WIRELINE ISSUE 30 WINTER 2014

ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY

TECHNOLOGY

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

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 government-industry forum PILOT’s EOR Work Group. BP has had its own EOR programme 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

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

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

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.

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