Enhanced Oil Recovery 2021

Dear Colleagues,

In addition to being a source of energy, crude oil is the basic raw material for innumerable products that we use every day. Even when the alternate sources of energy, such as solar and wind power, become competitive, they will never be able to serve as raw material for these petrochemical products, which range from perfumes to insecticides and fertilizers, and eyeglasses to heart valves. Hence, the world will continue to depend on crude oil for the foreseeable future. However, where will this crude oil come from to meet this ever-increasing demand? Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is the answer. Therefore, this Special Issue is dedicated to the topic of EOR.

The target for EOR is over 407 billion barrels in onshore US reservoirs and over 2 trillion barrels around the world. It is known that an increase in the capillary number by four orders of magnitude or more is required of any EOR process to reduce the residual oil saturation significantly below that of a waterflood.

The literature has established ways to accomplish such a large change in capillary number in the producing reservoirs by means of reducing the interfacial tension and by altering wettability. Both these aspects have been explored through several research studies using surfactants and recently through low-salinity waterflooding.

Thermal EOR has to overcome the economic challenges of producing relatively lower-priced heavy oil using an expensive injectant (such as steam). Novel techniques of downhole steam generation and comingling steam with additives are being attempted to bring down the costs.

Shale oil is the new big story of this decade. Although they have played a significant role in setting the new energy scene in the world, shale oil resources direly require EOR technologies, since their primary production rates drop rapidly in the first few years, with reported recoveries only in the range of 3–7% OOIP.

This Special Issue on EOR-2021 aims to address all the above resources by bringing together the knowledge and experience of experts in various disciplines in this one volume.

Prof. Dr. Dandina N. Rao
Guest Editor

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• enhanced oil recovery
• crude oil
• waterflood
• surfactants
• thermal EOR