Success Stories

A surfactant polymer field test in a carbonate reservoir has been implemented in Indonesia. The pilot has exceeded its objectives and a large scale commercial deployment is currently under study.

Foam was selected by the operator to improve the performances of a WAG process. A formulation generating a stable foam with good rheological properties and stability in reservoir conditions was designed (Chabert, et al., 2013). The next step in the process should be a pilot test.

IFP (a member of the EOR Alliance) proposed the first polymer flood in a heavy oil reservoir in 1995 in the Pelican Lake field. This thin (5 m average) giant reservoir (6.4 billion barrels OOIP) contains high viscosity oil (over 1,000 cp) and has mostly been produced through primary depletion using horizontal wells. The first pilot failed because of operational issues but a second pilot in 2005 proved highly successful (Delamaide, Zaitoun, Renard, & Tabary, 2013), with the production in the central producer going from less than 10 bopd to over 360 bopd. After almost 8 years of continuous injection the central well in the pilot is still producing over 150 bopd with a water-cut of less than 70%. Following that success the polymer flood has been extended to most of the field, making Pelican Lake the second largest polymer flood in the world after Daqing.