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CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery: History
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Contributor: Eng Editorial Office

CO2 enhanced oil recovery is a tertiary petroleum recovery process in which carbon dioxide is injected into a depleted oil reservoir to mobilize residual oil that cannot be displaced by primary production or secondary waterflooding. Under sufficient reservoir pressure and temperature conditions, injected CO2 becomes miscible or near-miscible with the crude oil, reducing oil viscosity, swelling the oil phase, and lowering interfacial tension so that oil flows more readily toward production wells [1]. The process operates through mechanisms of multi-contact miscibility development, where CO2 transfers between gas and oil phases across a transition zone and progressively extracts lighter hydrocarbons from the oil, progressively altering the phase behavior until the gas and oil become single phase at the minimum miscibility pressure. Reservoir engineering design determines injection patterns, slug size, WAG (water-alternating-gas) ratios, and reservoir pressure to optimize sweep efficiency while controlling gravity override, viscous fingering, and CO2 breakthrough. The process simultaneously serves as a carbon storage mechanism because a portion of the injected CO2 remains sequestered in the reservoir after field operations cease, making it a bridge between production and geologic storage objectives [2]. The key technical parameters are minimum miscibility pressure, MMP, minimum miscibility enrichment, residual oil saturation after waterflooding, and the storage capacity determined by pore volume and displacement efficiency [3].

  • CO2 EOR
  • enhanced oil recovery
  • carbon storage
  • miscible displacement

Oil and Gas Production Techniques •  Ocean Engineering •  Engineering •  Physical Sciences

References

  1. S Bachu; CO2 storage in geological media: Role, means, status and barriers to deployment. Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 2008, 34, 254-273, 10.1016/j.pecs.2007.10.001.
  2. Michael L. Godec; Vello A. Kuuskraa; Phil Dipietro; Opportunities for Using Anthropogenic CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2 Storage. Energy Fuels 2013, 27, 4183-4189, 10.1021/ef302040u.
  3. F. Gozalpour; S. R. Ren; B. Tohidi; CO2Eor and Storage in Oil Reservoir. Oil Gas Sci. Technol. – Rev. IFP Energ. Nouv. 2005, 60, 537-546, 10.2516/ogst:2005036.
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