The U.S. Department of Energy will begin a process Jan. 28 to consider research and development proposals in the third round of its oil recovery demonstration program.
The latest round will seek ways to improve recovery from slope and basin clastic reservoirs.
DOE held a 1992 competition for fluvial dominated deltaic sandstones and a 1993 round for shallow shelf carbonate reservoirs. In 1995 DOE plans to target a fourth reservoir class, strandplain/barrier island reservoirs. After that, it will conduct two competitions a year.
DOE said the latest competition may attract 10 15 projects to its demonstration program. It has 24 projects under way or in negotiations from the first two rounds of competition.
The demonstration program offers matching funds to oil field operators and others to demonstrate improved technologies that can increase production from U.S. oil fields. It concentrates on geologic classes of reservoirs that are most likely to be abandoned in the next few years because of low oil prices and declining production.
The slope and basin elastic reservoir competition includes light and heavy oil fields. Formations containing these reservoirs were created by river borne and near shore debris that washed into the deeper parts of ancient ocean basins, as well as from fine grained sediments that settled onto the ocean floors.
THE TARGET
DOE's oil reservoir data base, part of the Tertiary Oil Recovery Information System (Toris) its Bartlesville, Okla., Project Office maintains, shows there are 206 slope and basin clastic reservoirs in eight states.
DOE said the Toris data base covers 65% of the U.S. oil resource. There may be significantly more slope and basin clastic reservoirs in tile Gulf of Mexico, where Toris has limited data.
The reservoirs in DOE's data base are estimated to have once contained nearly 60 billion bbl of oil, nearly 16 billion bbl of which have been produced. About 1.6 billion bbl remain as proved reserves.
DOE estimates more than 5 billion bbl of additional oil could be produced using advanced technologies. But unless those technologies become more widely deployed throughout the U.S. oil industry, 1.5 billion bbl or more could be lost through premature abandonments by 2000.
Independent producers account for more than 40% of oil production from the slope and basin reservoirs in DOE's information system.
THE PROJECTS
DOE said applicants may propose near term projects that expand the application of conventional, underused technologies able to prolong field life.
Or they may propose mid-term projects that include field demonstrations of advanced but not commercially proven technologies.
DOE is encouraging partnerships among producers, universities, state agencies, service companies, consultants, and others.
After the competition opens Jan. 28, applicants will have about 4 months to prepare proposals 1 month longer than before. Winning projects are to be announced in late summer.
DOE has about $37 million for its share of project costs. Applicants win be required to bear at least 50% of project costs.
DOE plans a Jan. 19 meeting on the competition in the Radisson Plaza Hotel at Manhattan Beach, Calif., to disclose technical, business, and environmental aspects of the program to proposers. A second meeting will be held in late March at New Orleans.
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