Let’s face it: the easy-to-drill oil reserves in the GCC are declining steadily, and the region’s oilfields, although nowhere close to drying up, are left with crude that lies underneath complex geological structures and carbonate formations. This trapped oil is difficult to extract through the traditional drilling methods that the regional oil producers have relied upon for decades.
Enter enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology – a scientific approach to procuring oil locked in challenging reserves, which in due course will emerge to be a viable solution for regional producers to not only stem the depletion of oil wells, but to extract the most out of the reserves.
EOR, as an oil-producing technique, has been in use in the GCC for many years now. While in the past, the application of EOR methods in the region has been limited to just a handful of reservoirs, however, the technology’s demand is now growing as NOCs battle global competition to maintain or increase their market share by raising oil output. Oman and the UAE, which both face geological challenges in their oil production, are on the front line of implementing EOR methodology.
EOR’s popularity in the regional upstream sector has also risen by virtue of another benefit of the technology: cost-efficiency. As companies acclimatise to the reality of low oil prices, a wave of transformations is sweeping the region, and investments in exploration and production are going to decline as a result of economic diversification efforts.
Consequently, regional oil producers, with defined financial strength, are going to have to do more with less. This translates into a need to optimise production from their existing assets.
As a natural corollary, spending on improvements in the science behind EOR solutions – and specifically on those methods that are customised to address the region’s particular geological challenges – is going to increase rapidly.
As a result, international providers of EOR technology, with experience working on successful project executions, are being attracted to this market, as illustrated by the numerous NOCs now working with foreign players to begin the EOR process for their oilfields.
In one such case, the UAE’s ADNOC has collaborated with Germany’s Wintershall to conduct EOR feasibility studies for the Shuwaihat oilfield in Abu Dhabi – an initiative involving chemical EOR techniques that has shown positive results to date.
Another successful pilot project has been carried out in Oman, where PDO and US-based Glasspoint have worked together to complete the test-run of a solar EOR initiative. This involves harnessing the sun’s heat in a glasshouse-type structure in order to generate steam that can be used as an alternative to expensive gas-burning to extract oil from the Amal oilfield in the desert landscape of southern Oman.
Global oilfield services major, Halliburton, meanwhile – Oil & Gas Middle East’s Knowledge Partner for this Special Report – gives details of its engagement in EOR work in the region on pages 104-105.
It seems beyond doubt that many more collaborations and ventures in the field of EOR will – and should – follow.
