Wells”.

The Potency of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in Indonesia

The database of reserve oil and gas managed by LEMIGAS showed that about 62% of the oil was still lagging in the reservoir after primary and secondary drain. The oil could be retrieved by the chemical injection, such as surfactant.

Currently, the EOR contribution to the national oil production is about 20%. The potency of Indonesia EOR is predicted to be around 42.8 million barrels of oil. Around 58% of this number is accumulated in the Central and South Sumatera region. Further study related to the EOR potency in Indonesia is necessary to develop a strategy for the future^[5]

[5] Usman, 2011, Potensi Pengembangan EOR untuk Peningkatan Produksi Minyak Indonesia, LEMIGAS, Jakarta.

Chemical EOR among OPEC Countries

If we are talking about technology to enhance oil production then we could not exclude OPEC member countries. According to OPEC’s Annual Statistical Bulletin, OPEC members has 81% of world’s crude oil reserves at the end of 2014. As we can se in Figure 1, among OPEC countries Venezuela ranks first with 299,95 bb (billion barrels) oil crude reserve (24,9%), followed by Saudi Arabia with 266,58 bb (22,1%), Iran with 157,53 bb (13,1%), Iraq with 143,07 bb (11,9%), Kuwait with 101,50 bb (8,1%), and Uni Emirate Arab with 98,7 bb (8,1%).

Venezuela

Venezuela as the country that has the biggest oil crude reserve is dominated by heavy oil sand reservoir. Because of the lithology, Venezuela currently using thermal EOR and hydrocarbon gas injectors though still having limited succsess in EOR. Further research on litholpgy and oil fields’s characteritics ia needed by venezuela to explore and develop opportunity to chemical EOR.

Iran

According to research that already counducted, Iranian oil industry payed more attention to gas injection but received poor sweep effeciency. Water flooding alternative has been conducted either, but only few and cost too high.

Iraq

In Iraq, some studies has done to describe reservoir’s rock and fluid properties in the oil fields and what kind of EOR technology fits each oil fields. Until now, 78% of EOR project done in Iraq is thermal and chemical EOR. Both thermal EOR and surfanctant EOR used for enhancing production of light oil.

Venezuela

With all of its potential of oil crude reserves, OPEC countries has not been advanced in EOR technology. Further research about oil fields characteristics and review of preceeding EOR technology process is needed. But, OPEC countries is open and on their way to that direction.

Fig. 2 EOR projects percentages (Alvarado and Manrique 2010)

Fig. 3 Lithology distribution for EOR projects (Alvarado and Manrique 2010)

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