Abstract
The term “marginal oil resource” refers to an oil reservoir that has hydrocarbon resource preservation but cannot meet the criteria of resources under the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) standards. When oilfields step into their late life, most of their economic petroleum reserves have been well developed, and their focuses need to be switched to their intact marginal resources. In this paper, reservoir characteristics and key petrophysical properties of marginal oil resources are introduced to classify marginal oil resources into four types for identifying potential development opportunities. Primary recovery and its following development strategy are applied to fully utilizing their economic returns. Waterflooding, low salinity waterflooding (LSW) and enhanced oil recovery processes are reviewed to illustrate its potential uplift on oil production and application challenges such as higher clay content in marginal resources than in commercial reservoirs. An oilfield is presented as a case study to demonstrate the classification of marginal resources and illustrate successful economic development including learnings and challenges. This paper highlights the development potential of marginal resources and proposes a clear guidance for policy makers on how to tailor a development strategy supporting their economic development. This review could increase certainty on forecasting performance of marginal resources.
Highlights
The concept of an oil marginal resource refers to oil formation that has resource identification but can neither meet the criteria to be evaluated as a reserve nor count as an economic reserve
An application of hydraulic fracturing or enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes can result in an industrial oil flow criterion, this kind of resource still does not meet the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reserve evaluation standards and, effective reserve and economic evaluations cannot be carried out
Tively and economically developed during later stages of established oilfield development, The development outcome is better than that found among other adjustment wells in the as they reduce development costs through leveraging and production equipsame block
Summary
The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defines oil reserves as those that are “judged to be economically producible in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions and assuming continuation of current regulatory practices using conventional production methods and equipment” [1] Based on these SEC standards, petroleum reserves are classified as either proved, proved developed, proved undeveloped, probable or possible reserves. Because a marginal resource reservoir is not within an effective thickness laid out in these standards, marginal resources are not found among these reserve classifications. For mature oilfields, developing marginal oil resources is usually featured as uncertain economics, possessing high risk and doubtful profitability They are considered as a hot topic across major oil consumption regions where energy security is a major concern. Masnadi et al (2021) studied greenhouse gas emissions effects on marginal resources and concluded that carbon intensity was determined by the magnitude of an oil demand decline [6]
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