SBIR Phase II: Novel Water Flooding Technique to Enhance Oil Recovery

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是部署一种革命性的注水技术来提高石油采收率。目前最好的技术仅限于30%-50%的采收率，留下了大量的地下资源。现有的进一步提高采收率的方法价格昂贵，应用有限，而且可能会对环境造成破坏。建议的方法成本低得多，对环境的影响也很小。我们的技术不使用化学品或添加剂，从而避免了污染地面和地表水资源的风险。我们的方法不是钻探数千口新井，而是振兴老油田，几乎不需要对现有基础设施和作业程序进行修改。它将允许较老的油田继续运营，提供就业和税收，同时增加我们的国内石油储量，并进一步使其多样化。全面成功地提高石油采收率，可以生产高达217亿桶的额外石油，在未来25年为美国石油业创造超过1万亿美元的收入，从而增加美国的能源安全，创造更多的就业机会，同时以比其他技术低得多的成本稳定国内石油生产。这个SBIR二期项目计划通过浮选实验、计算机模拟和现场试验来验证该技术，以优化现有油藏的润湿性。一旦我们在浮选实验中实现了良好的pH控制，我们将确定对水库润湿性的影响，盐度对润湿性的影响，以及表面络合计算机模型的平衡常数。最后，我们将在现场进行概念验证项目，以验证石油产量至少增加5%。因此，我们将为生产者提供一个现场验证的过程，操作员可以实施以较少的成本产生显著的结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to deploy a revolutionary water-flood technology to increase oil recovery. The best current technology is limited to 30 - 50% recovery leaving significant resources in the ground. The available methods to further increase recovery are expensive, have limited application and can cause environmental damage. The proposed method is much less expensive and has minimal environmental impact. Our technique does not use chemicals or additives thus avoiding the risk of contaminating ground and surface water resources. Rather than drill thousands of new wells, our approach revitalizes old fields and requires little modification to the existing infrastructure and operational procedures. It would allow older fields to continue to operate, providing jobs and taxes while increasing and further diversifying our domestic oil reserves. Full success of enhanced oil recovery,could produce up to 21.7 billion barrels of additional oil generating over $1 trillion for the US oil industry over the next twenty-five years, thereby increasing the energy security of the U.S. and creating more jobs while stabilizing domestic oil production at much lower costs than other technologies. This SBIR Phase II project proposes to validate the technology to optimize wettability in existing oil reservoirs through flotation experiments, computer modeling and field pilots. Once we have achieved good pH control during the flotation experiments, we will determine the impact on reservoir wettability, the effect of salinity on wettability and the equilibrium constants for the surface complexation computer model. Finally, we will conduct concept validation projects in field to verify a minimum of 5% OOIP increase in oil production. Thus, we will provide producers with a field-verified process operators can implement to yield significant results for little cost.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.