• 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 Institute of Gas
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.59-71
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• 2023

Carbon capture, and storage (CCS) is important for the reduction of greenhouse gases and achieving carbon neutrality. CCS focuses on storing captured CO₂ permanently in underground reservoirs. CO₂-enhanced oil recovery (CO₂-EOR) is one form of CCS, where CO₂ is injected into the underground to enhance oil recovery. CO₂-EOR not only aids in the extraction of residual oil but also contributes to carbon neutrality by storing CO₂ underground continuously. CO₂-EOR can be classified into miscible and immiscible methods, with the CO₂-water alternating gas (CO₂-WAG) technique being a representative approach within the miscible method. In CO₂-WAG, water and CO₂ are alternately injected into the reservoir, enabling oil production and CO₂ storage. The WAG method allows for controlling the breakthrough of injection fluids, providing advantages in oil recovery. It also induces hysteresis in relative permeability during the injection and production process, expanding the amount of trapped CO₂. In this study, the effects of enhancing oil recovery and storing CO₂ underground during CO₂-EOR were presented. Additionally, cases of CO₂-EOR application in relation to CCS were introduced.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2013

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology coupled with underground carbon dioxide sequestration is introduced. $CO_2$ can be injected into an oil reservoir in order to enhance oil production rate and $CO_2$ EOR can be turned into CCS in a long term sense. Coupling $CO_2$ EOR with CCS may secure a large scale and consistent $CO_2$ source for EOR, and the $CO_2$ EOR can bring an additional economic benefit for CCS, since the benefit from enhanced oil production by $CO_2$ EOR will compensate costs for CCS implementation. In this paper, we introduced the characteristics of $CO_2$ EOR technology and its market prospect, and reviewed the Weyburn $CO_2$ EOR project which is the first large-scale $CO_2$ EOR case utilizing an anthropogenic $CO_2$ source. We also introduced geotechnical elements for a successful and economical implementation of $CO_2$ EOR with CCS and they were a miscroseismic monitoring during and after injection of $CO_2$, and determination of minimum miscible pressure (MMP) and maximum injection pressure (MIP) of $CO_2$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Mineral and Energy Resources Engineers
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.660-669
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• 2018

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a method used to improve the recovery factor of remaining hydrocarbon in reservoir. Polymer and surfactant EOR techniques have limitations depending on reservoir or production conditions (temperature, salinity, etc.) because the polymer and surfactant are highly affected by the reservoir conditions. In this study, analysis of the current improvements to chemical substances and application technologies was performed based on recent research data. Conventional polymer is readily degraded by the conditions of high temperature and high salinity. Therefore, new polymers and injection techniques have been developed to remediate such problems. In addition, surfactant applicable to shale and carbonate reservoirs is developed as petroleum recovery expands to unconventional reservoirs. However, these chemical substances are not widely used in the current oil fields due to high costs. Therefore, further studies must be conducted to reduce the cost and thus increase the effectiveness of EOR techniques.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.606-611
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• 2016

Carbon dioxide injection is a widely known method of enhanced oil recovery (EOR). It is critical for the $CO_2$ EOR that the injected $CO_2$ to reach a condition fully miscible with oil. To reach the miscible point, a certain level of pressure is required, which is known as minimum miscibility pressure (MMP). In this study, a MMP prediction method using a process simulator is proposed. To validate the results of the simulation, those are compared to a slim tube experiment and several empirical correlations of previous literatures. Aspen HYSYS is utilized as the process simulator to create a model of $CO_2$/crude oil encounter. The results of the study show that the process simulator model is capable of predicting MMP and comparable to other published methods.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.160-164
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• 2009

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2016

$CO_2$-EOR (Carbon Dioxide-Enhanced Oil Recovery), one of the enhanced oil recovery methods, helps to not only enhance the production of oil, but also store carbon dioxide in underground. However, if micro fractures occur when during the injection of $CO_2$, it is difficult to make permanent storage of $CO_2$ in reservoir and can cause contamination of groundwater and soil. Therefore, in this study, we performed microseismic monitoring to investigate the occurrence of fractures during the $CO_2$ injection at the Meruap oil reservoir, Indonesia. To pick the first arrivals of microseismic events, Improved MER (Modified Energy Ratio) method was used. After picking the first arrivals, hodogram analysis was carried out by using the data recorded at three component geophones to calculate the back azimuth of events. Finally, locations of microseismic events were decided by using the results of first arrival picking and hodogram analysis. Estimated locations showed that all microseismic events were occurred at surface and any fracture did not occur around the reservoir. Moreover, by analyzing noise characteristic, we confirmed that almost of picked first arrivals were due to the repetitive mechanical noise.

• Geosystem Engineering
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.335-343
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• 2018

Alkali-surfactant polymer flooding has become an important technique to improve oil recovery following the development of oil fields while the function of emulsification in enhanced oil recovery is rarely considered in the existing mathematical model for numerical simulation. In this paper, the mechanism of improving the recovery of the emulsification was analyzed in ASP flooding, and a relatively perfect mathematical model with deep filtration-theory was established, in which oil-water volume equation, saturation equation, viscosity equation, and permeability reduction equation are included. The new model is used to simulate the actual block of an oil field; the simulated results of the new model and an old model without considering the emulsification are compared with the actual well history. It is found that new model which is easy to be realized in numerical simulation has a high precision fitting, and the effect of adding oil and decreasing water is obvious. The sensitivity of emulsification was analyzed, and the results show that the water reducing funnel becomes wider and the rate of water cut decreases rapidly with the increase of emulsifying capacity, and then the rate of recovery slows down. The effect of increasing oil and decreasing water is better, and the degree of recovery increases. The emulsification of the ASP flooding is maintained at a moderate level, which corresponds to ${\Phi}=0.2$ in the new model, and the emulsification is applied to realize the general mathematical quantitative description, so as to better guide the oilfield development.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.35-45
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• 2009

Reservoir Characterization (RC) using 3-D seismic attributes analysis can provide properties of the oil sand reservoirs, beyond seismic resolution. For example, distributions and temporal bed thicknesses of reservoirs could be characterized by Spectral Decomposition (SD) and additional seismic attributes such as wavelet classification. To extract physical properties of the reservoirs, we applied 3-D seismic attributes analysis to the oil sand reservoirs in McMurray formation, in BlackGold Oilsands Lease, Alberta Canada. Because of high viscosity of the bitumen, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology will be necessarily applied to produce the bitumen in a steam chamber generated by Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). To optimize the application of SAGD, it is critical to identify the distributions and thicknesses of the channel sand reservoirs and shale barriers in the promising areas. By 3-D seismic attributes analysis, we could understand the expected paleo-channel and characteristics of the reservoirs. However, further seismic analysis (e.g., elastic impedance inversion and AVO inversion) as well as geological interpretations are still required to improve the resolution and quality of RC.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.390-396
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• 2013

Biosurfactants have versatile properties and potential industrial applications. A new producer, B. subtilis TU2, was isolated from the underground oil-extraction wastewater of Shengli Oilfield, China. Preliminary flask culture showed that the titer of biosurfactant obtained from the broth of TU2 was ~1.5 g/l at 48 h (718 mg/l after purification), with a reduced surface tension of 32.5 mN/m. The critical micelle concentration was measured as 50 mg/l and the surface tension maintained stability in solution with 50 g/l NaCl and 16 g/l $CaCl_2$ after 5 days of incubation at $70^{\circ}C$. FT-IR spectra exhibited the structure information of both glycolipid and lipopeptide. MALDI-TOF-MS analyses confirmed that the biosurfactant produced by B. subtilis TU2 was a blend of glycolipid and lipopeptide, including rhamnolipid, surfactin, and fengycin. The blended biosurfactant showed 86% of oil-washing efficiency and fine emulsification activity on crude oil, suggesting its potential application in enhanced oil recovery.