R&D Conference examines hydrocarbon sustainability

Water Challenges

The fifth session examined how the industry manages its water needs. "This session provided a better appreciation of the issues regarding water management in the industry, leading to a better focus for the direction of R&D opportunities," said Zornes, who also cochaired this session.

Keynote speaker Paul Verbeek of Shell discussed the potential beneficial uses of produced water. He stated that as fresh water becomes more scarce with global population growth, increasing standards of living in developing countries, and rapid industrialization, the reuse of produced water is becoming more attractive to the oil and gas industry. Verbeek then discussed the positive impact produced water could have in biofuel processing and EOR, both of which require large volumes of water with specific chemistries. He said that there are no large-scale technical solutions as yet on recovering EOR chemicals from produced water, but stressed that Shell has interest in partnering with others on EOR water reuse/recycling technologies.

Total's Frederique Michaud next discussed the water challenges inherent in heavy oil production. "The process of steam-assisted gravity drainage requires only 0.3-0.5 bbl water/bbl of oil produced once you take into account the recycling," she said, "whereas bitumen mining utilizes 2–4 bbl water/bbl of oil recovered." She highlighted the challenges of total dissolved solids such as silica as being an increasing water recycling issue, and called for the development of cleanable/recyclable ceramic membranes. Michaud also predicted that "soon we’ll be talking about 'peak water' as we do 'peak oil' now. The peak may be here and gone before we even know it someday."

Colin Smith of Maxoil Solutions discussed the technical challenges in membrane and reverse osmosis technologies for produced water treatment. He said that desalination is a growing business area with numerous methods available, but that new technologies regarding membrane-filtration techniques are needed. Smith highlighted ceramics and zeolites for filtration, molecular sieves, ceramic crossflow filters, microfiltration membranes, and tubular microfiltration. To treat the common problem of fouling with membrane filters, new vibration technologies have been developed to clean them. Ongoing pilot trials show promise.

Unlocking More Hydrocarbon Sources

"The sixth session carried on from what was a very popular session in the first SPE R&D Conference in 2007," said Chris Buckingham, session cochair and manager of the Fluid Dynamics and Multiphase Flow section for Southwest Research Institute.  "However, topics in this year's conference covered a wider range of topics."

This session's keynote address by Shell's John Barry discussed innovative methods for unlocking hydrocarbons, including smart wells and fields, chemical EOR, low-salinity waterflooding, oil sands in-situ upgrading, carbon capture and sequestration's emerging challenges, oil shale, and Arctic production.  He provided several production enhancement scenarios, including how smart wells and fields can reduce production costs by USD 1–2/bbl and delay water breakthrough for years.  Barry stressed that technology breakthroughs don’t come quickly, citing a gas-to-liquids technology development program that lasted 33 years.

Pedro Pereira-Almao’s presentation focused on in-situ upgrading work at the University of Calgary.  Topics included ultradisperse particles, nanoparticles (including microemulsions), and unlocking the potential of nanocatalysts.  He spoke specifically about Alberta's oil sands and the in-situ catalyst/hydroprocessing techniques that are being developed.  This included the economic incentives due to delayed coking, hydroprocessing, and in-situ processing.

Amos Nur presented a new computational rock physics methodology that is being developed at Ingrain.  This methodology includes high-resolution and fast 3D imaging of pore spaces of rock samples.  These images are used to accurately and quickly compute bulk properties and simulate pore-scale processes.  Nur provided examples of this technique, including images of pore spaces.

Jeff Spath of Schlumberger covered the status and directions of shale gas R&D.  He discussed where gas is stored in gas shales and how production from the fracture network can be optimized.  He reviewed the challenges to be addressed and identified the current industry R&D activities and directions for continued research.

Increasing Productivity Through Technology

The final session highlighted potential advanced-technology solutions that better leverage employee skills, accelerate innovation, and significantly increase worker productivity. Jacob Thomas with Halliburton reviewed the workforce productivity gains afforded by real-time, remote monitoring and operating technologies, including real-time operating centers and virtual collaborations. Schlumberger's Louis-Pierre Guillaume discussed the potential of instant messaging and online chat for quickly locating subject experts and querying knowledge databases through the chat.

IBM's Adrian Chapman provided his perspective on the power of Web 2.0 and virtual worlds as a means to collaborate more effectively. "Chapman's presentation was quite interesting," said ExxonMobil's Richard Felder, who cochaired the session. "He addressed how the changing nature of work will require more collaborative ways of working in the future and, in particular, how virtual social worlds coupled with 3-D Internet capabilities can significantly improve interactive marketing/commerce, collaboration, education/training, and complex system management."

Despite dealing with the challenges of a downturned economy, the R&D Conference was considered a successful endeavor by many. "While our attendance was less than half of what was expected, I regard the conference as a highly successful one that brought together a highly qualified group of individuals with a good grasp of the current state or petroleum research and the industry's long-range needs and challenges," said Zornes.

The third SPE R&D Conference is slated for 2012, and in keeping with the original decision to alternate conference locations between the US and Europe, it will likely be held in the Houston area.

Ted Moon is the Technology Editor of JPT Online. He brings information on emerging technologies, R&D successes, new field applications, updates from SPE papers about recent innovations, and more. If you have a question or suggestion for future article topics, email Ted at teched@spe.org.

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