New progress and prospect of oilfields development technologies in China

Abstract

As technologies advance in oilfield development, mature oilfields are able to keep sustainable production and complex oilfields difficult to produce in the past are put into production efficiently. In this work, new progresses of main development technologies for medium-high permeability and high water cut, low permeability, heavy oil, complex faulted block and special lithology reservoirs in the past decade, especially those international achievements made in enhanced oil recovery, were summarized, the key problems and major challenges that different oilfields are facing were analyzed, and the development route and direction of three-generation technologies were proposed as “mature technology in industrialized application, key technology in pilot test and innovative technology for backup”. The key research contents should focus on: (1) Fine water flooding and chemical flooding for mature oilfields, improving oil recovery after chemical flooding, and gas flooding for low permeability reservoirs must be researched and tested in field further. (2) Study on subversive technologies like nanometer smart flooding, in-situ upgrading and injection and production through the same well should be strengthened. (3) EOR technologies for low oil price, new fields (deep sea, deep layer, unconventional reservoirs etc.) and highly difficult conditions (the quaternary recovery after chemical flooding, tertiary recovery in ultra-low permeability reservoirs) should be stocked up in advance. The development cost must be lowered significantly through constant innovation in technology and reservoir management to realize sustainable development of oilfields.