Saudi Arabian Oil Co. started injecting carbon dioxide to try and boost extraction rates from the world’s biggest oil field as the company steps up plans to recover more crude from its deposits.
Saudi Aramco, as the company is known, already started injection and will put 40 million standard cubic feet per day of CO2 into the Uthmaniyah area south of the Ghawar field, it said Thursday in an Arabic statement on its website. About 40 percent of what’s injected will be stored in the field.
“The project aims to enhance oil recovery beyond the more common method of water flooding, and is the largest of its kind in the Middle East,” it said. The project is part of the company’s efforts to reducing domestic carbon emissions and meeting environmental goals, it said.
Oil-rich nations across the Persian Gulf are seeking ways to continue output from fields that are at least half a century old. While the industry average is for producers to recover about 35 percent of fields’ total deposits, Saudi Aramco is developing technology that could double that rate, Ahmad al-Khowaiter, chief technology officer, said in March.
Injecting CO2 into Uthmaniyah will boost oil-recovery rates by 10 to 15 percentage points, Khowaiter said in March. The CO2 for the project will be captured at Hawiyah gas recovery plant and then piped 85-kilometers to the site. The project will be tested for three to five years before Aramco applies the technology to other fields, it said in Thursday’s statement.
“Saudi Aramco is carrying out extensive research to enable us to lower our carbon footprint while continuing to supply the energy the world needs,” said Amin H. Nasser, acting president and chief executive officer.
Makati1 on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 8:03 am
Desperate measures? Last gasp? We shall see.
Jimmy on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 9:34 am
How CO2-EOR Works
How does CO2-EOR work? CO2-EOR works most commonly by injecting CO2 into already developed oil fields where it mixes with and “releases” the oil from the formation, thereby freeing it to move to production wells. CO2 that emerges with the oil is separated in above-ground facilities and re-injected into the formation. CO2-EOR projects resemble a closed-loop system where the CO2 is injected, produces oil, is stored in the formation, or is recycled back into the injection well.
Today, most of the CO2 used in EOR operations is from natural underground ‘domes’ of CO2. With the natural supply of CO2 limited, man-made CO2 from the captured CO2 emissions of power plants and industrial facilities (e.g., fertilizer production,ethanol production, cement and steel plants) can be used to boost oil production through EOR. Once CO2 is captured from these facilities, it is compressed and transported by pipeline to oil fields.
Primary Production refers to a new oil field discovery where production wells are drilled into a geological formation and oil or gas is produced using the pent-up energy of the fluids in the reservoir.
At the end of primary production a considerable amount of the oil remains in place, with sometimes as much as 80-90 percent still “trapped” in the pore spaces of the reservoir. (Melzer, 2012)
If an oil field is not abandoned after primary production, it moves into a secondary production phase wherein a substance (usually water) is injected to repressurize the formation. New injection wells are drilled or converted from producing wells, and the injected fluid sweeps oil to the remaining producing wells. Secondary production could yield up to an equal or greater amount of oil from primary production. But this has the potential to ultimately leave 50-70 percent of the original oil remaining in the reservoir since much of the oil is bypassed by the water that does not mix with the oil. (Melzer, 2012)
Primary and secondary production are sometimes referred to as “conventional” oil production practices.
During tertiary production, oil field operators use an injectant (usually CO2) to react with the oil to change its properties and allow it to flow more freely within the reservoir. Almost pure CO2 (>95 percent of the overall composition) has the property of mixing with oil to swell it, make it lighter, detach it from the rock surfaces, and cause the oil to flow more freely within the reservoir to producer wells. In a closed loop system, CO2 mixed with recovered oil is separated in above-ground equipment for reinjection. CO2-EOR typically produces between 4-15 percent of the original oil in place. (ARI, 2010)
http://neori.org/resources-on-co2-eor/how-co2-eor-works/
Jimmy on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 9:48 am
Ghawar started primary production in 1951.
Secondary production with water began in 2009.
Tertiary production began now’ish.
So roughly speaking, between 1951 and 2009 they got lots of oil out but still left as much as 80 to 90% of original oil in place. Between 2009 and 2015 they got more oil out but there could be as much as 50 to 70% of the original remaining in the reservoir. Starting now they’ll grab another 4 to 15% then it’s done.
I’d say it’s tits up for those assholes pretty quick.
Jimmy on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 9:53 am
Correction- 1964 or 65 water injection began.
steve on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 10:21 am
“I’d say it’s tits up for those assholes pretty quick.”
Jimmy you say that with such glee….if it is tits up for them I would say it is tits up for everyone…would be nice to get some warning though but with the secrecy involved I think we will find that out in the last throes….
Plantagenet on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 11:48 am
@Steve
You just got your warning—-they’ve been forced to move to Tertirary reverie at Ghawar.
Give it another decade or so and Ghawar will the be next Cantarell.
Plantagenet on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 11:50 am
Make that tertiary RECOVERY.
These darn spell checkers are a disaster—-Steve Jobs, come back and fix them.
Kenz300 on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 2:49 pm
Quote – “Saudi Aramco is carrying out extensive research to enable us to lower our carbon footprint while continuing to supply the energy the world needs,” said Amin H. Nasser, acting president and chief executive officer.”
Seems like if you live in the desert SOLAR ENERGY should be your first choice for electricity generation.
Time for KSA to get with the program.
Their domestic oil use keeps growing because they have huge subsidies. It is time to end the subsidies.
Peter on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 3:26 pm
This article seems like old news. I remember reading things like the following a year or two ago:
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-aramco-use-co2-boost-ghawar-oil-field-output-by-2013-383900.html
So KSA should have been doing CO2 in Ghawar for a while now. Not sure what is going on here other than misinformation. Getting good info on Ghawar is just about impossible and at the same time so significant.
So just maybe, you might want to move that time-frame back a couple of years.
Nony on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 4:25 pm
Peakers have been predicting Saudi declines for a long time and have been spectacularly wrong. SA has maintained and even grown production for the last decade. Look at what Stuart Staniford said in early 2007:
“Overall, I feel this data is clear enough that I’m willing to go out on a limb and conclude the following:
•Saudi Arabian oil production is now in decline.
•The decline rate during the first year is very high (8%), akin to decline rates in other places developed with modern horizontal drilling techniques such as the North Sea.
•Declines are rather unlikely to be arrested, and may well accelerate.
•Matt Simmons appears to be right in Twilight in the Desert, but the warning did not come until after declines had actually begun.”
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2325
SugarSeam on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 7:41 pm
^ this is like a lifetime alcoholic mocking his doctors’ dire warnings because his liver is still processing
Jimmy on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 8:17 pm
Ghawar in tertiary recovery phase and Nony stills sings his cornie song. what a fucking troll.
Apneaman on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 8:28 pm
Once Burned, Twice Shy? Utica Shale Touted to Investors As Shale Drillers Continue Posting Losses
“But those considering investments based on the Utica’s potential may want to pause and consider the shale industry’s long history of circulating impressive predictions, later quietly downgraded, while spending far more than they earn.
“The industry has not been generating enough money to cover its capital spending and dividends,” Fidelity Investments energy fund manager John Dowd told Barrons.
Indeed, while it is clear that the shale drilling rush has produced large amounts of oil and gas, (alongside wastewater and other environmental impacts), the financial prosperity promised by its backers has not seemed to materialize.”
“Burning Through Cash
Companies like Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas and one of the most aggressive advocates of the shale rush nationwide, have been hammered hard by low oil prices and high costs in 2015.
“Chesapeake is expected to post a net loss of $3.18 billion this year, based on the average of eight analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the company’s steepest annual loss since 2009,” Bloomberg reported last week as Chesapeake announced that it was eliminating dividends paid out to investors.
“Only twice in the past two decades has the second largest gas producer reported positive cash flow,” Bloomberg added.”
http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/08/02/once-burned-twice-shy-utica-shale-touted-investors-shale-drillers-continue-posting-losses
Makati1 on Sun, 2nd Aug 2015 10:17 pm
In other news:
“Saudi Arabia’s central bank has tightened restrictions on cash withdrawals from banks using credit cards in an effort to head off any consumer debt problems.”
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-central-bank-curbs-credit-card-cash-withdrawals-601182.html
Good luck with that…lol.
Jimmy on Mon, 3rd Aug 2015 2:05 am
@ Steve
consider yourself warned
Dredd on Mon, 3rd Aug 2015 5:56 am
That is what we need: MORE POISON.
“Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
Poisons are putting gravity tumors on the globe (Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? – 7).
Cloud9 on Mon, 3rd Aug 2015 10:01 am
I guess this is why we are turning towards Iran. Their oil might continue the status quo for a few more years.