Enhanced oil/gas recovery and CO2 monitoring

Offentlig prosjektsammendrag

New technology is necessary to reduce costs, find new resources, increase the recovery rate from reservoirs and reduce CO2 emissions. The main goal with the project is to design and develop a new CSEM system that is capable of being precise enough and with sufficient resolution to monitor oil and gas, as well as monitor and verify CO2 injection. CSEM is a technology where controlled use of an electromagnetic source in combination with receivers on the sea-bottom is the core in the operation. Inverted measurements gives resistivity profiles or a resistivity volume of the fluids (gas or liquid gas) in the reservoir. A spin-off opportunity from the project has materialized within exploration for marine minerals. Allton has participated in the Atlantic Laboratory lead by NTNU where Allton's software has been used to demonstrate that CSEM can detect and quantify marine minerals. There is an increasing need for the energy companies to control the oil and gas production, monitor production in existing fields to increase the recovery rate from the reservoir, and develop resources that can be attached to existing infrastructure. Increased focus on CCS will result in more CO2 deposits and subsequent increased need of monitoring of CO2. Control of injected CO2 is necessary to confirm that it is located in the right location in the reservoir and that it does not breach the surface. CSEM can be used for this purpose with improved precision compared to alternative methods currently in the market. CSEM methods have been used for exploration of oil and gas for nearly 20 years and have gone through a continuous technological improvement. CSEM has however, not yet been used for monitoring production of oil and gas or as a tool to monitor and verify injected CO2. The technological development has now shown that it can be possible to expand the use of CSEM to monitoring and verification purposes.