Oil Recovery          

Home Up Feedback Contents Search

 

 

 

 

 

With reference to the Oil tertiary recovery - there are about three keys to economic third level oil recovery. In the primary recovery roughly 25-29 % of the down well oil usually is recovered. In a secondary phase another 20% or so is recovered. That leaves roughly half the oil down well at  the end of present economic recovery.  The tertiary recovery means so far have been of dubious economic worth in that the recovery is frequently worth less than the amortized investment and operating cost. Also tertiary recovery has historically been of the order of an additional 10-12% of the total. It simply put is not worth the effort.  Our process promises virtual total recovery, in excess of 95%, but does consume part of the oil (about 6% of what is recovered or 3% of total initial reserves) for operating energy requirements  The promised yield appears from the best conservative calculations to be such that the plant will pay for itself in under 2 years from start up, (with roughly 30 months construction prior to start up) and yield a 100% return in years 2 to 4,  The operating life on a site is about 6 years, but after the oil recovery is complete, there is still residual value to the system, and  overall 200% profit in 4 to 6 years with another 50% return in years 6 to 8 at the lower range of assumptions. More optimistic cost estimates show  pay off in 1.5 years and a 100% profit in three years after start up and 450% over site life.

We have a modular plant which integrates  several well proven technologies into a new system. This system produces a well forcing injection material which can recover almost all  the oil left from primary and secondary recovery. Thus the world reserves of oil are virtually doubled in a stroke. This comes from known sites, which are now written off as depleted, but with the disadvantage that some sites require new wells to replace the plugged ones from abandonment of the site.

For every ton of material down well past experimental data states we can expect slightly over one ton of crude recovery from a good field, and slightly less from a poor field (i.e. one whose strata did or did not lend itself to this method). This is well proven technology; BUT they did not use our full technique. There also are fringe benefits which have NOT been included in profits at all, like this process uses the "waste heat" from the process to good use;, i.e. we would normally build cooling towers or have cooing water to reject the heat, which is silly since we can use it to enhance production. The hot material lowers the viscosity of the crude, enhancing flow, and in addition increases the activity and the kinetics of the process, thus releasing the crude from the rock markedly more rapidly.  Real data on the enhancement is not available, but my best calculations right now suggest that we would almost DOUBLE (!) the flow from compared to non-use This is a bonus since we are sticking with the conservative data which is proven just to be ultra conservative.

The above ground facility would have a working life of from 6 to 10 years normally. This depends upon the amount of crude in the field, and rate of release.  After that is should be designed to move on to another site, the equipment could be "scrapped out" with profit after that time, but that is also silly, since the machinery has a working life with proper maintenance of about 30 years. We generate considerable electrical and mechanical power in a combustion process. The mechanical power is used in part (about 40%) to "pump" for down well injection, but we always will have excess power to sell. The selling of electrical power wholesale is not lucrative, - the price is so low that my feeling is that we would be better served to create a chemical process industry (very staid and proper - well proven such as the Born- Habber or Habber process) to create NH3 or such on site since we also have raw material coming up the well very cheaply- i.e. better to use our power at wholesale than pay retail and better to enhance the value of light hydrocarbons recovered than to pay heavily to recover otherwise or just waste them. We can get Hydrogen to react to NH3   virtually free in our case.

So what we have is an INTEGRATED system that combines several elements all of which are "OLD TECHNOLOGY" into a new total package. The invention so to speak is the complex integration of these older (some 70 years old!) processes. In fact I can not for the life of me see why someone has not done it before it is so obvious once you have it all in hand.

COST- First phase we need to get some well respected Engineering firm form the Chemical process Industry to look at this and certify we are correct, i.e. a due diligence study -- PROBLEM how to do that without their stealing it from us!  My best estimate is about $250,000 US but we also can very strongly benefit is we get them to go in with us to improve the process - i.e. I alone can not optimize this complex system, and they can- they have the manpower and tools to greatly enhance it, problem that drives cost up to probably $350,000, but in my opinion well worth it, also carrot - that also makes them a leader to design the actual plant i.e. success will be cash in their pockets also. There is enough potential that everyone can have success, and no point in being chincy- in fact quite the opposite, but just do not let someone rob us - quite possible... honesty and reliability - good reputation from past behavior is what we need most of all.

(NOTE there are too many fly by night - get rich quick - operations in the oil industry - we must avoid this appearance at ALL costs. I think we have a legitimate process, worth development, and it will take work, but the pay off is also good, we get our hands on that 50- 60% of the oil down well that is not now recovered - typically past use was  27% (25-32) from primary, with another 12 to 18 % from secondary and then walk off and cap the well- which is wasteful. This method increases the world oil reserves by roughly 100 % doubling available crude world wide in a stroke. It benefits more the worked out fields, but applies to present production as well.

Second phase build a small scale demo plant only about 10 wells - ca $10-$20 Million for initial capitalization, it is a pay off in 2-3 years, show 100% profit in years 2 to 4 or 3 to 5 and another 100% return in the next 2 years, move after 6 -7 years to new site, This is for a very small field, that shows about 33% per year profit for those 6 years, (poor because the scale is too small- but profitable still even at this small scale!). Total $40M (based on $20M investment) including 6 yrs operating costs, income total ca $60 M, thus total profit about $40 M- which is only about 25% per yr discounted based on the 6 year term... (33% if you do not take the time value of money into account which sounds better but again I prefer to be conservative and discount the later profits to initial time).

Third phase is to build a $500 Million plant suitable for a fairly typical spent oil field. That has MUCH better returns, i.e. pay out in 2.4 years and probably 40% per year for a 7 to 8 year full production life with some later secondary profits as we close down the operation, i.e. there is a spin down process that continues for about a total of 10 years (4 past prime production at 6 yrs) that is just less profitable - i.e cash cow- time for the prime investors to sell off interest and go on to new greener pastures i.e. fresh fields.

 

  

 

 

Home ] Up ] Feedback ] Contents ] Search ]

Send mail to Jhlawr@wmconnect.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2002 The Nexial Institute