DE-FE0006015

Goal
The goal of this project is to develop a full-featured, user friendly, carbon dioxide (CO₂) enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and sequestration planning software system that will allow small- to mid-sized field operators to design and optimize CO₂ EOR and sequestration operations in a short time frame. The objective is to develop a tool that includes all the significant physical and chemical factors that impact the flow and recovery of reservoir fluids, yet make the process fast enough so that an integrated feasibility study can be completed in less than one month at a small cost.

Performer
NITEC LLC, Denver, Colorado 80202

Background
Among the 582 lower forty-eight onshore fields in the United States that can be identified as economical CO₂ EOR prospects, 151 of them are estimated to hold 70% of the total economic resource potential. The remaining 431 fields (~75%) comprise 30% of total economic resource potential and are on average smaller than the 295 million barrels original-oil-in-place economic CO₂EOR threshold, though this classification varies by region. To date, these smaller fields have been exploited through primary and secondary recovery techniques, and due to their marginal value most of them are presently owned by small- and mid-sized operators. Given their operational budgets, these operators typically cannot afford to commission technically sophisticated integrated studies to assess the feasibility of CO₂ injection, nor can they hire the staff needed to properly study the topic in-house.

A software tool that will accelerate CO₂ injection technical studies (for EOR and sequestration purposes) for small- to mid-sized oil field operators in the U.S. is needed because the existing public domain and commercial solutions are either too simplistic to be used for development planning and economic analysis purposes, or too complex (compositional), time consuming (in excess of six months), and unaffordable (in excess of $0.5 million) to be used by all but the major oil companies and largest independents.

Impact
This project will advance the development of simulation and visualization tools and processes in order to assist the industry in enhancing the production of domestic resources by CO₂EOR. It will result in field-ready applications; all source code developed will be made available with user-friendly operating documentation and provided without restrictions as a public service. The integrated solution will enable the design and operation of advanced CO₂ EOR technologies.

This integrated and simple-to-use solution may enable the completion of a CO₂ EOR study within one month compared to the current minimum of six months required for more complex approaches; thus it is reasonable to expect savings of $250,000 per study. For the 431 fields owned by small- and mid-sized operators, the cumulative savings could be in excess of $100 million. Finally, it should be noted that significant volumes of anthropogenic CO₂ are generated in the Northeast, where the number of major oil fields with CO₂ EOR potential is limited. The use of locally available smaller fields for CO₂ EOR ?which this project facilitates?may accelerate the implementation EOR in these fields.

Accomplishments

• NITEC and DOE have selected a company to complete a case study of the software using data supplied by the participating company.
• A full version of the COZView/COZSim has been developed
• The optimization module has been completed.
• Four interactive tutorials designed so that users are able to ?step? through the software at their own pace based on interaction with the individual screens has been developed and delivered.
• A hyperlinked and searchable user manual for each software module (Dynamic, Simulator, 3-D Visualization, and Optimization modules) has been finalized.
• NITEC provided a list of potential Case Study candidates and delineated the pro and cons of each.
• NITEC representatives attended the 2012 CO₂ Conference Week in Midland and presented the conference attendees with an overview of the developed software and its capabilities.
• NITEC representatives attended and exhibited at the 2012 SPE ATCE. NITEC discussed the software and its capabilities with SPE ATCE attendees.
• All intermediate testing of individual software modules has been completed. The integration of these modules was initiated in early December 2011 and has been completed. NITEC demonstrated the software?s functionality at its current development stage at NETL.
• The dynamic module development design was enhanced to accommodate historical completion, production, injection, and pressure data for wells. The subroutines related to the dynamic module data handling have been developed and tested with a synthetic data set.
• The report generation routines to write the simulation results to an ASCII output file for access by the interactive user interface have been developed
• The well data were exhaustively tested to ensure that the customary information/data can be imported, exported, and displayed in various formats.
• The HYPRE software package for the linear solver from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was selected.
• The overall structure of the time-step calculations has been designed and several of the routines associated with wellbore pressure drop calculations have been developed.
• Several graphical user interface (GUI) layouts that best fit this application have been identified. AvalonDock was selected as the provider of the GUI layout software.

Current Status (January 2013)
NITEC is working with the selected company to complete a case study of the software, using data supplied by the company.

NITEC and DOE are attempting to identify a location to host a one-day user forum to demonstrate the software to interested parties. NITEC will use feedback from the forum participants and/or case study to determine what modifications need to be made to the software.

Project Start: January 24, 2011
Project End: September 30, 2013

DOE Contribution: $1,239,952
Performer Contribution: $313,341

Contact Information:
NETL ? William Fincham (william.fincham@netl.doe.gov or 304-285-4268)
NITEC ? Chet Ozgen (cozgen@nitecllc.com or 303-292-9595)
If you are unable to reach the above personnel, please contact the content manager.