Prospects of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) Application in Niger Delta Heavy Oil Field | |
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( Volume 5 Issue 8,August 2019 ) OPEN ACCESS | |
Author(s): | |
Udechukwu Mathew C., Ekwueme Stanley T., Ubanozie Obibuike J., Okoro Chijioke I. | |
Abstract: | |
Novel technologies have heralded the emergence of unconventional petroleum exploitation, reserves that were deemed not productive by earlier available technologies have now been exploited. Exploitation and production still goes deeper to more difficult and challenging reservoir systems as the petroleum industry transcend to mature EOR processes and advanced drilling techniques. However this methods are very costly when in comparison with exploitation and production of conventional light oil reserves such as the prevalent operation in the Niger Delta. This paper proposes methods for the exploitation of Nigeria unconventional reserves using enhanced oil recovery methods. Even though Nigeria has a large deposit of conventional reserve but the government has not made efforts to develop it as much of the emphasis has been on the conventional light crude. As oil is the main say of Nigeria economy and the conventional crude rapidly exhausting, there is urgent need for unconventional petroleum exploitation. Analysis shows that more recovery efficiency of 50% is achieved using cyclic steam injection as compared to average recovery of 42 percent realized by using in-situ combustion methods. Cyclic steam as thermal oil recovery process have been proposed here for development of the Niger Delta heavy oilfield. Furthermore, the results from the heavy oil exploitation in Nigeria have been compared with that of Venezuela and it is seen that the Niger Delta heavy oilfield holds more prospects in terms of ultimate recovery efficiencies than Venezuela. Also, it is seen that although the EOR means of exploiting these heavy oils are capital intensive and challenging but the method will be profitable as long as oil price is above $50/bbl. |
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