The Challenge of Improved Recovery from Offshore Fields

Abstract

The weakness of current crude-oil prices should not lead us to reject any opportunities of recovering additional amounts of oil, especially from offshore fields. Indeed, once platforms have been dismantled, it is extremely costly to resume production from a reservoir. Hence the challenge of improved offshore recovery is to take the greatest advantage of cost reductions linked to the exploration and drilling of and the production from oil fields. But it is also to reduce operating costs specific to improved recovery. This objective must be pursued energetically so that improved recovery operations can be undertaken during the 1990s before the existing fields have reached the end of production. Working out an IOR strategy is very important for the development of a viable project from both the technical and economic standpoints. Laboratory research is essential to make sure that the process will work as planned, but special attention must be devoted to flooding strategy and to the specific limitations induced by the offshore location. The optimum data for planning an IOR project is immediately after the production plateau, when production history is sufficient to guarantee the validity of the description of the reservoir.