• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2012

With the decline in discoveries of new oil fields and increasing demand from developing countries it is believed that enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies will play a key role to meet the energy demand in years to come. Based on the recently-published data, this paper discusses current status of global EOR market and technical development trends. The EOR market includes oil produced through various EOR recovery methods, such as thermal recovery, gas injection, chemical injection. Also, EOR methods are addressed screening criteria by reservoir and fluid characteristics including lithology, depth, thickness, and oil properties such as composition and gravity. Finally, the examples of field applied by various EOR methods are discussed with respect to reservoir characteristics and performance.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.5-9
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• 2013

Electrokinetics technology is proposed for improving the recovery metals ion and oil from clay-sandy soil. In order to restore or extract them from clay-sandy soil, the gas produced by anode chamber is re-injected to the clay-sandy soil(sample). Samples produced in this study were completed to verify the proposed performance for 7 days by gradually increasing the pressure to the final pressure of 30psi($2.11kgf/cm^2$) through the compression process. Before compression, the copper rings were inserted into the sample, allowing us to observe the changes in appearance of copper ring after the end of the experiment. In this study, pressurized module and non-pressurized module were tested, respectively. The condition of test is a continuous process and the voltage gradient is 2V/cm during 24 hours. As a result, the efficiency of pressurized module is better than non-pressurized module.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2013

Researches on the oil recovery enhancement using the nanotechnology has recently been studied in the United States. The previous researches has focused mainly on the flow characteristics of nanoparticles in porous media, and the stability of the nano-emulsion itself. However, the analysis did not deal with the size effects between a nano-emulsion and the pore size which has an important role when nano-emulsion flows in the porous media. In this research, nano-based emulsion was fabricated which is able to be applied for the enhanced oil recovery techniques and its characteristics was analyzed. In addition, in order to identify the characteristics of nano-emulsions flowing through the porous media, the size effect was analysed by filtering test. According to the results, when the emulsion was fabricated, SCA(Silane Coupling Agent) or PVA(Poly Vinyl Alcohol) are added to improve the stability of emulsion. As the ratio of the decane to water increased, the viscosity of emulsion and the droplet size also increased. For the filtering test at the atmospheric conditions, the droplet did not go through the filter; only the separated water from the emulsion was able to be filtered. This phenomenon occurred because the droplet was not able to overcome the capillary pressure. At the filtering test by suction pressure, most of the emulsion was filtered over the filter size of $60{\mu}m$. However, the ratio of filtration was rapidly degraded at less than $45{\mu}m$ filters. This is caused due to deformation and destruction of the droplet by strong shear stress when passing through the pore. The results from the study on the basic characteristic of nano-emulsion and filtering test will be expected to play as the important role for the fabrication of the stable nano-emulsion or the research on the recovery of residual oil in porous media.