Effect of Well Abandonments on EOR Potential

EOR holds significant potential for producing additional oil from known reservoirs in the U.S. However, the economical application of the tertiary processes required to produce this oil relies on the use of existing wells as points of reservoir access. Abandonment of these wells could substantially reduce the future recovery potential of the huge known remaining oil resource. This paper summarizes the effect of well abandonments on recovery potential by various EOR methods for more than 1,400 major fields that account for 67% of total known original oil in place (OOIP) in the U.S. The study concludes that replacing existing wells (after their abandonment) would significantly increase costs and reduce U.S. EOR reserves.