A Business Process for Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery Research and Development

ABSTRACT

In response to the drop In oil prices a decade ago. Husky Oil redesigned its EOR research management processes with the goal of increasing investment efficiency and reducing process development time. This paper describes that system. The sudden change in the crude price outlook dictated three key considerations for the new management process.

1. The price change meant that recovery methods under development in the late seventies and early eighties were no longer applicable. A complete swift in target process threshold prices was required.
2. Research had to be driven by the needs and constrains of the business.
3. The need is to match the recovery processes to the reservoirs.
4. Industry multi-company research programs were focused on processes that were not viable in the new price environment Also target reservoirs were not similar to the vast majority of the fields found in the Lloydminster area.

The new R&D management system that resulted from Husky’s redesign has the following key features

1. Business questions are identified first. Then the technical questions that need to be answered to meet the business need are derived. Research is focused on answering these questions.
2. Teams consisting of geologists, operations, reservoir and research engineers are used t0 screen processes and match them to reservoirs.
3. EOR process ideas are generated from a clean slate with the business constraints of the day in mind.

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