Chevron has announced the successful start up of its large scale pilot (LSP) steamflood project at the Wafra field in the onshore partitioned neutral zone (PNZ) in Kuwait.
The event was attended by Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources His Excellency Ali Al-Naimi and Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah, minister of Oil and minister of Information in the state of Kuwait.
The US $340 million LSP is the final test in a ten year staged assessment by SAC to determine the technical and economic viability of thermal recovery projects in the Eocene heavy oil carbonate reservoir.
“Chevron is applying new technologies to free-up in commercial quantities the potential of the First Eocene carbonate reservoir. It is a potential in the onshore PNZ and elsewhere measured in billions of barrels of new energy resources,” George Kirkland, executive vice president for global upstream and gas, Chevron, said.
The three year project could potentially lead to a full-field steamflooding of the reservoir, which would mark the first commercial application of a conventional steamflood in a carbonate reservoir anywhere in the world.
“We bring four decades of experience in enhanced oil recovery to this project and are pleased with the progress we have made testing the technology in the onshore PNZ’s First Eocene carbonate reservoir,” said Ahmed Al-Omer, president of Saudi Arabian Chevron.
“It’s through our long-standing partnership with the Kingdom and our joint operatorship with Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, that we are able to apply innovative technology expected to grow recoverable reserves in the onshore PNZ, and to create thousands of jobs in the process, as well as provide other benefits for the region,” Al-Omer concluded.
