Data Analysis and Screening Guidance for Field CO₂ Flooding Projects in the United States

CO2 flooding was proposed as an effective enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique since 1950s. Under carefully designed pressure and temperature, CO2 could dissolve in oil which leads to oil expansion and reduced oil viscosity and therefore higher ultimate oil recovery, and many other mechanisms. In this study, all CO2 miscible flooding field application projects from 1992 to 2014 were collected from the EOR Survey which is published biannually by the Oil & Gas Journal, and some projects were tracked using public technical reports. Based on CO2 flooding EOR mechanisms, parameters affecting CO2 flooding were classified into reservoir properties, fluid properties, and operational properties, and significant parameters such as minimum miscible pressure (MMP) and formation net thickness that are not included in EOR Survey were collected from project reports. Among all CO2 flooding projects, 93% are located in the United States. The promising projects from the United States were used to establish a set of general screening guidelines for evaluating the technical feasibility of CO2 flooding for a given reservoir condition. Screening criteria for CO2 miscible flooding were updated after cleansing the data quality problems