Recognition, exploitation of ROZs coming of age: EOR projects are producing formerly immobile oil

摘要

Studies sponsored by the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have opened the door to a whole new set of opportunities for commercial development of residual oil zones (ROZs) throughout the world. The historical understanding of the zones beneath the oil/water contacts in reservoirs had been relegated to the category of transition zones wherein capillary pressure and surface tension controlled the bottom of a reservoir, where there exists a mixed oil-and-water zone of several meters to tens of meters.