Muscat - Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) says the contribution of its Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) projects has been scaled down from around one-third of the company's total crude production to 25 per cent -- a revision it linked to the current downturn brought on by the slump in international oil prices. The majority government-owned oil and gas company, however, stressed that the revised target will not impact its overall strategy to accelerate production to a sustainable plateau of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2019. PDO has invested several billions of dollars in an array of EOR projects that have become increasingly pivotal to its long-term vision to sustain crude output. But fiscal constraints, which include a $1.6 billion cut in its investment plan for 2016, have necessitated a comprehensive review of its capex and opex budgets, it said.
Announcing the revised EOR targets in its 'Sustainability Report 2015', the company said: "Despite the economic challenges, PDO remained committed to staying the course on all major enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. However, because of the resource-intensive nature of the recovery mechanism, there has been a rigorous review of the commercial and technical viability of some EOR activities. This reappraisal means EOR is now expected to account for more than 25 per cent of production by 2025, as opposed to 33 per cent by 2023." PDO is currently implementing a number of commercial-scale EOR projects involving the use of steam, chemicals, and miscible gas injection to produce liquids from essentially challenging reservoirs -- processes that are both technological and capital intensive. The company is also exploring a slew of novel EOR technologies that it hopes to deploy in harnessing the hydrocarbon potential of unconventional fields elsewhere around its Block 6 license.
A number of EOR schemes have already begun making increasingly sizable volumes to the company's crude output, while others schemes continue to make headway in their development. Notable is the Marmul polymer project, which has delivered in excess of 10.3 million barrels of oil since it was brought into operation nearly five years ago. The start-up of Phase 2 -- which added 19 polymer injectors to the existing 27 -- was brought on stream, with increased production expected this year, and Phase 3 set to complete its final concept selection, the company said. Likewise, the execution of the alkaline-surfactant-polymer flooding trial in Marmul, a technology that can further improve oil recovery, is progressing well, the report said.
At Qarn Alam, the company has employed thermal-gas-oil-gravity-drainage (T-GOGD) technology to produce crude from the Shuaiba oil-bearing formation. Output from the field totalled around 5.6 million barrels of oil in 2015, resulting in a steam-to-oil ratio of approximately 3:1. Similarly, the Harweel 2AB miscible gas injection (MGI) project, launched in April 2014 at a constrained rate of up to 1.7 million cubic metres / day, has been ramped up to a full capacity injection rate of 5 million m3/day since January 2015. A clear response to the MGI process has now been established in terms of incremental oil rates and target pressures, PDO said.
© Oman Daily Observer 2016
