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BP using robotics for EOR rock tests
According to a BP newsletter the company has implemented a robotic system for testing enhanced oil recovery, or EOR techniques, for increasing oil recovery rates from oil fields.
There are a variety of methods that can be used to entice as much oil as possible into production wells from reservoir rocks such as porous sandstones. Techniques include the alternating use of waterflood and miscible injectant, and the injection of low salinity water into the reservoir. Miscible injectant is a mixture of natural gas and natural gas liquids that acts as a solvent, clearing out oil from pores spaces, so that water can then flush the oil from the reservoir.
But the precise EOR configuration that will provide optimum results in a particular situation depends on the properties of the reservoir rock involved, as well as on the type of oil. The development of a new EOR technique and the evaluation of the technique in different reservoir settings depends on extensive laboratory testing. In particular BP uses a technique referred to as core flood for a testing program of this type. In this technique water and gas are injected into oil-bearing rock samples from a field reservoir, with the testing carried out under conditions that simulate reservoir pressures and temperatures.
Continuous testing Apparently the implementation of BP’s new robotic appliance enables core-flood testing to operate continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, upping the number of core-flood tests carried out per year from a few dozen to several hundred. BP anticipates that this acceleration of the testing program will greatly shorten the time taken to evaluate new EOR techniques, potentially cutting the time to deployment by at least 50 percent.
“The EOR technologies being developed by BP are vitally important to help increase global oil supplies,” said Ahmed Hashmi, BP’s head of upstream technology. “We believe this step-change in our core flooding capability will hugely improve the speed and efficiency with which we can deploy new technologies to recover more oil from reservoirs.”
- Alan Bailey
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