Reservoir Engineering and Enhanced Oil Recovery

The industry is facing serious challenges such as greenhouse gas emissions and poor understanding of in-situ recovery mechanisms. This FES project will investigate the fate of injected solvents, i.e. CO2 and lean gas, by conducting experiments using a state-of-the-art laboratory system to characterize and visualize solvent-oil-rocks interactions under reservoir conditions. The focus will be on solvent injection into mature oil reservoirs with the ultimate goal of enhancing oil recovery and energy conservation. After evaluation of the concept at the laboratory scale, the University of Alberta research team will collaborate with the industrial partners to conduct a pilot test. It is expected that the results of this research will pave the way for optimizing in-situ recovery techniques by injecting solvents.