Publications

Surfactant-Polymer (SP) flooding is a third generation of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology that is being applied in the Minas Field to further enhance oil recovery and extend the economic life of the field. This new applied technology is targeting residual oil in the reservoirs due to the inability of water flooding, currently used in the Minas Field as a secondary recovery process, to effectively recover remaining oil in place. The injected Surfactant formulation will mobilize oil by reducing the interfacial tension holding the oil to the reservoir rock. Polymer will improve the sweep efficiency of injected fluids by increasing the injectants viscosity. Core flood laboratory tests of the SP flooding recovered an estimated 98% of remaining oil after water flooding in Minas rock. The field scale potential for SP flooding technology in the Minas Field is estimated to have a potential incremental recovery as high as one (1) billion barrels of oil. A staged development concept is being pursued in order to mitigate the risk of the high investment required for SP flooding technology. The continued evaluation of SP flooding in Minas will beconducted in a single 4.5 acre pattern size as Surfactant Field Trial - 2 (SFT-2) and will investigate the economic feasibility and chemical effectiveness of SP flooding in the Minas Field. The SFT-2 project has been approved and is being executed and evaluated between the years 2008 and 2013. Following the SFT-2 project, a second SP project evaluation (Area A) is conceptually envisioned to be conducted on a larger scale (confined 18 acre patterns). The goal of the larger Area A project after SFT-2 will be a Value of Information (VOI) project to gather sufficient,reliable and accurate information for the effectiveness of SP flooding performance on field scale pattern sizes versus the SFT-2 single small 4.5 acre pattern size.