Assessing the application of miscible CO2 flooding in oil reservoirs: a case study from Pakistan

Miscible carbon dioxide (CO2) flooding has been recognized as a promising approach to enhance the recovery of oil reservoirs. However, depending on the injection strategy and rock/fluid characteristics, efficiency of the miscible CO2flooding varies from reservoir to reservoir. Although, many studies have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the miscible CO2flooding, a specific strategy which can be strictly followed for a hydrocarbon reservoir has not been established yet. The aim of this study is to assess one of Pakistan’s oil reservoirs for miscible CO2flooding by applying a modified screening criterion and numerical modeling. As such, the most recent miscible CO2screening criteria were modified, and a numerical modeling was applied on the prospective reservoir. Based on the results obtained, South oil reservoir (S3) is chosen for a detailed assessment of miscible CO2flooding. It was also found that implementation of CO2water-alternating gas (CO2-WAG) injection at early stages of production can increase the production life of the reservoir

Global technological revolutions and the oil and gas industry

The broader impact of technological developments in society, industries and economies has been well documented and researched by authors including Kuznets, Schumpeter, Freeman, and Perez. Looking back, research by Perez shows that in the last 250 years, global economic growth and political changes have gone through five distinct stages associated with technological revolutions resulting from the synergistic interdependence of a group of industries and diffusion of technology. The five periods are: the industrial revolution (1770 to 1820), the age of steam and railways (1820 to 1870), the age of steel, electricity and heavy engineering (1870 to 1910), the age of oil, automobile and mass production (1910 to 1970) and the age of information technology from late 1970 to now. Each of these have lasted sixty years or so.</p

The building rocks of Africa's new O&amp;G; industry

During the last decade, new ideas, rising prices, political risk bets, technological developments, and rising capital expenditure supported a significant expansion of global exploration efforts and of the resource base. In the period 2000 to 2012 year to date, over 800 billion (bn) boe of new resources (conventional and unconventional), have been discovered globally. Of this, conventional resources account for approximately 380 bn boe (2P) while the rest is attributable to unconventional resources, both of which are just starting to change the long-term outlook of the global O&amp;G; industry