Slideshow

Enhanced Oil Recovery

Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)

The landscape of oil exploration and production is fundamentally changing. The vast majority of reserve replacements today come from "unconventional" resources, which require more complex mechanisms during their recovery process or have only recently, due to technology advancements, been made possible. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) is a process in which otherwise immobile residual oil in a reservoir is stimulated physically, thermally, or chemically to mobilize and is then produced. Two of the predominant agents for the mobilization of oil are CO₂ or heat, in the form of steam. Both processes have been used for decades in a large variety of applications and are well established, proven, and accepted methodologies for oil recovery.

In North America alone, in-situ crude bitumen and CO₂ EOR light oil production put together is estimated to increase to between 4.2-7.1 million barrels of oil per day by 2030, compared to a total crude oil production in North America of "only" 7.5 million barrels per day today. Excluded from these estimates are data for recoverable oil volumes from Residual Oil Zones (ROZ), a CO₂-based production method that only recently found its way into the headlines, but promises to bringing a paradigm shift to reserve assessments around the world...

The largest constraints in the economic and responsible expansion of these petroleum resources come from the limited availability of CO₂ for CO₂ EOR and the environmental impact of crude bitumen production. CES technology based solutions are targeted to bridge those constraints by providing on-site CO₂, steam, power, and water supply while intelligently and efficiently expanding our planet's accessible natural resource base and eliminating air emission.

Please explore in the following tabs how we are able to do that.

Slideshow

CES CO2 EOR Solutions

CES CO₂ EOR Solutions

With natural sources of CO₂ no longer meeting the demand, anthropogenic sources become more and more important in supplying the required volumes of CO₂ to the enhanced oil recovery market. Even full technically feasible exploitation of the current emissions forecast from power facilities in the United States could not satisfy the full economic potential of EOR amenable reservoirs.

CES breaks the limitations imposed by CO₂ infrastructure and natural sources by offering CO₂ production facilities that integrate power, steam, and water generation for your targeted CO₂ flood candidate. CES facilities greatly simplify the process of generating clean, compressed and injection-quality CO₂. They supply EOR fields with self-sustainable power and water supply and enable risk hedging strategies for long-term field exploitation horizons.

CES facilities allow you to:

• Turn low value, low quality gas into incremental oil
• Generate your required CO₂, steam, power, and water on-site
• Deploy modularly to match your phased field developments
• Design for fuel flexibility to adapt to changing markets
• Facilitate permitting due to minimal environmental footprint
• Produce clean water and power for internal use and export

Slideshow

CES CO2 Recycle Facilities

CES CO₂ Recycle Facilities

CES systems offer a tremendous flexibility and versatility in fuel qualities. Even the recycle CO₂ stream from your existing CO₂ flood may provide the appropriate fuel to operate CES solutions.

CO₂ recycle streams composed of primarily CO₂ and some methane, ethane, and NGLs provide an excellent fuel to produce enough power to supply to your entire operation, including CO₂ compression. Combusting the recycle gas in CES gas generators or re-heaters generates additional volumes of CO₂ from the conversion of associated hydrocarbons and processes the recycled CO₂ component for re-injection.

Providing an economically attractive alternative to the broadly employed "blood, guts, and feathers" approach of directly re-injecting the recycle CO₂ gas offers a multitude of benefits to the CO₂ EOR flooding operation. When converting the recycle gas into a fuel gas you address a multitude of economic enhancements to your existing flood operation:

• Extraction of power and higher value hydrocarbons for sale or for blending
• The monetization of an otherwise under-utilized gas stream
• Eliminating the re-injection of hydrocarbons into the reservoir
• Increasing the net contribution of "new" CO₂
• Increasing the hydrocarbon extraction efficiency from CO₂ injection

Slideshow

Thermal Recovery - CSS and Steam Flooding

Thermal Recovery -
CSS and Steam Flooding

The CES direct steam generation method (the Process of combining heat and steam generation inside the same vessel) brings new perspectives to more conventional steam stimulation methods, such as cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) or steam flooding.

Similar to its application in the SAGD in-situ recovery, the CES process allows for fundamental and systemically different approaches to steam generation in thermal recovery processes. The G²S² (gas generator and steam separator) process combines a water treatment component with efficient, stack-less, and near-zero emissions steam and CO₂ generation. Unlike conventional boiler systems, CES processes are not limited to the pressure at which the resulting steam can efficiently be generated at the desired injection qualities, allowing you to target new frontiers of depths for heavy oil recovery in reservoirs that to-date were inaccessible for thermal treatment.

The CES process inherently provides a CO₂/steam combination that may or may not be beneficial to your target reservoir. With some of our partners we are specifically targeting those reservoirs that promise a positive response from the combination of the CO₂ content in steam in reservoirs that are between conventional thermal recovery and typical miscible CO₂ EOR reservoir depths.

CES further provides process solutions that may separate the drive gas for a separated delivery of steam and CO₂. This solution targets thermal recovery reservoirs in close proximity to CO₂ EOR candidate floods. Alternatively, these solutions may provide steam to industrial steam hosts that have nearby CO₂ EOR opportunities.

Slideshow

Thermal Recovery - In-Situ Recovery of...

Thermal Recovery -
In-Situ Recovery of Crude Bitumen

Heavy crude bitumen can be produced in surface mining operations or in in-situ thermal recovery, a process where the crude bitumen that is at near-solid state, is stimulated to flow by thermal treatment. Steam or steam/CO₂ mixtures are injected into the reservoir. Steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is the most common method of steam injection in crude bitumen recovery and is both a very energy and water intensive process.

CES technology brings a game-changing Perspective to these recovery methods. The G²S² process (Gas Generator and Steam Separator) introduces a smart direct steam generation process to in-situ recovery methods. Combining efficient, stack-less, and minimum emission steam generation with an integrated produced water treatment process in one, the G²S² solution revolutionizes the surface operation of a conventional SAGD process.

Direct steam generation (the process of combining heat and steam generation inside the same vessel) utilizing practically untreated water and fuel from potentially low-value fuel sources allows for systemic improvements to the environmental impact and energy efficiency of in-situ recovery. The great reduction in equipment and geometric footprint of the steam generation equipment provides higher flexibility in in-field modular deployment around a centralized facility to adapt to field expansions and phased exploitation projects.