low

Integrated Solutions from Pore to Process
engineers to increase the level of confidence on
the profiles and in some cases one cannot even
expect to take any benefits from pilot, it is more
the value of information captured from pilot.
Managerial issues are a combination of policies,
financing, lack of valid business models between
operators and clients, oil cost fluctuations,
uniqueness of these projects in each case and lack
of experiences in this area.
Summary and Remarks:
EOR project implementation is a major
investment in the life of an oil field which is
associated with too many uncertainties. To reduce
the uncertainties and/or improve the confidence
on cost and benefit of an EOR project, pilot in a
small portion of a reservoir can be planned. If the
pilot is successful and results of pilot verify that the
EOR project can still be interesting economically,
it can be upscaled to a field-scale development. A
pilot is successful if:
• Identified risks are lowered and uncertainty
ranges are narrowed.
• Pilot results confirm and disprove expected
results
• Pilot could validate the measurement system
utilized
recommendations from pilot mislead decision
makers.
References
www.slb.com/resources/publications/
industry_articles/oilfield_review/2010/
or2010win02_eor.aspx.
Anderson, M., Application of risk analysis to
enhanced recovery pilot testing decisions.
Journal of Petroleum Technology, 1979.
31(12): p. 1,525-1,530.
Nazir, A., et al., Injection-above-parting-pressure
waterflood pilot, Valhall field, Norway. SPE
Reservoir Engineering, 1994. 9(01): p. 22-28.
The three key elements to a successful pilot are
‘Planning’, ‘Monitoring’ and ‘Evaluation’.
To plan a pilot, a list of uncertainties need to be
generated from our understanding about the
reservoir behavior. The pilot is then designed with
an appreciated monitoring program to reduce
the identified uncertainties. Results from pilot
are then evaluated to help operator to improve
the quality of their models.
It should also bear in mind that a bad pilot can
lock reservoir potential and sometimes make the
production from a field less economical, if wrong
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