American Oil and Gas Reporter - February 2016 - 67

SpecialReport: Improved Oil Recovery
Figure 3A
Pretreatment Oil Saturation in Thief Layers
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additive injection. Figures 2A and 2B show
the predicted increase in oil cuts for both
pilots. The Sor in the thief layers was set
to 30 percent during simulation. During
waterflooding, Sor had remained unchanged.
However, as seen in Figures 3A and
3B, there was significant mobilization of
the residual oil at the end of the additive
treatment. Economic analysis indicates

Columbia Pipeline Project
Receives FERC Approval
HOUSTON-The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a certificate
authorizing Columbia Gas Transmission
LLC, owned by Columbia Pipeline Group
Inc., and Columbia Pipeline Partners LP, to
construct and operate the Utica Access
Project in West Virginia.
According to the companies, the
pipeline will deliver as much as 205 million cubic feet a day of Utica supply to
the Columbia Gas, Appalachia Pool. The
project will be placed in service in the
fourth quarter of 2016.
"This is another Columbia growth
project that connects abundant but constrained Appalachian supplies to highervalue domestic markets," says Columbia
President Glen Kettering.
Columbia also announces that Columbia Gas has filed a certificate application
with FERC for its WB XPress Project in
West Virginia and Virginia. It says the
$850 million project will deliver as much
as 1.3 billion cubic feet a day of Appalachian supply to Mid-Atlantic markets
as well as to Gulf Coast markets through
a downstream third-party interstate
pipeline expansion from an interconnect
in West Virginia.
❒

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0.21
0.17
0.14
0.11
0.07
0.04
0.00

1,000
1,100
1,200

0.25

Inj-1

1,300

0.28

Prod-5

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0.31

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0.35

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500

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1,100

Inj-1

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1,000

Prod-5

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Oil at below Sor of 30% in Thief Layers
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1,000

Oil at Sor of 30% in Thief Layers

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Figure 3B
Post-Treatment Oil Saturation in Thief Layers

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attractive returns over continued waterflooding for both pilots, and significant
net present value enhancement is predicted
for both the pilots.
Daily production and injection data,
injection pressures, periodic effluent oil
analysis, and attempts to maintain similar
operational procedure through the completion of the injection period are some
of the surveillances and monitoring performed on the pilots.
At present, three pilots (with individual
pilots having more than one injector) are
being tracked. The production and injection
data are regularly updated in the model.
In some cases, a dynamic model is used
to constantly calibrate and estimate the
location of mobilized oil bank. In other
cases, in the absence of a dynamic model,
simple cost/benefit calculations are performed in a spreadsheet to assess performance.
As demonstrated in ongoing simulations
and field testing, advanced chemical technologies are critical in developing simpler
and more efficient methods to increase
oil mobilization while lowering cost/risk
profiles and protecting the environment
to allow chemical flooding to achieve its
full potential in tertiary recovery.
❒
Editor's Note: The author acknowledges Adriana Rigoris, Citation Oil &
Gas, and Flotek colleagues A. Kharghoria,
J.T. Portwood, Nathan Lett, Charles Hammond and Glenn Penny for their technical
contributions to the field applications and
pilot studies referenced in the preceding
article. It was adapted from SPE 174667,
a technical paper prepared for presentation
at the Society of Petroleum Engineers
2015 Enhanced Oil Recovery Conference,
held Aug. 11-13 in Kuala Lumpur.

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0.35
0.31
0.28
0.25
0.21
0.17
0.14
0.11
0.07
0.04
0.00

DEEPANKAR
"DEE"
BISWAS

Deepankar "Dee" Biswas is president of SiteLark, a Flotek Company,
where he provides leadership in championing the application of chemistry
to improve uplift from hydrocarbon
reservoirs. With 23 years of experience,
his expertise includes managing interdisciplinary projects in conducting
reservoir characterization, reservoir
engineering and simulation studies,
reservoir model development, and field
development planning. Biswas previously served at Mobil, DeGolyer &
MacNaughton, and ONGC, with experience spanning assignments in
North America, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and Asia. He is a
past vice chairman of education for
the Dallas chapter of the SPE, and
has served as an SPE technical editor.
Biswas holds a Ph.D. in petroleum
engineering from the University of
Texas at Austin.

Coming In March
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multiwell pad developments in shale
gas plays.
FEBRUARY 2016 67

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