BP has added to its portfolio of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies with a robotic coreflooding system.
"It will give us ten times increase in capacity to test out new EOR techniques on core samples," Bob Dudley, BP group chief executive, told conference attendees during the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference plenary session.
According to BP, the Core Flood Robot enables hundreds of coreflood tests to be performed each year, rather than dozens as in the past. The company had a large-scale in-house coreflooding laboratory in the UK to test and evaluate reservoir samples at high pressure and temperature reservoir conditions. The new robotic coreflood system can operate non-stop.
The supermajor deployed another EOR technology - LoSal EOR - in early September 2012, at the giant Clair Ridge project off West of Shetland, becoming the first sanctioned large-scale offshore enhanced oil recovery (EOR) scheme using reduced salinity water injection. Usually deployed on mature fields, the technology will be used from day one of operations when Clair Ridge comes online in late 2016. BP expects more than 40 million additional bbl to be recovered over the field’s design life.
LoSal EOR won BP a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Offshore Technology Conference in May 2014.
Rendering of robotic coreflooding system from BP.
Read more:
BP considers new Clair Ridge facilities