Reservoir & Production
CO2 EOR
Injection of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas into a reservoir is a remarkable technology that can contribute toward enhanced oil recovery (EOR) as well as solve the environmental problems by the underground storage of CO2.
However, CO2 EOR has limited effect owing to its low fluid density and viscosity compared to oil, because of which the injected CO2 is able to sweep only the areas with high permeability in reservoirs with abundant amounts of unrecovered oil. In addition, the utilization of foam is a well-known approach to overcome this weakness of CO2 EOR and improve oil recovery. Thus, we have been conducting R&D of special technologies to efficiently generate fine and stable foam even under high temperature and high water-salinity conditions that are considerably challenging for foam generation. We are planning a demonstration through our domestic project to verify the effects of the new technology for enhanced recovery of the remaining underground oil and CCS.
Development of Low Penetration Reservoir Formations
Fracturing Technologies
Hydraulic fracturing technologies are essential for developing tight reservoirs, and we have gathered experience in it through the development of oil and gas fields in Japan and overseas. The geometry of the hydraulic fractures propagating through a reservoir must be predicted and monitored to optimize the hydraulic fracture design and maximize the oil and gas production at each well. Thus, we have focused on various technologies to predict the possible stress variations using geomechanics modeling and interpret the fracture geometries based on micro-seismic monitoring. We will utilize these technologies to further optimize the development plans for the current assets.
