Enhanced Oil Recovery - Potential

While CO2 EOR projects have demonstrated great success over the past four decades, significant potential remains for additional growth in oil production in the years to come. While current projects have reported incremental oil production of between 15% and 25% of original oil in place (OOIP), newer technologies that bolster the efficiency of CO2 gas injection may bring that number up to as high as 60% of OOIP. CO2 EOR incremental oil production is currently responsible for approximately 4% of total U.S. oil production. However, that number may increase significantly in the years to come, which would dramatically change the direction of the long-term decline in U.S. oil production.

The volume of “stranded” oil, or remaining oil in place (ROIP) in the United States, is currently estimated to be approximately 400 billion barrels of oil. This number is incredibly large, especially when it is realized that the total cumulative production volume of oil in the U.S. in the entire history of the oil industry is 175 billion barrels, and that the country’s current proved oil reserves are approximately 30 billion barrels.

In the Rocky Mountain area, where Enhanced Energy is focusing its efforts, it is estimated that there are approximately 22.6 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil utilizing EOR technologies, and it is estimated that almost 4 billion barrels of that total is recoverable now utilizing current CO2 EOR technologies.

(return)