Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Application of Electrokinetics
for Enhanced Oil Recovery
By Donald Hill
3.1 Introduction
Considerable hydrocarbon resources, of all grades, remain residual oil in
many older “depleted” fields, which are being abandoned. Depending upon
the reservoir type, light oil (i.e., greater than 20° API gravity) primary and
secondary recoveries range from 25% to 75%. This means that at abandon-
ment, as much as 75% of the
Stock Tank Original Oil In Place
(STOOIP) is
left behind.
Heavy oil (i.e., less than 20° API gravity) crude recovery is severely lim-
ited because of the difficulty in extracting these high viscosity liquids from
oil reservoirs. Primary recoveries as low as 10% of the STOOIP reserves
are common. Enormous heavy oil resources exist throughout the world
(Attanasi and Meyer, 2010; and Meyer, et al., 2007).
Both of these types (i.e., light and heavy) of residual oil resources are
known, but are lacking a viable technology for their efficient and eco-
nomic recovery. Table 3.1 shows a 2007 compilation of world heavy oil and
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