Net-zero emission (NZE) production​

Hydrocarbon (HC) production is energy intensive and emits large amounts of CO2. There is an urgent need to develop concepts and implement new energy-efficient solutions to produce HC resources at the lowest possible emissions.

Published 27. Jan. 2022. Updated on 12. Jan. 2023

HC production is energy intensive and emits large amounts of CO2. There is an urgent need to develop concepts and implement new energy-efficient solutions to produce hydrocarbons (HC) resources at the lowest possible emissions. Specific aims of WP3 are:

Develop IOR concepts for improved, accelerated, profitable and sustainable HC production at low environmental footprint, to reach 50% emission reduction by 2030 and NZE by 2050.
Propose new sustainable field development strategies integrated with renewable energy sources offered by the upcoming green offshore industries.

Three projects have been defined:

3.1 Tight reservoir solutions (PhD)

Substantial hydrocarbon reserves are located in tight reservoirs on the Norwegian Continen-tal Shelf (NCS). These reservoirs are challenging to produce primarily due to pore heteroge-neity, low permeability, and deep locations. Stimulation of the near well region can increase the productivity in such reservoirs. Several stimulation methods can be employed but their suitability to NCS need to be evaluated. Tight reservoirs require an optimal drainage strat-egy. Gas/Waterflooding can be used for pressure maintenance, and spontaneous imbibition of water into the oil-containing matrix can be important for successful oil mobilization and recovery optimization. Can optimized injection water also be used for improved stimulation?

3.2 CO2 utilization (PhD)

CO₂ storage in subsurface reservoirs is a solution for reducing anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. This potential will give rise to combined CO₂ EOR and CO₂ storage efforts. However, the high mobility of CO₂, unstable displacement front and reservoir heterogeneity strongly limits the CO₂ displacement storage potential due to poor reservoir sweep efficiency. The displacement efficiency can be improved by the application of CO₂ foam or carbonated water (CW).

3.3 Improved tracing

The purpose of this project is to develop tracers to increase the knowledge about the flooded volume of the reservoir and thereby generating data to maximise the value creation on the NCS. Tracers and tracer methods for investigation and evaluation of important parameters as remaining oil saturation, relative permeability and wettability will be the focus for the devel-opment. The goal is to have a tracer method that can determine several of the parameters in-situ from the same tracer test by co-injection of tracers with different properties in the near well region. The main focus in 2022-2023 will be on tracers for wettability.