DOE Digest

DOE CO2 EOR & Sequestration Solicitation

The DOE's recently announced CO2 EOR/ Sequestration solicitation (www.grants.gov/ search/search.do?mode=VIEW
&oppId=7838) offers researchers/industry an opportunity to compete for funding up to $3 million per project for field testing and validating integrated EOR and sequestration technologies. Projects may last 2 - 5 years and require a 50 percent cost share. Proposals are due May 5, 2006.

CO2 flooding, the fastest growing EOR technique, has grown steadily since the 1970s and now accounts for 4% of domestic oil production. A recent series of DOE-supported reports point toward significant growth potential for CO2 EOR—43 billion barrels of incremental oil potential in six areas alone using the latest technologies. But supplies of naturally-occurring CO2 are strained to capacity. To achieve the forecast growth, economic sources of CO2 must be developed from man-made or anthropogenic sources.

In conjunction with the solicitation, DOE sponsored a CO2 Pre-Proposal workshop February 22nd in Houston, hosted by PTTC. The workshop was designed to highlight the current state-of-the-art in CO2 EOR, consider technologies beyond today and provide feedback from the participants for high priority areas for future research.

Presentations and feedback developed at the meeting can be found at www.pttc.org/work
shop_presentations.htm. Access the full Tech Line online at www.fossil.energy.gov/news/ techlines/2006/06008-EOR
_Sequestration_ Initiative.html. The Tech Line for the referenced basin studies can be found at www.fossil.energy.gov/news/
techlines/2006/06015- Oil_
Recovery_Assessments_Released.
html.

Economics of Powder River Basin CBM Development

In November 2002, the DOE published the "Powder River Basin Coalbed Methane Development and Produced Water Management Study." This study examined alternative water disposal options and their associated costs and concluded that requiring active treatment of produced water with the then current reverse osmosis technology would substantially reduce the amount of economically recoverable Powder River Basin CBM.

But things have changed dramatically since then—

thousands of CBM wells have been drilled, natural gas prices and drilling/equipment costs have increased and there are increased environmental concerns. An update to the earlier work was recently published: "The Economics of Powder River Basin Coalbed Methane Development." It examines recent data on basin CBM well production performance, updates costs sensitive to energy price changes, updates water management costs and incorporates costs of utilizing ion exchange technology— a relatively new and potentially less expensive brine treating technology. The report concludes, as did the first report, that the choice of CBM produced water management practices significantly affects economically producible CBM volumes.

The full report can be accessed at www.netl. doe.gov/technologies/
coalpower/ewr/pubs/netl%20Cost%20of%20Produced%20Water%20Treatment%200106.pdf.

Advanced Reservoir Characterization Solicitation

The DOE has recently issued a solicitation in the area of Advanced Diagnostics and Imaging (Low Permeability Reservoirs). They are seeking proposals for cost-shared research projects to develop advanced technologies and techniques that improve detection, characterization and/or production from low-permeability gas reservoirs. Areas of interest include seismic technology, well logging tools and analysis, completion and stimulation techniques and geochemical or geophysical tools and techniques. The solicitation asks for proposals (due April 17th) offering Phase I R&D (20% cost share) followed by a practical test on a real data set or field verification (50% cost share). $1.2 million is expected to be available and the DOE anticipates making two to four awards, depending on the size. Projects are expected to run 24 - 36 months.

Full solicitation information online at www. grants.gov/search/
search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=
8032.

Advanced Technologies Work in Very Mature California Oilfield

 The DOE recently announced preliminary successful project results breathing new life into the aging 73-year old Wilmington field in the heart of Long Beach, California. Tidelands Oil Production Company, as operator for the City of Long Beach, utilized advanced reservoir characterization and thermal production technologies together with horizontal drilling to improve the efficiency of a deep, heavy oil steamflood in the field. Early estimates are that an additional 13 million barrels of recoverable oil will be recovered in this $20 million, 12-year project to end next year.

If extended field-wide, the potential additions would amount to over a half billion barrels.

Specific technologies utilized or developed include:

  • An advanced simulation model to optimize steam, hot water and water injection to maximize production without causing surface subsidence
  • ·horizontal well-based steamflooding, designed using new 3-D models
  • A novel alkaline-steam well completion that minimized sand production from the unconsolidated reservoir, reducing capital costs by 25%
  • A new commercial technology to scrub out H2S created by the flood reduced the cost of processing by 50%
  • A new steam generator that can combust low-quality waste gases created by the thermal EOR operation

View the Tech Line online at www.fossil. energy.gov/news/
techlines/2006/06017-Tide
lands_Project_Revives_Oil
field.html.

Marginal Wells & Their Contributions to O&G Supplies

Presented at SPE's 2005 Eastern Regional Meeting in Morgantown, West Virginia, SPE 98014 outlines results of a DOE-supported study of marginal wells. Using marginal well definitions adopted by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (10 bopd and 60 mcfd), the study found that in 2003, 29 percent of the domestic oil and over 10 percent of the natural gas came from marginal wells and that more than two thirds of all U.S. wells are considered marginal. It is estimated that there are 380 thousand marginal oil and 246 thousand marginal gas wells today. For the last 10 years the number of marginal oil wells has been declining, while the number of marginal gas wells has been increasing. By 2025 the forecast is for slightly more total marginal wells, with growth in marginal gas wells more than offsetting the continued decline in marginal oil wells.

Access the paper online at www.netl.doe.gov/ technolog
ies/oil-gas/publications/AP/
Marg inalWells_AP-DOE.
pdf.

Network News
11

PTTC

2nd Quarter 2006